USA > South Carolina > A Contribution to the History of the Huguenots of South Carolina: Consisting of Pamphlets > Part 6
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impression of the solitude which actually surrounds you.
While the mind is thus carried from one depth of loneliness to another, a dull object appears indis- tinctly before you ; as you approach, its form grad- ually reveals itself, and soon the old parish church of St. Stephen stands before you-a handsome brick edifice. It stands at the head of one road which comes from the south, and is so situated that it may be seen at a considerable distance by those who approach it, either from the east or the west, by the main or river road. The church tells a story of former grandeur and of present desolation ; though not large, it indicates a respectable congre- gation ; it is finished with neatness, with some pre- tensions even to elegance, and the beholder in- voluntarily mourns over the ruin to which it is doomed.' All around it are graves; these seem to be literally running into the woods ; some are marked by stones, which record the virtues of those whose remains now form part of the soil ; some, set apart for families, are enclosed by walls of brick or of perishable timber, and many are protected from the ravages of obtrusive cattle by logs rudely piled
1 Since this has been written, the public spirit of some of the citizens of Pineville and its vicinity has repaired the church, and divine service is occasionally performed there. It is, however, doomed to ruin. Situated beyond the convenient reach of the people, it is maintained only by a feel- ing of reverence for the past. It is not hazarding much to predict that this will not suffice to preserve it for any considerable period.
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around the humble mound which covers the de- ceased. Of the monuments to the dead, some are in perfect harmony with the church ; the stones have fallen from their places, and the eye with difficulty deciphers the names of those who have long ceased to be numbered among the inhabitants of earth. Others have all the brightness which indicates that they have just left the hands of the sculptor, and here and there a melancholy mound is seen, whose freshness shows that time has not yet allowed this last memorial to be offered to departed worth. Here, then, lie the dead of Craven County -here lie those whose taste planned, and whose energy reared, this elegant temple; and here, too, lie those who but yesterday gazed like us upon this strange scene, and experienced the same emotions which now overpower our minds. Here, all is past. To them the present is an impossibility. The father and the son, the old and the young, the long for- gotten, and the recently loved, all lie here together in one common past, and link it strangely and fear- fully with the future !
Before such a scene what vague and undefined thoughts flit across the mind ! If you stand on the north side of the church and look through the open doors (and they are never closed), you see a road coming from the south, whose well-beaten track the eye can distinguish until the sense of sight is over- powered by the distance. On the right and on the
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left the same dull, unbroken line of road is seen- their well-defined track is all that breaks the mo- notony of the forest ; and they, perhaps, even add to its impressiveness by opening a vista through which its extent may be more sensibly felt. Strange and mysterious traces of life and of civilization! To what end do they appear to have been constructed ? In this perfect solitude, whence do they come ? Whither do they lead ? Strange, that in this spot they should unite ! that they all lead to the grave ! that one of them must have been the last over which these innumerable slumberers must have been respectively borne !
That portion of Craven County which lies south of the Santee River comprises the parishes of St. James, Santee, and St. Stephen. Its extent to the north of the Santee appears never to have been de- fined. Near the line which now divides these two parishes stood the village of Jamestown, remarkable as being one of the principal settlements of the French Huguenots. In 1704 the Church of Eng- land was, by act of Assembly, established in South Carolina, and two years afterwards the French of this town were, on their own petition, erected into a parish and indulged with a ritual in their own lan- guage. The whole of that long and narrow tract of land, which extends from the canal into the sea (about fifty miles), and lies between the river and those parishes which constituted Berkeley County,
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was known as Santee Parish, which, as it became settled, was distinguished into English and French Santee, from the character of its inhabitants ; the former occupying the part since built by the de- scendants of the latter, and known as St. Stephen's Parish. The French emigrants were attracted to three principal points out of Charleston ; these were : the head-waters of Ashley River, Wassamas- saw ; that large feeder of Cooper River, known as French Quarter Creek ; and Jamestown.
Lawson, who visited the Santee in 1700, found about fifty French families settled on its banks; but he does not appear to have known of the exist- ence of Jamestown. These Frenchmen, he says, generally follow a trade with the Indians, for which they are conveniently situated. His brief notice of these people proves that they made a very favorable impression upon him. In one passage he says :
"Meeting with several creeks, the French, whom we met coming from their church, were very officious in assisting with their small dories to pass over these waters; they were all clean and decent in their apparel, their houses and plantations suitable in neatness and contrivance. They are all of the same opinion with the church of Geneva, there being no difference among them concerning the punctilios of their Christian faith ; which union hath propagated a happy and delightful concord in all other matters throughout the whole neighborhood ; living amongst themselves as one tribe or kindred, every one making it his business to be assistant to the wants of his countrymen, preserving his estate and reputation with the same
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exactness and concern as he does his own ; all seeming to share in the misfortunes, and rejoice in the advance and rise of their brethren."
Of these Frenchmen, who were destined to affect so powerfully the social condition of lower Carolina, it were to be wished that our traveller had given some particulars in addition to the above. He mentions having stopped at four houses : those of Mr. Huger, the ancestor of the numerous family of that name ; of Mr. Gaillard, sen., and Mr. Gaillard, jr., and of Mr. Gendron.
The name of this last gentleman is extinct, but his blood flows in the veins of a numerous posterity. We, long ago, found a copy of his will, by which it appears that he had a son and five daughters. These married, respectively, Mr. Cordes, Mr. Porcher, Mr. Huger, and Mr. Prioleau. To each of them he bequeaths a sum of money and some articles of housekeeping, particularly feather-beds. To a fifth daughter, who was yet unmarried (qui reste à marier) he leaves a double portion. Tradition has married her to a Mr. Douxsaint, without posterity. His son, John, was his residuary legatee ; and to him he leaves his coopers' tools, his slaves, both negroes and Indians, and, among other enumerated articles, his swivels or cannons. Why a private citizen should be in possession of swivels is not very easily explained. It has been suggested that about the year 1704, when the colony was at war
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with the authorities at St. Augustine, the danger of a piratical Spanish invasion might have induced all the substantial citizens on the rivers to provide themselves with these arms. The first page of A Mr. Gendron's will is the confession of faith of a humble and grateful Christian ; and his attachment to his church is exhibited by a moderate legacy to the churches of Jamestown and Charleston, which, he says, "they shall continue to enjoy so long as they are reformed as they are at present."
This respectable emigrant has not obtained a name in history, but the traditions of Craven County still preserve it in connection with a little incident which, in the hands of Sterne, might have served as the groundwork of an immortal work. Business having carried Mr. Gendron to Charleston, his absence was so long and so unaccountably pro- tracted that his friends supposed him to have been lost. On Sunday, while assembled at their house of worship in Jamestown, the preacher from his pulpit saw approaching up the river the canoe of his long-lost friend. Forgetting, in his joy, the sermon which he had prepared, with the exclama- tion, " Voila, Mr. Gendron !" he announced his safe arrival, and rushed out, followed by the delighted congregation, to welcome him whom they had mourned as dead.
Mr. John Gendron, the son of this gentleman, is mentioned by Capt. Palmer, in the Appendix to
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Ramsay's South Carolina, as the commander of a company of Charleston militia in the war against the Yemassees in 1715. Though never holding a commission higher than that of a colonel, yet, from being a very long time the senior colonel in the province, he was, by courtesy, invested with the title and dignity of a brigadier. His daughter mar- ried Mr. John Palmer, the father of the author of the article just referred to, and with him the name became extinct in South Carolina.
The French emigrants to this province appear to have been governed by a principle of common-sense which reflects infinite credit on their character. They regarded Carolina as their home. Having placed themselves under the protection of the Brit- ish crown, they resolved to conduct themselves like faithful subjects. Hence no attempt was made to perpetuate the remembrance of a distinct nation- ality. Their children were not encouraged to speak French ; and the great charity which they founded bears the name, not of a sect, nor of a foreign na- tion, but the catholic name of that colony which they had adopted as their native land.' Still, how- ever, in their domestic life traces of their origin may be discovered. The pillau is a common dish upon their tables, and I believe that in every Huguenot house on Santee that cake which the
" The South Carolina Society ; which arose from the Two-Bit Club, A. D. 1737.
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English know as the waffle is called the gauffre. In summer the superfluous fresh beef is still jerked for keeping, and potted beef and venison still con- tinue to delight the senses of the people with their grateful savor. We are uncertain whether the general preference of coffee over tea is the result of an hereditary national taste, or whether it originated in the superior cheapness of the former article. Names still preserve their old pronunciations in that region, and in spite of the refinements and im- provements of modern society, the Duboses and Marions are pertinaciously called Debusk and Mâhrion.
Of the public life of those worthy emigrants who found a home on the banks of the Santee, few, if any, traces are to be found in our histories. The English portion of the population appear to have viewed them with feelings of hostility. In the disturbances which occurred during the turbulent administration of Gov. Moor, they are represented as having yielded too readily to the wishes of the constituted authorities, and to have aided materially in returning to the Assembly members who were disposed to second and forward the ambitious views of the governor. During the administration of Sir Nathaniel Johnston, who succeeded Gov. Moor, Mr. John Ash was sent by the English Dissenters to plead their cause against the usurpation of the High Church party. In his representation of the affairs
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of the colony, he says : " That at the election for Berkley and Craven counties the violence of Mr. Moor's time, and all other illegal practices, were with more violence repeated, and openly avowed by the present governor and his friends : Jews, stran- gers, sailors, servants, negroes, and almost every Frenchman in Craven and Berkley counties came down to elect, and their votes were taken, and the persons by them voted for were returned by the sheriffs." At this time it appears that Charleston was the only place in the colony at which polls were opened, and here it was necessary for citizens from every county to come, in order to enjoy the elective franchise.' The Assembly they elected established
1 Such appears to have been the custom. Mr. F. Yonge, in his account of the revolutionary proceedings in 1719, declares it to have been so. The subject, however, is not very clear. In the first place, it would have been difficult, in a town devoted to the dissenting interest, for the concourse of voters from Colleton and Craven counties to create such disturbances as Oldmixon describes ; and, secondly, the act of Assembly of 1804, for better ordering elections, clearly intimates, though it does not direct, that a poll should be opened in each county. It provides-Ist. That no votes be taken by proxy ; 2d. That if the sheriffs neglect to hold a poll in a county, the people may vote in the adjoining one ; and 3d. That the polls shall be held in an open and public place. But those counties had not at that time any court-house, and Mr. Yonge declares that the whole House of Assembly was chosen in Charleston until the administration of Gov. Daniel (1718), when it was enacted that every parish shall send a certain number of dele- gates (36 in all), who shall be balloted for at their respective churches, or other convenient place, by virtue of writs directed to the church-wardens, who were to make a return of the persons elected. It was the veto upon this act by Gov. Johnson, at the suggestion of Mr. Rhett and Chief-Justice Trott, which was one of the leading causes of the revolution of 1719, which shook off the Proprietary government.
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the Church of England in the colony, but with such provisions that the Bishop of London and the Society for Propagating the Gospel in America re- solved not to send or support any missionaries in the province until the act, or the clause relating to the establishment of lay commissioners, should be annulled.
Oldmixon says that the law was declared null and void by Queen Anne, at the suggestion of the House of Lords ; but, as the act still remains on the statute-book, and the church continued from that date (1704) to receive the aid of the state, as well as of the Society for Propagating the Gospel, it is more likely that the offensive clauses were ren- dered inoperative, without being formally annulled. The act of conformity was passed by a vote of twelve members against eleven dissentients. A full
house numbered thirty members, so that this act was passed by little more than a third of. the whole house. Every Dissenter was thereupon turned out of his seat, and his place supplied by the person, being a Churchman, who had the most votes next to him. In six months afterwards, the same Assem- bly, in a full house, passed a bill to repeal the act, but it was rejected in the upper house, and the gov- ernor, in great indignation, dissolved the Commons' house, by the name of the Unsteady Assembly.
During this period of the colonial existence, the only part of Craven County which was settled was
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that portion now known as St. James' Santee, and soon afterwards, called French Santee, to distinguish it from what was afterwards St. Stephen's Parish, or, as it was formerly called, English Santee. The legal separation of the two parishes was effected in 1754, and the brick church, which we have noticed in the early part of this essay, was commenced in 1762.
It has not been the lot of this section of the country to produce many persons whose names have filled a niche in the temple of fame. The virtues of its citizens have been of a character more domes- tic than those which generally receive the chaplet of immortality. Engaged in the quiet and all-absorb- ing pursuits of agriculture, they cared not to stir in the bustling world of politics, and as a proof of the contented spirit of the people it may be remarked that in the war of the revolution a large number ad- hered to the king.
Agriculture and Indian trade were the occu- pations of the early French settlers. The latter source of profit was extinguished by the gradual settlement of the country ; the former continued to give wealth to its votaries. The French, from the quarter of Wassamassaw, gradually left their seats and settled on the fertile bank of the Santee, and by the commencement of the revolution, English San- tee, or St. Stephen, had passed almost entirely into their hands.
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Among the French, an individual, whose name has not transpired, adopted a pursuit which many will suppose characteristic. "A French dancing- master," says Oldmixon, " settling in Craven County, taught the Indians country dances, to play on the flute and the hautboy, and got a good estate, for it seems the barbarians encouraged him with the same extravagance as we do the dancers, singers, and fid- dlers of his countrymen."
One citizen of this parish has earned for himself a name in the world of letters, and it is strange that Ramsay, who appears to have sought eagerly after Carolinian celebrities, should have entirely ignored his existence. Thomas Walter, an English gentle- man whose devotion to the cause of science led him to the wilds of Carolina, was attracted by the charms of Miss Peyre, of St. Stephen, married her, and settled there. He devoted himself particularly to the pursuit of botany, and the curious are still occasionally rewarded by a visit to his garden, the ruins of which may still be seen near the banks of the Santee Canal. He is the ancestor of one branch of the Porcher family, and of the Charlton family of Georgia. His book, the " Flora Carolini- ana, which was printed in London in 1789, is dated ad Ripas Fluvii Santee.
Walter was married a short time before the battle of Black Mingo. Among the loyalist officers who were defeated on that occasion was Mr. John Peyre,
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the brother of Mrs. Walter. Marion's patience had been sorely tried by the pertinacity with which these gentlemen maintained the conflict, and for this reason, and perhaps as a sort of retaliatory measure, for the unjustifiable deportation of the Charleston prisoners to St. Augustine, he vowed a terrible re- venge against any who might hereafter fall into his hands. It was Mr. Peyre's fate to be captured and to experience this revenge. He was allowed none of the privileges awarded to prisoners of war, but was sent to Philadelphia for safe keeping, and there, for several months, dragged out a miserable exist- ence in a loathsome dungeon; when at length released, he was unceremoniously turned into the street, almost naked and altogether miserable. In his distress he accosted a Quaker in the street, whose benevolent face attracted him. The Quaker heard his story, and taking fifty dollars from his pocket, gave them to him, advising him to procure decent clothing and go home. Mr. Peyre earnestly entreated that he might learn the name of his gen- erous benefactor, in order that, when in his power, he might discharge the obligation, but the old man refused. "Consider this money," said he, " as a loan, and you will sufficiently discharge it by giving to any one whom you shall find in circumstances of similar distress."
The name of Peyre, once an honored and a flourishing name in this parish, is now extinct.
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The last who bore it was Thomas Walter Peyre, grandson of the botanist, a gentleman whom none knew but to love, honor, and esteem. Modest and retiring, even to a fault, he was, in all other respects, a perfect model of a useful country gentleman. His home was the abode of religion, order, skill, economy, and enlightened liberality. His friends were devoted, and the rectitude of his principles and the general amiability of his conduct gained him the good-will and respect of all. His death has caused a chasm in his circle which will not be filled whilst the freshly turned turf continues to announce the recentness of his decease ; and as he never married, the name of Peyre was buried in his grave.
Though the body of Marion reposes in a grave in · St. Stephen's Parish, Craven County cannot number him among her notabilities. Both Georgetown and St. John's Berkeley claim the honor of his birth. The latter was, unquestionably, the place of his residence.
But the widow of General Marion certainly did live and die in St. Stephen's Parish ; and there also lived a large number of his friends, relations, and companions in arms. There, especially, was his memory revered ; and there, to this day, you will hear but one opinion expressed respecting the merits of Weems' life of Marion-that of unmitigated disgust.
We have not the smallest disposition to detract from the merit of General Marion. We have a child's recollection of his widow; we never knew
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her but as my grandmamma, for so she insisted upon being called by every child ; and we have been taught to believe, as an article of religion, that her husband was vilely treated by his reverend biogra- pher. We have seen this book circulating in every part of the United States, and were always ready, to the expressions of admiration with which its perusal is everywhere else greeted, to reply, with the scorn- ful sneer of superior knowledge, that Marion's friends rejected the book as a libel on his fair fame. The indignation with which the book was received is hardly yet appeased. The offended widow loudly declared that she would willingly, if in her power, punish the transgressor with stripes ; and numerous friends sympathized with her outraged feelings. But now that nearly fifty years have passed, what is the true estimate to be placed upon the book ? Next to Washington, what general of revolutionary memory has so wide a fame? From the Hudson to the extremity of the Far West, from Florida to the Falls of St. Anthony, his name is perpetuated in towns, counties, and colleges. And what is the cause of this unusual popularity ? Surely not the brief notices of his exploits in any general history of the war. Surely not the extensive circulation of his biography by Judge James.' No ; it is the
1 We do not mention Simms' Biography, because that, having been exe- cuted within a few years, has had, and could have had, no influence in pro- ducing this effect.
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irresistible influence of Weems' book-a work whose popularity daily increases, and which is des- tined to transmit to posterity, in colors ever bright- ening, the memory of the active and clever leader of the undaunted Whigs of Carolina. Peaceful be the repose of the venerable lady and her generous allies ; they owe to their supposed calumniator a debt of gratitude. For so long as Marion's name shall be honored, prosperity will reverence the vir- tuous lady who blessed him with her love.
It is well known that General Marion never had a child. With that instinctive desire of living in posterity which clings to us and becomes more ur- gent as we advance towards the termination of our career, he adopted a nephew who assumed his name. But, by a singular fatality, this gentleman, who was twice married, and had eleven daughters, never had the happiness to see a son. Two young men, great-nephews of the General, are all who are left to perpetuate this ancient Huguenot name. It is to be hoped that they will be mindful of the sacred duty committed to them, and faithfully dis- charge it.
The most eminent military character which the revolution produced, in this parish, was Col. Heze- kiah Maham. Like the respected names of Gen- dron and Peyre, this, too, has become extinct. Maham was a colonel of cavalry in the revolution- ary war, and was distinguished not only for his
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gallantry, but also for a certain skill in the art of reducing fortified places. It was at his suggestion that the expedient was first adopted (similar, by the way, to the method practised in the middle ages) of constructing against such places a tower of logs so high as to command them. This was first practised at Fort Watson, and the description of Weems, which I give, is all that can be wished. " Finding that the fort mounted no artillery, Marion resolved to make his approaches in a way that should give his riflemen a fair chance against the mus- queteers. For this purpose large quantities of pine logs were cut, and, as soon as dark came on, were carried in perfect silence within point-blank shot of the fort, and run up in the shape of large pens or chimney stacks considerably higher than the enemy's parapets. Great, no doubt, was the consternation of the garrison next morning, to see themselves thus suddenly overlooked by this strange kind of steeple, pouring down upon them from its blazing tops incessant showers of rifle bullets. . . . Our
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