USA > South Carolina > A Contribution to the History of the Huguenots of South Carolina: Consisting of Pamphlets > Part 2
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After his father's death Mr. Gaillard wrote a letter to my father, to the effect that his future services should be rendered for his country's suc- cess, and that if he could adopt means to have him introduced to Marion and his brigade, he would hold himself ready for any arrangement he could make, provided it involved no mortifying or humiliating feelings. An interview was forthwith had with General Marion, the subject opened, and the letter placed in his hands.
The General expressed heartfelt satisfaction at the announcement. He passed very warm en- comiums upon Peter Gaillard's conduct at the battle of Black Mingo, stating that owing to cir-
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cumstances the command devolved upon Peter Gaillard, who had gallantly sustained himself, and that if he had met with support from his brother officers the day would have been lost; Marion's force was the weakest, and he had hoped for a sur- prise, which he failed to effect. The horses' feet on the bridge a mile off apprised the sentinel of his approach, and allowed time for the enemy to prepare for the battle. Gen. Marion instructed my father to return his congratulations, and to say that at any hour fixed upon he would advance with his staff in front of his brigade, meet Mr. Gaillard as a friend, and escort him into camp. Policy dictated this, because Peter Gaillard had in the camp many bitter foes. The day after being fixed upon, my father, who was deputy brigade- major under Major K. Simons, left the camp, and returned with, his friend at the point designated. As soon as he was in sight, Marion advanced with his staff, met and cordially greeted him, as did each of his family. The manner and the precau- tions taken thoroughly quashed every symptom of discontent. Peter Gaillard solicited and received posts of peril and honor in quick succession. When Col. Cotes fired Biggin Church and the large amount of stores contained in it, and at- tempted to reach Charleston by Bonneau's Ferry, Peter Gaillard was given a command to check him at Watboo and at Huger's bridges and at Bon-
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neau's Ferry ; this duty was gallantly performed, and the advance of the enemy stopped at " Brabant," the plantation of Bishop Smith. The Americans here came up, and Sumter, the senior officer, contrary to the earnest advice of Marion, rushed into a battle which proved disastrous to the Americans.
Mr. Gaillard was afterwards under the command of General Moultrie, and in many of the engage- ments south of Charleston. He also served under Col. John Laurens, was one of an advanced party to arrest the British in their retreat to Charleston, and witnessed the fall of Col. Laurens by one of the last balls discharged in that war.
After the war was over, Capt. Gaillard married Elizabeth Porcher, daughter of Peter, of Peru, a lady to whom he had long been attached. Some unpleasant and annoying occurrences he was fated to endure from a very few Whigs, who wanted magnanimity to cast a veil over his first and youth- ful error. His subsequent course appeared to pro- duce no effect upon them. Death, however, in a few years, quieted every thing. And no man in any community ever commanded in a greater degree the confidence and esteem of his acquaintances, friends, and neighbors than did Capt. Gaillard.
I will add in corroboration, that in 1794, when the militia laws of the State were remodelled and the whole system changed, all commissions were
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vacated and new elections made. The parish unanimously elected him captain, and this at a time when commissions were more highly estimated than at present.
The disastrous ten years which preceded the in- troduction of cotton as a market crop involved him, as it did others, in debt and distress. His record book, kept with minute accuracy, states the fact, that in one of those years the entire crop saved from one of those freshets was a few bas- kets of unmatured corn, which required drying in the sun before it was fit for use. A family, and upwards of one hundred slaves, had to be sustained without money ; credit had to be obtained from the more fortunate who planted on the Wateree or Congaree.
Capt. Gaillard purchased the Rocks in 1794, without funds, looking for nothing more than to make bread for his dependants. Cotton had not been attempted as a crop, and indigo did not pay for its cultivation. He settled the plantation in 1795, and made provisions. In the following year he attempted cotton, I believe over one hundred acres, with unlooked-for success. On my return from school in Camden, late in December, 1796, I called in to dine with his overseer, a friend of mine, and saw, for the first time, the process of ginning and specking cotton. A brilliant prospect now opened to the eyes of the desponding planters,
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fully to be realized. The crop of 1799 or 1800 extricated him from debt. About twenty-two years after, Capt. Gaillard divided his lands and negroes among eight children, and retired in a green old age to enjoy as much of the world's happiness as is the lot of man, and lived ten years after.
I never knew a better, a neater, or a more suc- cessful planter than Capt. Gaillard. There was a completeness and finish, a compactness and uni- formity about every thing, that was pleasant to the eye. In a ride one day to " Lifeland," my grand- father, Peter Sinkler, became the subject of con- versation, and the captain thus expressed himself about him as a planter. " If you will make him, Mr. Sinkler, the standard of a planter, I have never known any other." I adopt and apply this opinion to him upon the maturest consideration. There was a generosity that belonged to him that few possessed, and the knowledge of which would be gratifying to his descendants. When a rapid ac- cumulation of funds in his factor's hands took place, his nephew and factor, Theodore Gaillard, Jr., borrowed of him a large sum of money, and mortgaged for its safety the plantation now owned by Thos. Ashby Esq., and a number of negroes. After the bankruptcy of Mr. Gaillard, the mort- gage foreclosed, the property sold for very little to Captain Gaillard, owing to a great blunder of one of the banks, which held a younger mortgage.
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When the Captain found that half the purchase could pay him the bona-fide debt, and leave thirty negroes, he generously made it over to Theodore's children. When he married his second wife, he became entitled to her property, but he never used one cent of it, but gave it all to her children, re- turning even what she had used as his wife. In the twenty-three or twenty-four years after Capt. Gaillard had paid his last debt, he paid for real property $118,000 ; retaining for his own use up- wards of $13,000 in stock, and dividing among his children upwards of five hundred negroes.
The gin first used for cleaning cotton of the seed was a clumsily constructed foot gin without the wheels, as now used, but instead, two cross- pieces with clubs at their ends, to give the neces- sary power. The greater part of the crops was either ginned early in the morning, or after task- work at night, a hand doing four or five pounds at each time. Cotton at that period, down to the in- troduction of the fine selected seed from the sea islands, invariably yielded one pound of clean to every three of seed cotton, and when seed was selected it was with the view of its so yielding. At that time, quantity and not quality was the aim in view ; consequently, heavier yields were obtained from our lands. Capt. Gaillard told me that his average of cotton on the Rocks, for twenty years, was one hundred and fifteen pounds per acre. My
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average at Ward's plantation for the six years (I planted it in coarse cotton) was one hundred and twenty-three pounds per acre, from the year 1850 to 1856 inclusive.
In the accounts current published in the gazettes of 1792 the article of cotton does not appear, yet it is evident that even at a much earlier date it was vended in Charleston in small parcels varying from one to thirty pounds. In 1787 two or three bags, about one hundred pounds each, were packed by Mr. S. Maverick and shipped to England as a sam- ple and experiment. The answer of the consignees was discouraging. It is not worth producing, said they, as it cannot be separated from the seed.
In 1794 Col. Wm. Thomson, of revolutionary memory, planted cotton for market at Belleville, in St. Matthew's Parish. In 1796 cultivators of the crop appeared in several parts of the State. It was first grown in the district of Sumter by John Mayrant, in 1798. The year afterwards Gen. Wade Hamp- ton introduced the plant into Richland district. With the energy and sagacity which distinguished him, he began his operations on an extensive scale, and from six hundred acres he gathered over six hundred bags. Although not the first to use Whitney's gin in South Carolina, he was the first who used water as the propelling power.
Sea island, or black-seed cotton began to be raised in Georgia in experimental quantities in
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1786. The native place of the seed is believed to be Persia. The first bag exported from Georgia was grown on St. Simon's Island in the year 1788. The black-seed cotton region of the State is bounded on the north and northwest by a line a few miles south of the line that separates Barn- well and Orangeburg from the neighboring par- ishes; on the northeast and east by the Santee River, on the west and southwest by the Savannah . River. It formerly was cultivated both in Williams- burg and Sumter districts, in their southern por- tions.
The crops were sufficiently encouraging, but the preparation of the wool was objectionable ; the growers abandoned the experiment on account of the large expenditure of labor and time that it required.
The first attempt in South Carolina to raise a crop of long cotton was made in 1788, by Mr. Kinsey Burden, of St. Paul's Parish. The product was packed in the article called Hessians. In 1780, . when England had no fine manufactories, the best cottons brought to her market were from Demerara and Surinam. These then commanded about two shillings. These were superseded by the sea islands, which in 1799 sold readily at five shillings per pound. Its price in this State in the infancy of its production was generally from ninepence to two shillings, until 1806 or 1807, when for the first time
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the planters experienced the baleful effects of re- strictions on commerce. From the superiority of this cotton to that raised in any other country, even from the same seed, the staple at first was objected to as too long, and by one or two English spinners it was actually cut shorter.
When first planted the seed was placed in small hills five feet square, but by some in holes made on the level land that distance apart. Seldom more than one hundred pounds were made to the acre, until the system of having more stalks in the acre was adopted. It may be remarked that the plough was practically unknown to the first growers of long cotton, and is still so here to a great extent, although half a century has elapsed.
Notwithstanding the facilities offered by the woods everywhere for an abundant store of suitable aliment, no effort at manuring extended beyond a potato field, which never exceeds a quarter of an acre of land to the hand. There were no rakes for ยท collecting leaves, nor carts specially designed for carrying the vegetable offal to the cattle pen or stable.
Various were the gins constructed for cleansing the cotton of the seed. The first was Eave's gin, to be worked by animal or water-power; next, Pottle's, of Georgia; Birnie's, Simpson's, and Nicholson's gins; next, Whitmore's, Farris' and Logan's. These were all modifications of Eave's
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gin. None of these, however, stood the test of trial, and were successively abandoned for the foot- gin. Some of these gins were bought at two hun- dred and fifty dollars each. As slovenly as was originally the tillage of the cotton plant, the prepa- ration of its produce for market was much more so. It was indeed so badly cleaned as to be deemed suitable only for the coarser fabrics.
Up to 1830, the pickers took no especial pains to abstract the dead leaves. The wool was sunned all day, and ginned often with stained particles in- corporated with it. In the process of moting, these were removed by women sitting on the floor, where it was whipped with twigs. No bag or box re- ceived the cotton as it fell from the gin. In pack- ing, an old iron axle-tree or wooden pestle was used, as at present. With many the cotton was ginned, moted, and packed in the same room.
It is proper here to remark that while the quali- ty of the wool has been vastly improved, the prod- uct of the plant has been proportionately dimin- ished. Although, therefore, the pecuniary circum- stances of some individuals have been greatly im- proved, the planters generally have sustained a loss, in some instances to an almost ruinous extent. The stalk produces no more pods, and yet, five and often seven pounds of seed cotton are required to yield one of clean, instead of one to three, as formerly. Ten years ago, the staple of our sea
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island cotton was about twenty per cent. better than any other cotton produced ; owing to circum- stances, it is now estimated at from thirty to forty per cent. in favor of the former.'
Encouraged by the actual product of their fields, our fathers continued to cultivate the grounds which their judgments first selected for the new crop. After several years of exhausting tillage, it became obvious that a radical change in their oper- ations must take place. Unaccustomed to receive information from books concerning their pursuits, the plain alternative of resorting to virgin soils was adopted, and soon as one field was worn out another was cleared.
In most beginnings, awkwardness and want of skill retarded our full success. In no case have I known a more striking exemplification than in that which I am about to relate. To as late a period as 1801, to pack a bag of cotton was deemed a reason- able day's work, without the packer's having him- self to make the bag. This was considered a seamstress's work, who found five an ample day's
' The value of cotton yarn is estimated by its length. The extreme of fineness, says Mr. Baines in his work on the "Cotton Manufactories of Great Britain," published in 1835, to which yarns for muslins are even spun in England, is two hundred and fifty hanks to the pound, which would yield a thread measuring one hundred and nineteen and a half miles. A pound of fine cotton manufactured into the finest lace yields from four hundred and eighty to five hundred hanks per pound, and makes a thread from one hundred and ninety-seven to two hundred and thirty-eight miles long, and is worth from sixty dollars to four hundred and fifty dollars per pound.
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task. The overseer on Belvidere plantation pon- dered on this, and desirous of doing the community a service, sent an invitation to the gentlemen of Pineville to visit Belvidere to see his packer meas- ure off three bags, make and pack them to hold three hundred and six pounds each, in time for them to return to Pineville in seasonable time,-and that they should be provided with as good a dinner as he could furnish. Strange to say, this invitation was not taken in good part by all. Mr. John Palmer alone accepted the call and determined to attend. On the appointed day he went up and witnessed the performance of the promise. On leaving one hour and a half before sunset, the third bag had only to be headed, and by seven o'clock the same evening the announcement was made to the gentlemen in Pineville. Thirty years after, I knew the same packer execute the same task, with ease to himself, when required.
At the time when planters relied altogether upon the swamp lands for their incomes, they were occa- sionally disappointed by the recurrence of freshets. To the most enterprising it occurred that embank- ments would effect some security, particularly against what would be called small rises. The Sinklers, Peter and James, took the lead in this, and to a degree were renumerated for their labor ; but the water surrounding their banks on all four sides allowed no possibility of getting off what
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rained in or soaked in through the banks. The experiment was therefore abandoned. Major Sam- uel Porcher, aware of the cause of the failure, and possessing a plantation which jutted against the high land, judiciously determined to avail himself of the advantage which circumstances afforded him, and for years kept his resolve to himself, until he was enabled to purchase some adjoining tracts of land which were essential to his success. At length this was accomplished, and in 1817 he commenced his great work. Few men are free from weak points of character, and most men can be made to act weakly if assailed at these points. Major Porcher, however, was not swayed by any adverse opinions, the advice of friends, or the laughter and jeers of others, but on he went, in a wonderful reli- ance on his own judgment. Who will not now ad- mit that he has given greater evidence of practical wisdom, enterprise, persevering energy, patience, and indomitableness of purpose than any other South Carolinian ? Any man in this country who can make his provisions in a rich swamp, and plant only long cotton on high land, every acre of which he can therefore manure, has it in his power to thrive, and need never think of the West.
Mr. Samuel Foxworth, then nineteen years of age, as his overseer, and his driver George, through a period of thirty years, served him faithfully. When the work was about to begin, George was
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promised his freedom upon its completion ; the promise was kept. It was a gratifying sight in after time to see the old man living in close con- tiguity to the scenes of his labor and anxieties, enjoying the privileges he had won. And what has bound Mr. Foxworth through the long period of forty years to "Mexico," but the "bank"? Noth- ing else. For forty years he has been building a great work, and repairing and improving it; he has thought of it by day, and dreamed of it by night, with the anxious solicitude that a mother feels for her infant. At times he almost fainted and desisted from despondency ; then again he worked with zeal and enthusiasm inspired by hope. All the time he labored in more or less doubt, whether the result would be a blank or a prize ; and much of this time he had to endure the ridicule of doubters. When- ever drawbacks or disasters occurred, and he had to plunge into mud and water to repair damages that seemed to yawn a warning mockery of his power, instead of condolence and well-wishes of his neighbors and friends, he received from the enemies of the great work the taunting exclama- tions : "I told you so." At length the "bank " was completed, then perfected, and " Mexico " be- came the land of promises realized. The swamp yielded in abundance its corn, oats, etc., and echoed with the exultant bellowing of fat cattle, and the once exhausted fields of high land, now devoted
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exclusively to cotton and receiving a double amount of manure and rest, became more productive than nature had originally made them.
To whatever embarrassment and distress these parishes were subjected by the circumstances of the times, the districts of the upper portion of the State had their full share and even more. Rice and naval stores were out of their reach. Wheat, for the want of merchant mills, availed them little beyond their domestic wants. The first mill erected was in Camden, by Col. Broome, in 1795 ; the production of that grain was greatly stimulated thereby, and Camden soon became a market for flour of a superior quality. At the same time tobacco, as a market crop, was planted, chiefly by emigrants from Virginia. Extensive inspections were estab- lished, the first one near the bank of the Wateree River, but this with about two hundred hogsheads of tobacco was swept away by the unprecedented freshet of 1796. It was afterwards rebuilt in the town of Camden. The cultivation received an im- petus, as well in that district as in some of the adjacent counties of North Carolina ; the business was pursued with considerable energy and success. To get the heavy hogshead to market, an axle was run through the centre and traces fixed to each end ; it was thus drawn or rolled by one horse to market, hundreds of miles.
But the curse which a seeming necessity had
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brought upon the inhabitants was the business of manufacturing ardent spirits. The chief source of income from most of the farms was apples and peaches to supply the distilleries, which were dotted every three or more miles throughout the up country. Intemperance followed as a natural consequence, and demoralization afflicted society to a frightful degree. My residence in Camden about this time made me a witness of scenes de- grading to the nature of man and revolting to the feelings. Imagine then the abandonment of these for a substitute like cotton. In cultivation easy, healthful, remunerative, and congenial to almost every acre of land in our wide-spread Southern and Western country. A labor in which wives and daughters may conveniently and safely share with the husband and father. While he traces the furrow, they, protected by their sun bonnets, eradi- cate the weeds with a light hoe.
A few years afterwards, independence and the peace of mind which it brings became their pos- session ; with these morality and good order im- proved, and in a short time cotton was acknowl- edged and hailed as a blessing from God to the human race. For clothing, for wealth, with abundance and cheapness of cloth, who can plead an excuse for want of supply and cleanliness ?
In casting our eyes over the prospect of our country, and reflecting upon the evils which occa-
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sionally beset us, do not the lessons of the past teach us the virtue of frugality and the necessity of a change in the relations which now exist be- tween the factor and planter ? The former should not incur obligations, startling in their amount and beyond their control, when monetary disturbances arise to distress them ; and the planter must not so heedlessly avail himself of accommodations so freely tendered. With cotton and sugar, rice and tobacco, necessary for the world's consumption, in the hands of the South, her influence would be paramount over every portion of the world. In vain is it that hundreds of thousands of fields grow white annually with the harvests, if creditors own it before it be gathered. If this goes on, the power placed in our hands will be barren, and we shall find ourselves in the hands of the domestic and foreign purchaser. The memory of one reverse should, it might be supposed, continue long enough to prevent the re- currence of old follies, or the repetition of former fatal mistakes. But it is a melancholy truth that almost utter forgetfulness of past suffering succeeds the dawn of prosperity, or if remembered at all they are no more than the visions of a disturbed sleep. Our labors suffer most from these monetary disturbances, whilst we are the factor's debtors ; but there would be no necessity for this if the planters were free from heavy pecuniary obligations to the factor. His marketable staples would not
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lose their intrinsic value and fall a sacrifice in the struggle. The indebtedness of the planter to the factor, anticipating the proceeds of the crop, and being one year in expenditures ahead of receipts, has done more to produce the mischief than all other causes combined. But for this our merchants could have dictated the price of cotton to the con- sumers of the world.
REMINISCENCES
OF ST. STEPHEN'S PARISH, CRAVEN COUNTY AND
NOTICES OF HER OLD HOMESTEADS BY SAMUEL DUBOSE
Printed at the Request of numerous Friends desirous of Preserving the fast fading History of that Interesting Region.
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REMINISCENCES.
To PROF. F. A. PORCHER.
MY DEAR SIR :- You request me, as the oldest inhabitant left among us, to give you of the present day as particular an account as I may have it in my power, of the individuals who once peopled this portion of our State, and as much of their habits, occupations, and genealogy as I either knew and remember, or have learnt from others. It is in com- pliance with this request that I have made the following sketch. I have often regretted that the opportunities for something better and more satis- factory had been so thoughtlessly neglected.
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