Williamsburg County, South Carolina - Chapter 20: Economic and Social Life, 1783-1830, 1923

Chapter 20: Economic and Social Life, 1783-1830

The original settlers of Williamsburg Township did all the pioneer work with their own hands. The first Afri¬ can slave in the Township was a negro "fellow" named Dick, imported by Roger Gordon in 1736. From that time the men of the Township began to buy a few slaves. During the Revolution, there were more negro slaves than whites in the Township. No herdsman or planter owned very many, yet every one owned a few. A great many of these slaves escaped or were taken away by the British during the War, yet a large majority remained loyal to their masters and refused to leave their planta¬ tions.

Many of the French Huguenots on the Santee and the English and Scotch on Black Mingo had a considerable number of negro slaves. These Africans, at this time, were useful only for the cultivation of the soil ; and until the production of cotton and tobacco assumed consider¬ able proportions, emancipation was seriously considered and contemplated. There was an unwritten as well as a written law in the State that slaves should not be taught mechanic trades. This was later annulled by com¬ mon consent.

In 1790, Theodore Gourdin was the largest slave owner in Williamsburg. He had one hundred fifty slaves of his own, and thirteen belonging to the estate of John James. Stephen Ford owned ninety-eight; Moses Mur¬ phy, eighty-seven; John Baxter, eightv-three; Anthony White, seventy-three; William Goddard, seventy; Ben¬ jamin Porter, sixty-seven; Allen McKniglit, fifty-eight; Susannah McCrea, fifty-two; Hugh Montgomery, fifty-two. None of these, except Mrs. McCrea and Mr. Montgomery, lived within the Township; and their plantations were

In 1790, there were eighty men in Williamsburg who owned more than twenty slaves. These men rapidly in¬ creased the number of their slaves; and most of them, within the next thirty years, became wealthy planters.

James Snow did not own any slaves, but he had seventyseven free persons on his plantation. The term "free persons" then included those bound for a term of years to service. Mr. Snow was a man of considerable wealth. He sold his slaves and experimented with indentured labor. In so doing, he lost much of his property and was not regarded with favor by the community.

Theodore Gourdin was probably the wealthiest man in Williamsburg prior to 1830. It is said that at one time he could walk from Lower Saint Mark's Church on the Clarendon-Williamsburg line to the town clock in George¬ town, a distance of about seventy-five miles, without stepping off his own land. Mr. Gourdin was a useful, public spirited citizen. He served the district and the State in many capacities. He was a man of culture and owned a large library.

Colonel John Baxter was one of the heroes of the War of the Revolution. He was a man of liberal learning and a successful planter. He owned land all over Williams¬ burg and Georgetown Districts.

Colonel Anthony White lived in the Indiantown sec¬ tion. He was an enthusiastic churchman as well as a successful planter. He was Colonel of the Williamsburg- Georgetown regiment of militia and sheriff of the dis¬ trict in 1798.

William Goddard lived in the northeastern section of the County. His name died out in this County nearly a century ago, but he left a large number of descendants among the Britton, Nesmith, and other clans in the County.

Allen Me Knight lived near Indiantown. His clan name still lives in Williamsburg and he has a number of de* scendants of other names who are now prominent.

Susannah McCrea was the widow of Alexander Mc- Crea. Her husband's estate had been divided at this time and her several sons and daughters had already received their share of the slaves. Her son, Thomas McCrea, Jr., soldier in the Revolution under Marion, became one of the largest landowners and planters in the district. When one begins to abstract titles to land in Williams¬ burg County, he will probably think that Thomas Mc¬ Crea, Jr., must have inherited an enormous quantity of land and purchased all that was offered for sale in his day.

Benjamin Porter lived on Black River, south of the Black Mingo. Hugh Montgomery's plantation was a part of that now owned by the heirs of W. J. B. Cooper.

In 1800, the Williamsburg District was almost entirely an agricultural and a cattle raising section. The people had just begun to cultivate cotton and tobacco in con* siderable quantities. But few slaves had been required for the production of indigo and for the herding of cattle. They were necessary to cultivate cotton and tobacco. From the beginning of the production of these two commodities on a large scale, the value of slaves in Williamsburg increased rapidly and the planters began to import as many as they could purchase.

There were several tobacco warehouses in the State where this product was inspected. Williamsburg sold most of its tobacco in Charleston and in Georgetown. The planter in Williamsburg packed about twelve hundred pounds in a strong hogshead, through which hogshead he ran an axle, placing two wheels and a pair of shafts. Between these shafts he hitched a mule, and this hogs¬ head was rolled to Charleston over Murray's Ferry or to Georgetown over Brown's Ferry. This tobacco was a heavy variety, somewhat resembling burley, produced at the present time in Kentucky. It was cured in the sun. It averaged about seven cents per pound. Sometimes, however, the price was much greater. In 1823, it sold for forty cents per pound.

Nearly all of the planters in Williamsburg purchased their supplies from Georgetown during this period. Some of them, however, did their business in Charleston. It was their custom to send their cotton and tobacco to factors in these two cities and draw drafts on these factors for whatever money they needed, and to give orders to merchants for what they desired. Settlements were made with these factors and merchants once a year. If the planter did not feel disposed to make a settlement once a year, his factor and his merchants allowed him to carry over his account until the following year. At this time, nobody in Williamsburg even considered paying accounts oftener than annually, and this custom was almost binding for a century. It resulted in serious con¬ sequences to the commercial interest of Williamsburg and its hang-over influence, even unto this day, is a disturb¬ ing factor.

In Kingstree, there were few establishments called stores. Patrick Cormick, William Bracey, Samuel Fluitt, and Thomas Rodgers owned these places. These mer¬ chants carried lines of hunter's supplies, which consisted largely of rifles, powder, shot, and knives. All of them had large stocks of whiskey. In fact, this whiskey was their principal excuse for being. Kingstree was hardly a village at that time. Nearly every plantation in the district had about its mansion house more buildings than in 1810 could be found within the territory now making up the corporate limits of Kingstree. In 1810, Kingstree was made a postoffice. Very few pieces of mail came through the office for many years. One of the first of these was a letter from William Gordon Flagler, who was attending school in Concord, N. C., to his parents, Captain William and Mrs. Margaret Gregg Flagler. This letter is now in the possession of the grandson of this student, Alonzo W. Flagler, a venerable citizen of Wil¬ liamsburg.

There are now three buildings standing in Kingstree that were erected prior to 1830, the Court House, the Nelson house, and a part of the Harper home. In 1820, Joseph Scott and William Reed established a sawmill on "The Branch" in the northeastern part of the present limits of the town of Kingstree. This was the first saw¬ mill established in Williamsburg. Up to that time all lumber had been made by whip saw, worked by man power. This sawmill furnished most of the lumber from which the reunited Congregation of Williamsburg built its meeting house in 1828. Some, however, came from the Bethel Meeting House, which was torn down when the congregation "turned again home."

Later, Joseph Scott established a steam sawmill on his wife's plantation on Finley Bay, where was used the first steam engine brought into Williamsburg District. The whistle was a most important part on the steam en¬ gines of that day. It is said that for years when Joseph Scott's whistle bleAv on Finley Bay, all Williamsburg, man and beast, stood at attention. Planters for miles around abandoned their noon day horns and gongs, for when this steam whistle sounded, it was twelve o'clock in all the land.

Histoky Of Williamsbukg

tion in a rich and prosperous section and an excellent water way to the sea. Janies Fowler, a rich merchant in Charleston and a rice planter on Black Mingo, estab* lished a trading post at Willtown in 1750. He exchanged tape and buttons and rum and molasses for the cow hides, deer skins, and tobacco the people of Williamsburg brought. About that same time, Dr. John Augustus Fincke settled at Willtown and began the practice of "physic." He established an inn and was as celebrated as "Mine Host" as a healer of diseases. He practised medicine for everybody within a radius of thirty miles of Willtown. Men came from a greater range than this to refresh themselves at his "Barr and Board." From Dr. Fincke's old account books and the inventory made of his estate after his death in 1766, one may know the names of nearly every man in that country, - when he elected to "celebrate" a week, and when his babies came.

Willtown reached its zenith about 1800, even though a commercial traveller from Europe then described it as "a miserable hamlet with about thirty houses and eight stores." Among the merchants at Willtown at that time were: James Zuill, Thomas McConnell, John Ma¬ son, Hugh Paisley, John King, and Captain John Brockinton. These merchants had large storehouses, and lines of sloops, flat boats, and pettiaguas running to George¬ town, from which place their own schooners carried the country produce they had collected at Willtown to Europe and brought back manufactured supplies. One might purchase from these merchants at Willtown almost any article he could find even in metropolitan markets.

The first postoffice established in Williamsburg Dis¬ trict was at Willtown. Willtown lay on the post route which Benjamin Franklin established from Savannah, Ga., to Wicasset, Maine. Since Willtown was on this post route from North to South, was a stopping place for travellers in those days, and since there were many wealthy cultured people living in the community, it be¬ came one of the best known points in South Carolina. Patrick Dollard had an inn there. He was a witty Irish¬ man and a genial host. Travellers anticipated their re¬ ception and treatment at his inn. He told them wonder¬ ful tales and fed them on well-prepared fish and game, for which this community is famous. In 1785, Bishop Asbury stopped at this old inn on his first visit to South Carolina, and he recorded in his diary that he was there "well used." Aaron Burr frequently halted there for refreshment and rest while he was visiting his daughter, Theodosia, who married Governor Alston of South Caro¬ lina and whose unknown fate is the subject of some of the most pathetic tales told.

In 1819, the rivalry existing between Thomas McCon¬ nell and John Dozier had reached such proportions that it was the subject of action on the part of the Legislature in that the public roads leading into Willtown were dis¬ continued and the bridge over Black Mingo was moved some miles below Willtown to Shepherd's Ferry. This action killed Willtown. From that time onward, these storehouses were one by one abandoned and were burned or fell into decay. Cleland Belin, however, began a mer¬ cantile business there about this time and was a great merchant for half a century.

A postoffice was established at Indiantown in 1818. It was kept by George McCutchen on the Kingstree road about three miles from the church. This mail route ex¬ tended from Sumter to China Grove where it met the stage line from Cheraw to Georgetown. Indiantown at this time began to support a school. Levy Durant of Georgetown taught in the church for several years and until the Indiantown Academy was built. There were many men in Indiantown who owned a considerable amount of property. James McFaddin was banker for

Puritanism was introduced into Williamsburg by Dr. James W. Stephenson, who was pastor of the Bethel Presbyterian Church at Kingstree and of the Indiantown Presbyterian Church from 1790 until 1808. He had been impressed somewhere before coming to Williamsburg with the principles of Arminianism. He, doubtless, believed that he preached Calvinism. His words may have been Calvinistic but his thoughts and his personality empha¬ sized the responsibility of the individual. He began Christianizing negroes. Calvinism never thought of ne¬ groes as of the elect, but of them as "being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation, to the praise of His glorious justice." Calvinistic ministers had preached in Williamsburg for three score years before Dr. Stephen¬ son came, and not one of them had said a word about the saving of the souls of slaves.

These Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of 1730 were about as far removed from Puritanism as were the Roman Catholics. The fact is, the average Scotch-Irish Presby¬ terian who came to Williamsburg, while he talked a great deal about his religion and had absolute faith in his church, yet he was restrained in his daily conduct by his religion and by his church about as little as any man who ever lived in the world. He said and did very nearly what he wished. It is true that the Session of Elders of his church would sometimes call him before it, making him confess his sins and fall down on his knees before the congregation and receive reproof for his irre¬ ligious conduct before receiving communion, but this was so common that offenders did not consider it too seriously. One usually offended again whenever it suited his will.

When Dr. Stephenson came to Kingstree in 1790, he found people here and at Indiantown much given to wordly amusements, frivolity and unpuritanlike conduct in general. They loved horse racing and frequently held races. Probably the largest crowds of people Dr. Stephen¬ son saw in Kingstree the first ten years he lived there were gathered about the old race course. Sometimes, men of Kingstree drank more whiskey than was good for them and every man kept a barrel of whiskey in his home. Nobody then thought of apologizing for offering a caller a drink of good whiskey, and most frequently the caller took two drinks. Dr. Stephenson found that danc¬ ing parties were frequent and sometimes grand balls were held in the community. The most saintly men and women out of his flock even attended these dancing frolics and sometimes he saw one of his elders, more than four score years of age, indulging in the pastime.

In short, Dr. Stephenson found a band of rollicking cavaliers in these parts and his greatest sorrow lay in the fact that Dr. James Malcolmson, minister of the faction of the congregation controlling the old Williams¬ burg Church, rather encouraged these wordly amuse¬ ments. Furthermore, Dr. Malcolmson actually scorned the camp meeting Dr. Stephenson engineered at the Sandhills. Dr. Malcolmson even was chairman of a board that conducted a lottery for the building of the Wil¬ liamsburg Academy. The slave owners in Dr. Malcolmson's congregation allowed their negro slaves to work on Sundays land which their masters had given them for producing crops. Dr. Stephenson's congregation had just seceded from Dr. Malcomson's congregation and had seen the new Light. Dr. Stephenson preached about all these things which Dr. Malcolmson's congregation did and when Dr. Stephenson left for Tennessee with his congre¬ gation in 1808, he took with him most of the people in Williamsburg whom he had succeeded in making Puri¬ tans. Dr. Stephenson, however, sowed the seeds of Puri¬ tanism and helped lay the foundation for Arminianism in this district.

By 1800, Williamsburg bad recuperated from its losses in the Revolutionary War and began an era of prosperity which continued until the Confederate War. While some of the paragraphs in sermons preached by Dr. Stephenson indicated that the people of Williams¬ burg lived riotous lives, the fact is, they were conser¬ vative in all things. While they enjoyed horse racing, dancing, and some of them even an occasional drink of good whiskey, the vast majority of the people did only those things which were conducive to strength and to progression. There were many lovers of blooded horses in this district. Major John James had introduced some of the best strains of Arabian blood many years prior to the Revolution and there were some excellent horses on the plantations at this time. John Keels, on Mount Hope Swamp, had some very fine horses. He kept a race track on his own plantation. Samuel Tisdale in the Cedar Swamp section owned a race track. Captain John James had one. James Burgess, of the Pudding Swamp section, sometimes entertained his friends on his planta¬ tion race track.

At one of the dances held in Kingstree in 1805, John and Samuel McGill of Williamsburg, who had been working as apprentice carpenters under Colonel David Gor¬ don in Sumter for about seven vears, introduced short hair for men in Williamsburg. Up to this time, all men had worn queues. When these two young men entered the ball room, their short hair created a sensation. The wearing of queues by the men of Williamsburg up to this time indicates a distinct English influence in the dis¬ trict. Until this day, stories are told of the dances that were held at the homes of Samuel McGill and of Colonel William Cooper of Indiantown, of Joseph Scott and Samuel Fluitt at Kingstree, and of Major James Camp¬ bell and Francis Lesesne of Campbell Swamp.

In 1830, property was probably more equally distri¬ buted in Williamsburg than in any other district in South Carolina. There were practically no poor whites here. Everyone, except overseers, owned a plantation, and these plantations were miniature empires. A sufficient number of the sons of overseers to supply the demand remained. The surplus went West. Some of this surplus became the bitterest element of the abolition party in Kansas and Nebraska of later years, "Free schools/' designed for people too poor to have their children taught to read and write, were authorized in South Carolina in 1811. There were none of these schools in Williamsburg.

Lands were worth from $2.00 to $3.00 an acre; slaves from $500.00 for an ordinary farm hand to $3,000.00 for a skilled blacksmith, carpenter, or patroon. Black River was navigable for flatboats carrying a hundred bales of cotton for some miles above Kingstree. Black Mingo was navigable up to the site of the old Indian village on Indiantown Swamp. There were three times as many slaves as whites in the district.

Up to this time, when a man died he usually willed all of his land to his eldest son and provided for his other children out of his personal property. Many of the younger sons took their property and migrated into other states. A number of these younger sons founded families in Western South Carolina, and in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Tennessee.