USA > South Carolina > A Contribution to the History of the Huguenots of South Carolina: Consisting of Pamphlets > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10
riflemen lying above them, and firing through loop- holes, were seldom hurt ; while the British, obliged every time they fired, to show their heads, were frequently killed." Weems, who does not once mention Maham's name in his book, ascribes the invention solely to Marion. Lee, on the contrary, gives Maham credit both for the design and the execution ; and he frequently, afterwards, speaks of
II2
HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SKETCH OF
the Maham tower, as an efficient and decisive means of reducing the simple forts of the interior.
Not the least evil attendant upon civil war is, that notions of right and wrong become so con- founded in our minds, that we are more disposed to reconcile morality with practice, than practise morality. They who see acts of aggression and violence practised with applause, are apt to forget that they are commendable only under the severe law of necessity, and that under other circumstances they are rightly considered as crimes. Men, whose opinions are entitled to respect, have not hesitated to ascribe the public crimes, which not long since afflicted England, to the violences which the cir- cumstances of civil war justified or excused ; so that many a marauder and highwayman only continued as a crime that course of life which he had been en- couraged to commence as a duty.
These consecutive evils of civil war were felt in Carolina. After the revolution, the highways were unsafe. Many now living recollect that persons rarely ventured to travel the Goose Creek road without arms ; and the public execution of a man and his wife, in Charleston, for highway robbery, as late as 1820, bear fearful testimony to the insecurity of life and property, even in the neighborhood of the metropolis.
Besides highway robbery, horse-stealing was a common crime. Many engaged in it ; but two in-
II3
CRAVEN COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA.
dividuals, by name Roberts and Brown, organized it and conducted it as a matter of business. One, or both, of these men was hanged in Charleston, in 1789. They had their agents and depots ar- ranged and organized ; and from the Santee to the wilds of Florida, they and their confederates were at once the nuisance and the terror of the country.
Mr. Thomas Palmer lived on his plantation on Fair Forest Swamp. Like other planters of the times, he possessed a large and valuable collection of horses, one of which, called Fantail, was an especial favorite. Early one morning he discovered that his stables had been opened in the night, and his best horses stolen. The alarm was quickly spread, and in a few hours a party of gentlemen set off, under the lead of Col. Maham, in pursuit of the stolen property. It was difficult to track the fugi- tives, but as suspicion naturally rested on Roberts and his gang, they directed their course towards Orangeburg, which was one of his head-quarters. After travelling a few miles, they met Mr. René Ravenel, who, being informed of the object of their search, informed them that, having been out early that morning, he had seen a horse, about a quarter of a mile off, crossing the road ; that a momentary glance at the hinder part of the animal, which was all that he saw, convinced him that it was Mr. Palmer's horse. The circumstance would have passed from his memory but for this meeting. He
114
HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SKETCH OF
conducted the party to the spot ; numerous tracks were found, and the party, now confirmed in their suspicions, continued with renewed alacrity, deter- mined to make a certain house in Dean Swamp the first object of their visit.
A short time before nightfall they approached the house, and determined to remain concealed until the night should be well advanced. A horse was heard to neigh ; several answered, and Mr. Palmer, turning to Col. Maham, said : " Uncle Maham, I'll pledge my life that that is the voice of Fantail." A countryman happening to pass was detained as a prisoner. He acknowledged that he was bound to the house which the party intended to visit, and ac- quainted them that a large gathering of men and women was expected there that night for a frolic. With this information they were sure of their game ; and, having divided themselves into a convenient number of parties, they separated, appointing to approach the house on a certain signal, which would be given by Col. Maham. Every thing succeeded. When the noise within indicated that the frolic was going on fast and furious, the signal was given ; the parties simultaneously entered the house, and the marauders found themselves suddenly affronted by armed guests, whose presence boded them no good. They fled. The women, on the contrary, fought boldly ; and Col. Maham declared that if they had been seconded by their gallants the pursu-
115
CRAVEN COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA.
.
ing party would have been defeated. Aided by the courageous defence of the ladies, most of the ma- rauders escaped ; the captured were summarily dis- posed of ; each was tied to a tree and flogged. The party then, recovering their stolen horses, returned homewards, leaving their prisoners, each at his tree, to be relieved when their friends should have suffi- cient courage to go to their assistance.
Whatever may have been Col. Maham's reputa- tion as a soldier, it appears that he had rather crude notions of the duties of a citizen. He became in- debted, and his creditor was importunate. Recourse was had to legal process, and a sheriff's officer pro- ceeded to serve him with a writ.
One morning, just as the colonel was about to sit down to his breakfast, a stranger was announced. He went out to give him a hospitable greeting, and was instantly served with a writ. The old Whig surveyed the document with feelings of astonish- ment and indignation. That he, who had perilled his life and fortune in defence of his country's liber- ties, should be thus bearded in his own castle, and threatened with the loss of his own, was a thought not to be borne, and he instantly determined to make the unfortunate instrument of his creditor the victim. He returned the parchment to the officer with an order (and the colonel never gave a vain order) that he should instantly swallow it, and when the dry meal was fairly engulphed, he brought the
II6
HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SKETCH OF
man into the house and gave him good liquor to wash it down.
But the colonel discovered, like too many others who had borne the burden and heat of the day, that the civil power was in the ascendant, and that writs are not to be served up as a morning's meal. He fled the country, and remained an exile until the difficulty was removed by the intervention of his friends. He died as he had lived, on his plantation on Santee Swamp, and was buried there. His house was destroyed by fire many years since ; but we remember to have seen its chimneys standing. Within a few years a massive. marble monument, visible from the road, has been erected over his grave by his descendant, Lieut. Gov. Ward.
Until the year 1794, the citizens of this parish, like those of every other part of the State, lived always on their plantations throughout the year. Some of the more wealthy had town residences to which they resorted, partly for health, but chiefly for the convenience of educating their children.
The period between the close of the war and 1794 was full of disaster to the agriculturist. The bounty on indigo, which, under the fostering care of Great Britain, had rendered that plant the staple of South Carolina, having been of course with- drawn, indigo became thenceforth an unprofitable culture. The Santee Swamp, which appeared at one time to be an inexhaustible source of wealth,
117
CRAVEN COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA.
had become, from the frequency, the greatness, and the irregularity of the freshets in the river, ex- tremely precarious ; and many a planter, the amount of whose possessions would have ranked him among the wealthy, saw in his wealth only an increase of expense, and felt all the privations of poverty. In the year 1794 cotton was first cultivated in St. john's Parish by General Moultrie, and, in two years after, it became the staple of the country.
It had been observed that those persons who lived in the pine lands were usually exempt from those distressing autumnal intermittent fevers, which are the bane of our country, and several gentlemen determined to avail themselves of this fact for the purpose of improving the social condition of the country. Accordingly, in 1794, Capt. John Palmer, Capt. Peter Gaillard, Mr. John Cordes, Mr. Samuel Porcher, Mr. Peter Porcher, and Mr. Philip Por- cher, built for themselves houses in the pine land, near to each other, and thus laid the foundation of Pineville, the oldest settlement of the kind in the southern country. The experiment proved success- ful, and in a few years it became the summer resi- dence of the planters of St. Stephen's Parish, and of those of upper and middle St. John's.
Pineville is situated on a low, flat ridge, thickly covered with pines, and dotted with small ponds and savannahs. It lies two miles south of Santee Swamp, and five miles from the river. Though the
118
HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SKETCH OF
principal growth is pine, it is not what we call a pine barren ; for the red oak and the hickory, which flourish on a soil under which the clay lies at no great depth, indicate a considerable degree of nat- ural fertility. On the south, about a quarter of a mile from the nearest house, meanders the Crawl branch, a swampy stream which a few miles below feeds the Santee by the name of the Horsepen Creek ; at the same distance to the north is Mar- gate Swamp, a huckleberry bay, without any decided water-course, which protrudes from the Santee Swamp. At the period of its greatest prosperity the village contained about sixty substantial and well- built houses, each situated in a lot of from one to two acres in area. The pine trees were religiously preserved, not only within the lots, but without. Those which were uninclosed, being the property of the public, were protected by a fine of five dollars imposed on any person who should cut down or by any wanton injury threaten the life of a tree.
An opinion generally prevails that the village lost its healthfulness in consequence of the violation of these regulations by the people, who cut down their trees and cultivated gardens. Never was opinion more erroneous. In all of the original lots, traces of cultivation may be seen. It was not then considered dangerous to indulge in the luxury of a garden. Farms, too, appeared in close neighbor- hood to the village. On the west, Greenfield farm
119
CRAVEN COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA.
might be seen from the village. Clark's farm lay between it and the Crawl; and to the southwest, the Polebridge farm of Mr. Thos. Palmer, could be seen from our father's house. But in 1834 all this had been long changed. Not a garden cheered the eye of a resident ; and the corporation of the Pine- ville Academy had purchased all these farms, and abandoned them to the possession of the pines, for the purpose of insuring the healthfulness of the place.
Health, the primary object for which Pineville was settled, being attained, the other objects soon followed, of course. In 1805 a grammar-school was established and chartered under the name of the Pineville Academy, and commenced a prosper- ous career under the administration of Mr. Alpheus Baker, a native of New Hampshire. Mr. Baker's reputation attracted students from various parts of the country, and his administration was, ever after- wards, regarded as a standard by which the merit of any of his successors was to be judged. He was followed, successively, by Mr. Lowry, Mr. Snowden, and Mr. Stephens, all of South Carolina; Mr. Gor- don, of Maine, Mr. Gillet of Vermont, Messrs. Cain, Daniel, and Furman, of South Carolina ; Messrs. Fisk, Houghton, Gere, and Leland, of Massachusetts. On the death of the last-named gentleman, in 1836, of the prevailing epidemic, all confidence in the healthfulness of the village being
120
HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SKETCH OF
lost, the exercises of the school were, for several years, suspended.
Besides these gentlemen here named, others were occasionally employed as assistants, whenever the number of scholars justified the expenditure ; and, until the breaking up of the village, in 1836, the state of the school generally warranted the employment of an assistant. The principal teacher was elected by the Board of Trustees for one year. He was provid- ed with a house, received a salary of a thousand dol- lars, and was required to receive a certain number of boarders at a fixed rate. These boarders were for the winter months only, as their parents were gener- ally in the village in the summer. It would, per- haps, be invidious to notice more particularly any of these gentlemen. I shall make one exception. Mr. Yorick Sterne Gordon appeared before the trustees with credentials from the highest authority in New England. A letter from the venerable Jedediah Morse secured his election. He went to Pineville with a large collection of school-books, all of which he introduced into the academy, and on his first appearance in the school-room spoke so threateningly to the boys, that such an impression was made on their minds, that he never had occa- sion to resort to punishment. He exacted lessons from the boys of inordinate length, and many a tear have we shed when bedtime found us with our task not more than half accomplished. Never did
121
CRAVEN COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA.
man so completely subdue the spirits of a set of boys. And yet, out of school, he was sociable, and appeared disposed to promote their little pleasures ; but still he was uncertain, and had we been more conversant with the world, we should have called him capricious. At a certain hour every day he was in the habit of retiring from the school-house to his dwelling, where he would spend a short time; on his return he was observed never to follow the beaten path, but to approach the school-house by zig-zag lines ; and, to our simple apprehensions, this strange conduct was supposed to be directed with a view of keeping the window of the school- house always in sight, so that he could watch the boys even when he was not present. How long this fascination might have lasted I cannot say ; for in less than three months after his installation, the spring holidays, for a fortnight, commenced, and, before they were over, Mr. Gordon was dead. He died of delirium tremens, and his assistant declared that he had not been sober a single day since his arrival.
The people of Pineville, would never become a corporate body. All administrative powers were, therefore, assumed by the Board of Trustees. Those being overseers of a school, they gradually became the council of a town, thus happily illustrat- ing the insidious progress of usurpation. They ac- quired, either by gift or purchase, all the unoccupied lands, and as owners of the soil, made such whole-
1
122
HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SKETCH OF
some regulations as circumstances appeared to demand.
In addition to the school, a public library was or- ganized. This, we believe, was originated by the public spirit of Mr. Robert Marion, formerly a member of Congress from the Charleston district. The first house used for the purpose had been a chapel of ease to the parish church, about two miles to the west of the village. After the erection of the church in Pineville, this chapel became useless, and it was taken down and rebuilt in Pineville. A partition wall divided it into two rooms, whereof the inner one was set apart for the reception of books, and the outer, being a sort of ante-chamber, was used on public occasions as a town hall. In this room the patriots usually celebrated the Fourth of July, and on that day the walls, which had formerly reechoed only to the sound of anthems and holy songs, were made to resound with the noise of rev- elry and uproarious patriotism. In 1826 a new library building was erected, and the old one, being sold at public auction, was purchased by a person who used the materials for the construction of a livery stable. As it is fashionable to call all libra- ries select, we suppose we must apply the epithet to this one also. But as we cannot find any catalogue of books which exceeds a thousand volumes, we are constrained to add that it does not appear to re- flect much credit on the literary enterprise of the
123
CRAVEN COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA.
citizens. With the destruction of Pineville that of the library followed. The books were either lost or destroyed, and we doubt whether the shelves now contain a single volume.
The citizens of Pineville being all planters, long residents in the country, and for the most part de- scendants of the Huguenots of Santee Parish, were almost, as a matter of course, attached to the Epis- copal Church. For several years after the founda- tion of the village, divine service continued to be performed in the parish church. But the course of events changed completely the condition of the parish, and by the year 1808 the church was, as it were, left in the wilderness, and the service discon- tinued. For a short period Mr. Baker officiated, every Sunday, as lay reader in the chapel, near the village, and it was then determined to enjoy the advantages of religious worship at home. A neat wooden church was accordingly erected in the vil- lage, and placed under the rectorship of the Rev. C. B. Snowden. Chapels for winter service, by the same rector, were soon afterwards erected in St. John's Berkeley, at Black Oak, and the Rocks, so that, though there were three different places of worship, the congregation was considered but one.
The erection of the two chapels in St. John's Berkeley gave rise to a lawsuit of a singular charac- ter, which completely destroyed the social relations existing between the upper and lower portions of
124
HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SKETCH OF
that parish ; but as this is foreign to the history of Craven County, we shall not notice it here.
After a service of about ten years Mr. Snowden retired from the rectorship of the church, and was succeeded by the Rev. D. J. Campbell, who died at his post in 1840. The churches were then vacant for nearly three years, until, in 1842, they were filled by the present worthy and efficient rector, Mr. W. Dehon, who is assisted by the Rev. C. P. Gadsden.1
In the olden time a sermon was preached every Sunday morning. In the afternoon the congrega- tion re-assembled, and evening prayers were read. No sermon followed ; none was expected ; I may add, none was desired.
In most country churches there is some difficulty about singing. Many, who can sing, shrink from the notoriety of assuming the functions of chorister, and very often the office is discharged by one who has no merit beyond his zeal to recommend his per- formance. This difficulty was generally experienced in Pineville, and the whole service was frequently performed without music. Old Capt. Palmer, the patriarch of the village, certainly possessed no mu- sical talents, but he had zeal, and fancied that he could accomplish the hundredth psalm. This was, accordingly, the standing psalm of the morning ; and the old chorister, taking courage from his suc- cess, would, at times, boldly undertake other pieces
1 Mr. Gadsden is now Assistant Rector of St. Philip's Church, Charleston.
125
CRAVEN COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA.
of music. Now it is always the fate of a country chorister to be the object of envy. They who wit- ness his success are apt to fancy they can do equally well. It so happens, therefore, that the chorister is liable to perpetual attacks, and if he is not very prompt, will find the song taken out of his mouth by these pretenders. So hath it ever been. So was it with Capt. Palmer. Others attempted to take the lead, but the indignant musician was not to be driven from his post. Sing he would ; and it was not uncommon for a whole stanza to be sung at the same time to two different tunes. In the end, however, all competition ceased, and the old gentle- man reigned undisputed Director of Music.' It cannot be denied that, for a considerable period, our prophecy had a literal fulfilment in Pineville, for the songs of the temple were howlings. One incident occurred there lately, of so ludicrous a character that I cannot help narrating it, though it may ap- pear inconsistent with the dignity of history. The rector was in feeble health ; he had given out a
' This difficulty appears, by an old tradition, to have been unfelt by our ancestors. Their zeal was frequently too ardent, and the delicate ear of the parson was in danger of being overpowered by strong and discordant voices. Mr. Richebourg, the pastor of Jamestown, whose attachment to Mr. Gendron was so naively exhibited, as described in our notice of James- town, was not blinded by his friendship into any indiscreet admiration of his voice. Thus, after announcing the hymn, he would say : " Don't sing, Mr. Gendron ; your voice is like a goat's ; you be quiet. Mr. Guerry, your voice is sweet ; you may sing." I presume Capt. Palmer inherited both the voice and the zeal of his great ancestor.
126
HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SKETCH OF
hymn to be sung before the sermon, and retired to the vestry-room to make the usual change of his vestments. The worthy chorister, who from his place could see indistinctly into the vestry-room, fancied that he saw the rector in a recumbent posi- tion, and imagined that, fatigued with the morning service, he was taking repose. Determined, there- fore, to allow him ample time to rest himself, he had no sooner finished the hymn than he recommenced it, and sang it over again, to the astonishment of the whole congregation, as well as of the rector, who had entered the pulpit unperceived by his wor- thy friend, and was quietly waiting for the music to cease in order to begin his sermon.
About the year 1822 or 1823, a peripatetic sing- ing-master visited Pineville, and, partly for the pur- pose of improvement in psalmody, partly to vary the general monotony of village life, the young peo- ple formed a class, which he instructed every alter- nate Saturday.
All professional singing-masters have something odd about them. Their vocation is to teach sacred music, and whether it is that they are laboring to reconcile their manners with the supposed dignity of their employment, or whether it is owing to something in the very nature of the calling which makes the profession ridiculous, we cannot deter- mine. Certain it is, however, that from the time of David Gamut (who, by the way, was not created
1
127
CRAVEN COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA.
when our singing-master flourished), down to the itinerant professor of Tinkum, the professor of the science of psalmody has ever been the butt of ridi- cule. Burbidge, the Pineville professor, was no ex- ception, but owing to the habitual gravity of his scholars he experienced less, perhaps, than most others have done elsewhere. Who he was, or whence he came, we could never learn. Regu- larly, on every alternate Saturday, he was at his post in the church, instructed his class, and after partaking of the hospitality of a friendly bachelor, who most irreverently made game of him, he ap- peared at church next day and comforted the heart of the good rector by discharging, ex cathedra, the office of chorister. This done, he disappeared, and no more was heard of him for a fortnight. He was a brownish man, about the middle size, with jet black, curly, or ratherish kinky hair, very knock- kneed, and his skin-tight nankeen trousers scarcely reaching below the calf, displayed this perfection of his figure to the greatest advantage. At that time psalmody was always taught by means of what was called solmization, or a systematic arrangement of the syllables, sol, la, mi, fa, by which a tune was sung in all of its parts without any reference to the words ; and the great point for the learner to ascer- tain, in order to accomplish this, was to determine the place of mi. Now we have no doubt all this was no more intelligible to Burbidge than it is to
128 HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SKETCH OF
the greater part of our readers. To supply the de- ficiency of ignorant teachers, books were printed, in which these mystic syllables are indicated by the shape of the notes ; but these, of course, would never be employed by a really competent teacher. This book, however, Burbidge used. His class was arranged in three divisions, forming three sides of a square ; on the right sat the bass, in the centre the air, and the treble on the left. He stood in the centre. Then, after preluding a few notes, giving the pitch to each of the parts in succession, the music would commence, and he, with the palm of his left hand turned upwards, and that of his right downwards, would beat time, imitating the motions of a top sawyer. His class was decorous, but de- corum could not always resist the strange effect of his solemn motions. We have seen mæstri in vari- ous opera-houses in Europe and America, and have sometimes laughed at the enthusiasm they displayed, but never did we see one more thoroughly occupied in admiration of his work than this humble mæstro of the village school.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.