USA > South Carolina > A Contribution to the History of the Huguenots of South Carolina: Consisting of Pamphlets > Part 5
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character of the news as good or bad ; and as the houses were generally in sight one of the other, the news was quickly transmitted through the neigh- borhood.
The culture of the indigo plant was the principal occupation of the planters ; and its manufacture, or the process of extracting the dye, involved much risk and demanded, during the whole period of the process (the "making season " as it used to be called), not only skill, but unremitting attention. I can well remember how often, in the process of what was called " beating," the liquor was taken up in a plate and anxiously examined in the rays of the sun, in order to ascertain whether all the particles of dye were separated ; for, if not, the result would be a failure ; the bright true-blue color would not be obtained, and the value of the drug would be im- paired. There were, as might be expected, many grades of professional reputation among the plant- ers. I have often heard it said that, during the manufacturing season, Mr. Peter Sinkler would be three weeks without seeing his wife, though he slept every night in his bed. He would come home late at night, when she was asleep, and would return to the scene of his professional labors before she awoke in the early morning.
The process of culture and the manufacture, once so important to the people of this State, is now for- gotten ; even Drayton, whose " View of Carolina "
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was published in 1802, did not think it worth the labor of description. As I saw the process habitu- ally when a boy, and continued long to associate with those who were engaged in its culture, I shall briefly describe the whole process from the planting of the seed to its departure from the plantation.
The land was well cleared, drained, and thor- oughly broken up and pulverized ; after all appre- hension of frost was over, the fields were laid off in drills about an inch deep, and from twelve to fifteen inches apart from each other. In these drills the seeds, mixed with lime and ashes, were sown. If the season was a fair one, the seeds came up within ten days or a fortnight, and grew off rapidly. The plants were cut three or four times in the season, for making the dye ; and during all this period they required nice and frequently repeated hoeing and weeding. When they had grown to the height of two or three feet, the plants were cut with a reaping hook, and carried to the macerating vat. This vat was strongly constructed of thick cypress planks, raised some height above the ground. When this vat, which was called the "steeper," was furnished with a sufficient quantity of weed, clear water was poured into it, and the weeds were left to steep or macerate until all the coloring matter was extracted from them ; the fluid was then drawn off by means of a faucet into an adjoining vat called the " beater." An axle to which were attached arms long enough
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nearly to reach the opposite sides of the vat, and each furnished with a small bucket at its end, ran lengthwise through the centre of this vat. Laborers would then place themselves upon this vat, and work the axle with handles or cranks, so as to cause the buckets to rise and fall alternately in the liquor. This process was continued until the coloring mat- ter was united in a body. This operation required great nicety, for if the beating was not continued long enough, a part of the tingeing matter remained dissolved in the liquor ; if continued too long, a part of that which had separated is dissolved afresh. Lime was then applied, which assisted in the separa- tion of the water from the indigo. The whole being now suffered to rest until the blue matter had settled, the clear water was drawn off by cocks in the sides at different heights, and the blue part dis- charged by a cock in the bottom into another vat. It was then strained through cloth bags, and spread out in shallow vessels called " bowls," to harden and dry. When the substance had acquired sufficient consistency, it was cut into cakes or lumps, each weighing about one quarter of a pound. While packing the indigo for market, these lumps were brushed to make them as bright as possible. They were generally packed in bags or boxes.
Few planters attempted to cultivate more than four acres of indigo to the hand. The great enemy of the growing crop was the grasshopper, which
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would sometimes destroy the crop in a few days. The best remedy against this enemy was chick- ens. I recollect that my father was in the habit every year of sending into the swamp fields several hundred chickens ; movable coops were furnished for their accommodation at night, but no food ; nor did they require any so long as the grasshopper in- fested the fields. Those who could not use chickens suffered the margins of their fields to grow up in grass ; the grasshoppers, driven from the fields with whipping brushes, would alight in the grass, which was then fired in several places at once. The price of indigo varied at from a dollar to two dollars and a half per pound. Few planters ever realized more than one hundred and twenty dollars to the hand. The bounty allowed by the British government was sixpence sterling per pound.
The culture of indigo and its manufacture is said to be attended in the West Indies and in other parts of the world with diseases, violent, severe, and at times fatal. If this was ever the case in South Carolina my memory furnishes me with no instances of it. I have every reason to believe the contrary, having known instances of indigo planters who were by no means successful planters, who never- theless acquired fortunes by the natural increase of their negroes.
Before the revolution Monck's Corner was a place of some commercial importance. There were
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three or four well-kept taverns, and five or six excel- lent stores. These were generally branches of larger establishments in Charleston, and as they sold goods at Charleston prices they commanded a fair busi- ness. The usual practice of the Santee planter was to take his crop to Monck's Corner, sell it there, re- ceiving cash or goods in exchange, dine, and return home in the afternoon.
After indigo had become a valueless drug the planters turned their attention to the culture of rice, and brought into cultivation every branch and inland swamp which could produce it. After it was harvested it was prepared for the market by the slow and laborious process of beating by the hand. This was done with a pestle in mortars holding each three pecks of rough rice. This was an ex- tra task, performed on some plantations before day- light, on others after nightfall. In the course of time those who had water-power constructed rice mills ; others used a machine with from four to six pestles. This was generally worked by oxen and was called the "pecker machine."
In my boyhood there was not a four-wheeled car- riage owned in that part of Santee which I have been describing, with the exception of a heavy and unsightly vehicle, something like a baggage wagon, owned by General Marion. It was called a caravan and was drawn by four horses, ridden by postilions. The vehicle in common use was the chair. It was
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strongly built, wide, and roomy ; three persons could be comfortable on the seat, and several chil- dren could sit on small benches in the bottom. Some years afterwards a few persons used a light- er description of carriage called coaches ; these were very much like a modern carriage cut in two. They had a seat in the back ; in front was the dicky seat. When four horses were used, as was frequently the case, the leaders were managed by a postilion mounted on the near horse. About the year 1800 carriages became more common. Without being more commodious than those now in use, they were very costly and heavy. Every panel had a glass and venetian blinds; they generally cost a thousand dollars, and required to be drawn by four horses.
Few horses were then furnished from the West. The planters generally raised as many as they want- ed. In the inventory of the property of Peter Sink- ler destroyed by the British, mentioned in another part of this paper, are more than forty brood animals.
Until the establishment of manufactories in this country all articles of furniture, clothing, etc., were dear. A good hat cost from ten to twelve dollars ; a pair of boots from twelve to fifteen dollars ; a dress coat from forty to sixty dollars ; and other articles in proportion. Our mothers had to pay five or six shillings a yard for stuff not neater, nor prettier, nor
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perhaps not superior to that which may now be had everywhere for one eighth of a dollar.
Before the revolution and some time afterwards the people of St. Stephen's enjoyed a greater share of health than they have since experienced. A few facts will establish this. Whilst this portion of the State was held by the British, military posts were established at Fairlawn, Monck's Corner, Lifeland, and other places, some on the very edge of the swamp, and others on spots which have subse- quently been found to be equally unhealthful. The garrisons of these posts, consisting of Eng- lish, Scotch, Irish, and German troops, all enjoyed a reasonable degree of health. Three or four weeks before the battle of Eutaw, three regiments of Irish troops, just landed in Charleston, were marched into the country and were engaged in that battle. These facts are derived not from our fathers alone, who knew the truth, but from Dr. Jackson, author of the " Diseases of Tropical Climates," who was in that army. It was then a common practice with some fam- ilies in Charleston to choose the fruit season, i. e., July and August, to visit their friends on the river, and spend weeks there without any apprehension of danger. Nay, I have been assured by those who have been actors in these scenes, that parties would come up from Charleston in midsummer to enjoy bream and trout fishing on the Santee. They would, after an early breakfast, be on the river or lake by
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sunrise, dine in the swamp on the fish they had caught, and spend the rest of the day in hunting deer. These hunting and fishing frolics would last about a week, and no consequences injurious to health followed.
After the year 1790, when freshets in the river became more frequent, the climate became more, sickly. The residents along the swamp suffered severely from agues and fever, and it was observed with surprise, and it still remains a mystery, that overseers and negroes and others who lived entirely in the swamp enjoyed more health than those who lived on the uplands. Capt. James Sinkler, who was a sagacious observer, was led from his observa- tions to believe that a pine-land residence, even but a short distance from the swamp, would secure its occupants from fever. Acting on this notion, he built a house for himself in the pine land, and in June, 1793, retreated to it with a family, blacks and whites included, of more than twenty persons. In November, he returned to his plantation, having passed the summer in the enjoyment of uninter- rupted health. This experiment was immediately imitated. Pineville was first settled in 1794, by Capt. John Palmer, Peter Gaillard, John Cordes, Philip Porcher, Samuel Porcher, and Peter Porcher. The liability to fevers, which was a bar to the en- joyment of happiness, being thus happily prevented, a suffering people quickly became contented and happy.
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No circumstance has contributed more to the welfare of the low country than the discovery of a region in which the planters could enjoy health and at the same time be near their plantations. It has, in fact, prevented the depopulation of the country. Other advantages followed; numbers being col- lected together in one village, they were enabled to establish a church, a school, a library, a market, besides the countless little comforts which are within the reach only of numbers. The country still re- mained under the supervision of the proprietors ; a vigilant police was established. These villages are fortresses where they are most useful, and secure to their owners a well-governed and therefore an obedient, well-ordered, and happy body of slaves.
When the war broke out, the churches in these parishes were closed, and nearly all the clergy re- signed and left the State. They were generally royalists and Englishmen, and a portion of their salaries was paid by the "Society in London for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts." During the war, many of the beautiful houses which had been erected for the worship of God were used by the British as store-houses, sometimes even as stables, and several, when they were forced to aban- don the country, were ruthlessly set fire to and burned down. On the return of peace, the religious sentiment of the people was found to have suffered sadly in consequence of the long deprivation of
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habitual public religious worship. A rigid morality took the place of the religion of the gospel, and many believed that morality was religion. The churches which had not been destroyed were subse- quently reopened, and their pulpits supplied by min- isters from England. But these persons were too often utterly unfit for their sacred office, some of them positively wanting even the habit of a decent morality. The people were disgusted with them, and the churches were again closed.
It is difficult to estimate the injury done to the cause of religion by these unworthy ministers. It may give you some idea of the state of destitution of this prosperous district, when I tell you that in 1786 I was baptized by a minister who lived more than fifty miles off, and whose presence among us was accidental, and that I never again saw a minister until I was twelve years of age, and of course had never entered a house of worship. The church was not permanently reopened in St. Stephen's Parish until 1812.
During this barren and mournful period, there lived in the midst of us a man of God. He was poor in the wealth of the world ; but in love, in faith in his Redeemer, and in the works which characterize a true disciple, he stood in the front rank of all the men it has ever been my fortune to know. He was a remembrancer to those about him of the reality of God's existence, as the proper object of our af-
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fection and our worship. Often when a boy have I seen him on a little pony riding through our planta- tion on his way to church in Christ Church Parish. forty miles distant ; and when I heard him reply to my father, who asked him the object of his journey, that there was to be sacrament in Mr. McCauley's church, I could scarcely take my eyes from him ; not because I admired his zeal or his fidelity, but because I thought he must be a fool. Mr. McCauley was a Presbyterian and a man of some note in his day.
In my frequent rambles amid these now deserted plantations, I often stop to gaze on the ruins which present themselves to my view. I feel lost in pain- ful wonder at the utter desolation of these places : not a living soul is there ; not a living thing that I can see. Not a sigh, not a whisper, not a sound of life comes from these ruins. The silence of death is everywhere. Not even the wail of a bird of prey reaches me through these shattered walls. There is nothing but ruin everywhere. Not a bird of good or evil omen sits upon these fragments. Not a wild beast haunts these ruins. All is still, and silent, and lifeless. I sit upon a fallen tree or a heap of broken bricks, and look with a saddened heart upon this scene of desolation ; and I wonder what has become of all who once lived here-the good,
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the wicked, the beautiful, the gay. How lived they ; how died they ? Are all their deeds buried with them ? and is nothing left but the brief record of others? Was happiness within these walls? Did those who dwelt within them feel as we do, who now look upon these ruins? Did they too look back upon the past and forward to the future, and then turn to dust at last, feed the worms of the earth, and nourish the weeds that cover it ? Are these masses of ruins all that they have left to bear witness of their lives? In the graveyard, the resting-place of the dead, there is only the gloom of death. Silence is becoming there ; it is what we naturally expect. But here, in the abiding-place of men, where was once the din of busy life, we have now the silence of death, and more than its gloom. For these walls were meant for the living, but now no living soul dwells within them. SAMUEL DUBOSE.
HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SKETCH OF
CRAVEN COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA. dolphins BY FREDERICK A. PORCHER, EsQ. 11
[From the April, 1852, No. of Southern Quarterly Review.]
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This brochure from the Charleston press' consti- tutes a sufficient text for us, while we seek to report the domestic and social history, from the earliest known periods of the region of country in which the scene is laid. Our beginning is fairly made by Old- mixon in his " Carolina." " We come now," saith this old chronicler, "to South Carolina, which is parted from North by Zantee River. The adja- cent county is called Craven County ; it is pretty well inhabited by English and French ; of the latter there is a settlement on Zantee River, and they were very instrumental in the irregular election of the Unsteady Assembly. This county sends ten members to the Assembly." This is all from him, but it is enough. "The Unsteady Assembly" is, itself, a text. We shall expatiate on what he has so briefly said, and to add to the extent of the history, if we do not greatly increase its value. Our work is not that of the review exactly ; but there is noth-
' " The Golden Christmas : a Chronicle of St. John's Berkeley." Compiled from the Notes of a Briefless Barrister. By the author of " The Yemassee," "Guy Rivers," " Katharine Walton," etc. Charleston : Walker, Richards, & Co., 1852.
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ing misplaced in subjecting countries to the same treatment which we bestow on books. It is as an old resident that we give our regards to Craven County in South Carolina.
Local attachments are strongest among the in- habitants of the country. Those especially whose youth has been nurtured among mountains, are bound by a chain stronger than adamant to the homes of their infancy. The denizen of a crowded metropolis is vain-glorious, perhaps proud, of his city, but he has no love for it. He forms a very in- significant atom in the vast mass of humanity which surrounds him, and he easily transfers his affection to whatsoever portion of the world may contain his household gods. Not so with the rural citizen or the inhabitant of a village. No throng of uninter- ested spectators ever torments him with a conscious- ness of his own littleness. He feels that he is a man of note; that he holds a conspicuous and an import- ant place in society ; he can calculate the political value of his life. He doubts whether his existence is not necessary to the well-being of the world ; and he rewards, with the devotion of his whole heart, the spot which confers such importance upon him.
It has been remarked, in many localities, that the youth who had grown up amid them, however far they may have roamed in quest of fortune, invariably return to close their days within reach of the scenes hallowed by their early associations. It is said that
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every sweep who ascends the chimneys of Paris, has constantly in his mind the picture of some cherished nook in the Savoy Alps, the hope of returning to which, as its owner, gives him courage to toil and fortitude to save the rewards of his labors. Think not, as you view the uninteresting faces of these apparently hapless children of poverty, that all is dark and desolate within their bosoms. They are animated with a hope which many a more fortunate- looking man might envy. Their hearts retain viv- idly the impressions of happiness once enjoyed, and beat with exultation as each hour of toil brightens the prospect of resuming it. What to them are the tall and gloomy chimneys of the gay metropolis? They are the portals through which they approach their Alpine farms. But alas! well has the old French romancer sung :
" Oh ne le quittez pas ; c'est moi qui vous le dis Le devant de la porte où l'on jouait jadis ; L'église où tout enfant, d'une voix douce et claire, Vous chantiez à la messe auprès de votre mère ; Et la petite école, où trainant chaque pas, Vous alliez le matin-oh ne la quittez pas."
He who would be happy amid the scenes of his infancy must so live as to preserve the freshness of that age. Time and absence efface nearly all that was hallowed to the youthful mind, and too fre- quently the success of the young adventurer, instead of leading him to the realization of his happiness,
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only awakens him from the enjoyment of a delicious day-dream.
Next to mountains, the forest possesses an irre- sistible charm for the imagination. Its sublime loneliness is relieved by the endless changes which the seasons, in their order, bring forth, and each, in its turn, affects the mind of the beholder. There is an indescribable charm in a northern forest when the earth is covered with snow, and the bare trees stand as if mourning over the desolation which has overtaken them. But the sweetest sensations are those excited by the pine forests of our southern soil. Here nature dies not, but only takes her rest. Her trees, which give character to the scene, are always verdant, but their verdure has none of the witchery of a more genial season. The tall and branchless monarchs of the forest rear their heads aloft to meet the rays of the sun, and as they catch the chilling blast which salutes them, utter a low and melancholy murmur of complaint as they bow before the mysterious breeze. Nor is the prospect enliv- ened by the sight of animal life. The solitary wood- pecker mingles no melody with the tapping of his bill as he industriously pursues his food. The hoarse croaking of the crow is in perfect harmony with the scene. The gray squirrel regards, partly with astonishment, partly with alarm, the disturber of his quiet home. The whole scene is the abode of solitude, but not that which depresses the heart.
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" To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been ; To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, With the wild flocks that never need a fold ; Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean. This is not solitude ; 't is but to hold Converse with nature's charms, and view her charms unroll'd."
That portion of Craven County which lies south of Santee River is marked by this species of solitary grandeur, heightened, however, by an association with former animation. He who travels in winter from the bank of the Santee Canal towards the east will find himself in an almost uninterrupted forest of pines. On his left lie the mysterious depths of the Santee Swamp, whose soil, once teem- ing with the rewards of industry, is now abandoned to the hand of nature; before and around him the tall pines, with their melancholy moan, spread them- selves in an apparently impenetrable mass. Here and there a broad and well-worn avenue leading from the wood, or a stately time-honored mansion, seen in the distance, heightens the sense of solitari- ness by suggesting ideas of society. As you pro- ceed, you find yourself in the streets of a village ; but the houses are built with a special reference to the preservation of the trees ; and the closed doors and windows of these dwellings, their chimneys, from which issues no hospitable smoke, recall vividly
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to the imagination the idea of a city of the dead. But the neat church, with its modest belfry, suggests the idea of a Christian life ; while, on clearing the skirts of the village, a well-beaten track, with all the appointments of a race-course, indicates that this eminently southern sport has its votaries. The road now leaves all vestiges of life, but it is good, and there is a something about it, its firm and well- beaten track nearly overgrown with turf, contrasting curiously with the neglected ditches which define its limits on either side, that mysteriously recalls the notion of ancient grandeur. Now it crosses one of the great highways to the metropolis ; and now ap- pears a low wooden building, containing one apart- ment, with a table extending nearly its whole length, and benches on either side. This is the club-house, where the citizens meet from time to time for the unrestrained enjoyment of social and convivial intercourse. At every step as you proceed you find traces of former industry. Large circular tumuli abound, bearing on their surface trees of venerable age, which have grown up since the mounds were formed in the process of making tar. And now, too, you see the trunks of trees, with their barks neatly and carefully stripped to a great height, pre- senting to a lively imagination the appearance of an innumerable assemblage of tombstones. These are the marks of the turpentine gatherers, and this dis- play of the presence of recent activity heightens the
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