USA > South Carolina > Marion County > A history of Marion county, South Carolina, from its earliest times to the present, 1901 > Part 3
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
every one planted a little patch for domestic use, and that little was freed from the seed by the fingers. A grown hand could not pick more than a pound a day, and did well to pick that much. This was tedious, and so expensive that none but the rich could afford to buy it. (American History, by Mont- gomery, p. 196) : "By the use of Whitney's machine, one man could clean in a single day a thousand pounds." Now, at this writing, 40,000 pounds may be cleaned of seed and packed and hooped for market in one day. The same author says: "In 1784, we had exported (from the cotton belt) eight bags, or about 3,000 pounds of cotton to Liverpool. The cotton was seized by the English custom officers on the ground that the United States could not have produced such a prodigious quantity, and that the captain of some vessel must have smug- gled it from some other country. Ten years after Whitney had put his machine into operation (1803), we were exporting over 100,000 bags of cotton, or more than 40,000,000 pounds, and every year saw an enormous increase. The effect at home was equally marked. Hundreds of cotton mills for the manu- facture of cotton cloth were built in New England. At the South, the raising of cotton became immensely profitable, and planters gave more and more land to it. Up to this period, many men in both sections of the country had deplored the holding of slaves. They had earnestly discussed how to rid the country of what was felt to be both an evil of itself and a danger to the nation. The invention of the cotton gin put a stop to the discussion in great measure; for now the Southern planters and Northern manufacturers of cotton both found it to their interest to keep the negro in bondage, since by his labor they were both rapidly growing rich. Few, even of the ablest minds, of that time realized what we all see to-day ; that in the end free labor is cheaper, safer and better than any other." The author says : "To sum up, Whitney's great inven- tion of 1793 did four things: ( 1) It stimulated the production of cotton and made it one of the leading industries of the country. (2) It increased our exports immensely. (3) It caused the building of great numbers of cotton mills at the North. (4) It made a large class, both North and South, interested in maintaining slave labor." In a note to the fore-
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
going quotation, the author says: "Whitney received fifty thousand dollars for his invention from South Carolina, be- sides something from several other Southern States." Such was the impetus given to the production of cotton by the inven- tion of Whitney, that, in the short space of two years, South Carolina, in 1795, exported to England cotton to the value of £1,109,653 (Ramsay's History of South Carolina, vol. II., p. 120). What an enormous increase! The author does not say how many bags or how many pounds were shipped, nor what it brought per pound-he only gives the total value, which is equivalent to $5,000,000. The increase in production must have been fabulous, or prices of the staple must have been fab- ulous. We suppose South Carolina must have gone into its production with a vim, as she bought the right to use it for $50,000, and "Munificently threw open its use and benefit to all its citizens." (Ramsay, II. vol., 121.) The invention of the Whitney saw gin was and is the greatest invention of modern times. From that time to this it has been the means of expand- ing our commerce to vast proportions. Has been the means not only of clothing the civilized world, but it gives remuner- ative employment to millions, and by which they obtain their daily bread. It overshadows every other invention of any age, ancient or modern. Many other inventions since Whit- ney's, of immense use, are now to be counted, but they sink into insignificance when compared with the result of the Whit- ney saw gin. Machinery for the manufacturing of cotton cloth soon followed, first in England, then in the United States, and they are now to be found in every civilized country of the world. It has enterprized and vitalized almost every other useful art which contributes to the happiness of man in every clime. Its production has increased from eight small bags crudely put up, exported previous to Whitney's invention, and which was seized by the custom house officials in Liverpool, on the ground that so much cotton could not have been made and exported in the United States, and, there- fore, was smuggled from some other country, to the prodigious number of 11,000,000 bales much heavier than those seized as smuggled. Cotton has been called "King;" and that is no mis- nomer. The writer will not now enter into a discussion of the
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
question as to whether cotton is entitled to that high distinc- tion to wear the title of "King."
Marion County, if she has not been magna pars fui, she has been minime pars fui, not in a disparaging sense of the latter term. She has done and is doing her full share in utilizing the benefits of Whitney's inventive brain. From a wilderness, say, 170 years ago, she has converted much of her territory to fertile fields, and including that part of her territory now in Florence County, she makes at least 50,000 bales of cotton.
The first great article of export from Carolina was rice, raised mostly on tidewater lands. The second was indigo. The first indigo seed was introduced into South Carolina by "Miss Eliza Lucas, the mother of Major General Charles Cotes- worth Pinckney. Her father, George Lucas, Governor of Antigua (one of the West India Islands), observing her fond- ness for the vegetable world, frequently sent her tropical seeds and fruits to be planted for her amusement on his plantation at Wappoo (near Charleston). Among others he sent her some indigo seed as a subject of experiment. She planted it in March, 1741 or 1742 ; it was destroyed by frost. She repeated the experiment in April ; this was cut down by a worm. Not- withstanding these discouragements, she persevered, and her third attempt was successful. Governor Lucas (her father), on hearing that the plant had seeded and ripened, sent from Montserrat a man by the name of Cromwell, who had been accustomed to the making of indigo, and engaged him at high wages to come to Carolina and let his daughter see the whole process for extracting the dye from the weed. This professed indigo maker built vats on the Wappoo Creek, and there made the first indigo that was formed in Carolina. It was but indif- ferent. Cromwell repented of his engagement as being likely to injure his own country, made a mystery of the business, and with the hope of deceiving, injured the process by throw- ing in too much lime. Miss Lucas watched him carefully, and also employed Mr. Deveaux to superintend his operations. Notwithstanding the duplicity of Cromwell, a knowledge of the process was obtained. Soon after Miss Lucas had com- pletely succeeded in this useful project she married Charles Pinckney, and her father made a present of all the indigo on
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
his plantation, the fruit of her industry, to her husband. The whole was saved for seed. Part was planted by the proprietor next year at Ashepoo, and the remainder given away to his friends in small quantities, for the same purpose. They all succeeded. From that time the culture of indigo was common, and in a year or two an article of export. Soon after the dye was successfully extracted from the cultivated plant, Mr. Cattel made a present to Mr. Pinckney of some wild indigo, which he had just discovered in the woods of Carolina. Ex- periments were instituted to ascertain its virtues. It proved to be capable of yielding good indigo, but was less productive than what had been imported. The attention of the planters was fixed on the latter. They urged its culture with so much industry and success, that in the year 1747 a considerable quan- tity of it was sent to England; which induced the merchants trading in Carolina to petition Parliament for a bounty on Carolina indigo * * * Accordingly, an Act of Parliament was passed in the year 1748 for allowing a bounty of six pence per pound on indigo raised in the British American plantations, and imported directly into Britain from the place of its growth. In consequence of this Act the planters applied themselves with double vigor and spirit to that article, and seemed to vie with each other who should bring the best kind and greatest quantity of it to market. Some years indeed elapsed before they found out the nice art of making it as good as the French; but every year they improved in the mode of preparing it and finally received great profit as the reward of their labors. While many of them doubled their capital every three or four years by planting indigo; they, in process of time, brought it to such a degree of perfection as not only to supply the mother country, but also to undersell the French at several European markets. It proved more really beneficial to Caro- lina than the mines of Mexico or Peru are or have been either to old or new Spain. In the year 1754, the export of indigo from the province amounted to 216,924 pounds, and shortly before the American Revolution it had arisen to 1,107,660 pounds. In the Revolutionary War it was less attended to than rice. In the year 1783, it again began to be more culti- vated-2,05I casks of indigo was exported, and it continued to 3
1
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
form a valuable export for some years ; but large importations of it from the East Indies into England so lowered the price as to make it less profitable. Near the close of the eighteenth century it gave place to the cultivation of cotton." (Ramsay, II. vol., 118 and 119.) Eli Whitney's invention of the saw gin, in 1793, put a complete stop to the making of indigo-just so soon as the Whitney invention was introduced. From 1747 to 1793, many fortunes were made by raising and exporting indigo. It is true, that in this part of the province (what is now Marion County), other pursuits were remunerative. Stock raising was a money making business, and that, with indigo, during the period indicated, made many men rich- rich for that day and time and especially in the lower end of the county and on the Great Pee Dee River, where the range for stock was seemingly inexhaustible, and where the lands were well adapted to the production of indigo. As late as 1876, and since that time, the writer hereof, on a visit to old Ark Church, thirty-three miles below Marion Court House, in some old fields which had been thrown out on what was formerly Gene- ral Woodberry's plantation, saw stalks of indigo growing about in those old fields four or five feet high, limbed out vigorously, so much so that it attracted his attention. On getting to the "Ark," where he met a crowd of the citizens, and during his stay he inquired of some one-he thinks William Woodberry, son of the old General Woodberry-how it was that there was so much indigo growing in those old fields. The answer was, that in former times the people planted much indigo in that region for market, and although its culture had been aban- doned for years, yet it had perpetuated itself from year to year, and was there regarded as wild indigo. The writer has seen it in various places in the county and in Robeson County, N. C., adjoining Marion County, when a boy and even since manhood; but always supposed it to be wild indigo, until better informed by reading the early history of the State, and what he was told by Mr. William Woodberry in 1876 as to that then growing in that part of the county. In 1848, the writer bought the place on which he soon afterwards settled, in the fork of the two Reedy Creeks, about three miles above the town of Latta. Most of the lands that had been cleared had
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
been thrown out; that one field, which it was said had been cleared more than a hundred years, not a stump in it, right in the Big Creek, and a point of the field ran down as it were into the creek, so that the creek was on three sides of the point. On that point the writer saw several stalks of indigo very luxurious in growth; the land was rich, and he then supposed it was wild indigo. The land was soon taken in and the indigo destroyed. He now supposes it was the cultivated indigo, and that it perpetuated itself as did that in Woodberry Township. Old Colonel Elisha Bethea, who was born and raised near by, informed the writer that the Murfies, from Great Pee Dee, of whom more will be said hereinafter, used to bring their stock out there on account of the reed range in those creeks every winter; that they penned them in that field above spoken of, and it was said marked 300 calves every spring. Old Colonel Elisha Bethea further said that his father, old Buck Swamp John Bethea, of whom more will be said hereafter, after he came there marked often 100 calves every spring. It is not difficult to infer that some of the previous owners of the place planted and raised indigo for market on those lands, and when abandoned and the land thrown out, the indigo sprang up every year, and thus perpetuated itself, and had continued to do so year after year till 1850, when the writer saw it there, as above set forth. It is certain that indigo was planted and cultivated as a money crop within the bounds of what was afterwards Marion District and is now Marion County. "Fortunes were made rapidly by its cultivation." (Gregg's History of the Old Cheraws, p. 112.) In a note appended, the same author (Gregg) says: "As an illustration of the value of the crop, it may be mentioned that General Harrington sent three four- horse wagon loads to Virginia, and with the proceeds of the sale bought from fifteen to twenty negroes." The same author (p. 112) says: "It brought at one time $4 to $5 per pound." In a note to the same he says: "The account sales of one cask of indigo shipped to London from the Pee Dee in 1766, shows that it commanded 2s. and 3d. per pound, amount- ing to £37 4s. and 3d., the bounty on it, £3 13s. and 4d .; the total expense of the shipment from Charleston £3 6s. and 4d."
Many people in the county continued to plant it for domestic
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
use long after it was abandoned in 1793 as a money crop. Our mothers and great-grand-mothers were necessarily obliged to keep up its culture, with which to dye their thread which was woven into cloth to clothe their families with. In the latter part of the eighteenth and first part of the nineteenth centuries, there were no cotton mills; every family had to manufacture its own cloth, whether of wool or cotton. It was not until far in the nineteenth century that manufactured cloth could be bought because of its scarcity and because of its price, and a vast majority of our grand-mothers were thus forced to make their own cloth, and many of them preferred the domestic article to the manufactured. They were provided with their spinning wheels and cotton cards, their reels and warping bars, their slags and weaving harness and their looms. Every family was of necessity possessed of these implements for making cloth, and indigo blue was indispensible in coloring their thread, and hence every family had their annual patch of indigo, and all were familiar with the process of extracting the dye from the indigo weed. All were scientists to that extent. As a safeguard to this species of domestic property, the law of the land threw around it its protecting aegis. In 1823, our State Legislature passed an Act exempting from levy and sale under execution to every family certain property of the execution debtor, to wit : One pair of cards, one spinning wheel and loom, and other articles (I have not the Act before me), showing the necessity of these articles to every family. Many of our mothers did not give up the making of cloth for their family's use for many years after 1823, and a few not until after the Confederate War, and there may be some that yet continue to make their own homespun. Every mother had her indigo patch ; it was as indispensible to her as was her vegetable garden. The writer's mother never did abandon the home industry of making cloth entirely, up to the time of her death, in 1868; she had her little indigo patch every year ; she spun and wove her own cloth while she lived. The blockade of the war did not affect her in that regard-she had her wheel and cotton cards, loom, &c., and she knew how to use them. Being cut off from all commerce with the outside world for four years, many of our people were put to it to supply cloth-
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
ing to their families. They had no implements for making cloth for domestic use. To get cards was the greatest trouble-they could not be had except through blockade run- ners, and only at enormous prices. Few had any of the old spinning wheels or looms and other necessary implements for making cloth, and when they were procured or made, many did not know how to use them. These troubles of our people are better remembered by many now living than can be ex- pressed. In the writer's mother's case, she was in no way nonplussed, as she had all the apparatus for making cloth, and knew how to use them. Such women were in demand during the war blockade. They could teach their less provi- dent neighbor women how to make indigo and how to extract the dye; how to card and spin the cotton into thread, and how to dye it, not only with indigo blue but with other improvised dyes ; how to warp it and put it through the slays and harness, and then how to weave it. We cannot now well see how the people could have gotten along without these domestic and provident mothers and grand-mothers. Bless their memory! Though many of them are dead, yet they live in recollection at least, "honored and sung." The prettiest dresses for ladies, the writer ever saw, were of homespun tastefully streaked and striped with domestic dye, and made in the style of the times, and worn by our mothers and daughters on public occasion, at church, &c., only. They were admired by all and appreciated by all. This latter sentiment was what, in the main, imparted to them beauty and high adornment. For the first thirty years or more of the nineteenth century, the house- wives of the country made cloth to sell to the merchants, who in that day and time bought it, especially where it was paid for in trade. The writer's mother, when he was a boy, would make cloth, and carry it to Fair Bluff, Leesville and Lumber- ton, N. C., and sell it or barter it for other goods with the merchants. The prices paid for it were remunerative, depend- ing on the quality of the cloth, ranging from 25 cents to $2 per yard-the latter price for the finest jeans cloth. In con- nection with this subject, the making and selling or bartering of home-made cloth, I will relate an incident which occurred when I was a boy, from the year 1828 to 1832. My mother
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
and one Susan Rosier, a maiden lady rather above the mar- riageable age, a near neighbor and who went by the name of "Sookey Rosier," and though near neighbors, the State line divided them, my mother living on the North Carolina side of the line and Miss Rosier on the South Carolina side. Each made a piece of cloth for sale. They carried it to Fair Bluff, N. C., and offered and did sell it to a merchant doing business there, by the name of Colin McRae, a young man from Marl- borough District. My mother sold hers, I think, at 30 cents per yard, and Miss Rosier was offered 40 cents per yard for hers. She said she could not take that for hers ; the merchant said that was all he could give for it. She said she set her price on her cloth before she left home, and if she did not get that, she would carry it back home. McRae, the merchant, asked what was the price fixed; she replied, "A quarter and seven pence a yard," and if she did not get that she would carry it back home. McRae, the merchant, said to her, "Madam, I have offered you more than that-that 40 cents was more than 'a quarter and seven pence ;'" to which she replied, "You can't fool me; if I do not get 'a quarter and seven pence' for it, I will carry it back home." My mother, standing by, said to her, "He has offered you more than that;" to which Miss Rosier replied, "I know better than that; I am not going to be fooled by any of you." Whereupon McRae said to her, "Well, I will give you 'a quarter and seven pence' a yard for your cloth rather than you shall carry it back home with you," which was her price. And she went home satisfied. A remarkable instance of gross ignorance (crassa ignorantia). "A quarter and seven pence" was only thirty-seven and a half cents. However, notwithstanding her gross ignorance, she knew how to make good cloth-she had been trained in that art. The family, not many years afterward, sold out and removed to some other parts, and so far as that family is concerned, the name has become extinct in Marion County. S. S. Rozier at Dillon, we think, is of a different family. The family of "Sookey" Rosier lived on Cowpen Swamp, which rises in North Carolina, and runs south and empties into Bear Swamp, just below Page's Mill, and just above Bear Swamp Baptist Church. The Rozier place was on the west side of said Cow-
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
pen Swamp, and was afterwards bought by Zany Rogers, an older brother of our respected fellow-citizen, Captain Robt. H. Rogers ; and I suppose Zany Rogers died there. The writer has not seen the place in sixty-five or more years. It is a fine region in upper Marion, in Hillsboro Township, and was, when the writer last saw it, almost wholly undeveloped, but now, it is learned, that it is greatly developed and fast coming to the front.
SECTION IV. Stock Raising.
From the first settlements in South Carolina down, even to the present time, a period of more than two hundred years, stock raising for market has been a profitable pursuit in all the State, and especially in the lower or eastern portions of the State, in which Marion County is located. Intersected as it is, by the Pee Dee and Lumber Rivers, with numerous inland creeks, swamps and bays, it afforded a splendid and extensive range for cattle and hogs. Luxurious bodies of reeds were in the swamps and low grounds of the three rivers, and in the inland swamps and bays of the county; the uncleared uplands everywhere covered with a heavy annual crop of nutri- tious grass in summer for cattle to browse upon; the swamps, and especially the river swamps, teeming with acorns, and the pine woods bearing every year quantities of mast-pure mast. The enterprising and sagacious settler quickly saw the money in it, and at once utilized the bounties of nature around him, which he could do without much labor. All he had to do was to watch and attend to his stocks of cattle and hogs, and feed them just enough to keep them gentle. The range was sufficient to maintain and fatten for market large droves of cattle and hogs with little or no expense or labor. In the first instance, he had to have a road to market, and the means of crossing rivers and other inland streams. With these facili- ties he was in easy reach of Charleston, his only market in the State. These facilities were not loug in being procured and established. Bishop Gregg, in his history, page 76, says: "Stock raising was the most profitable business, and laid the foundation of fortunes which rapidly increased." Stock rais-
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
ing in Marion County, from its earliest settlement, was a common and very profitable business, and some of the largest fortunes made in the territory now embraced in this county were made by raising stock and carrying it to market. In Bishop Gregg's History, p. II0, he says : "The stock was driven to Charleston and other places on the coast, as well as to more distant markets. Large numbers of cattle were sent from Pee Dee to Philadelphia." The same author further says, on page 68: "Stock raising was the most profitable business, Charleston affording a good market for all that the industrious settlers could carry thither." This was about 1735. In a note to page IIO, the same author says: "It is related of Malachi Murphy, who drove many beeves annually to Philadelphia, that on one occasion he was the owner of a famous beast called 'Blaze Face,' of great size and unusual sagacity, which he sold in Philadelphia. On the night of his return home to Pee Dee, and soon after his arrival he heard the low of 'Blaze Face.' He had escaped and followed close upon the track of his owner, swimming rivers and distancing all pursuers. Mr. Murphy drove him a second time to Philadelphia, and again he returned. Such a spirit was worthy of a better fate, but did not shield the bold rover. He was taken a third time to Philadelphia and came back no more. This was related to the author by the late John D. Witherspoon, of Society Hill." This same Mala- chi Murphy (Murfee, originally spelled), was one of the four brothers, who settled on the Great Pee Dee about 1735, at a place then called Sandy Bluff, afterwards known as Solomon's Landing, and is just above the railroad crossing, and of whom more may yet be said-became very wealthy from stock raising, and of whom Bishop Gregg, p. 72, says: "Of these, Malachi became the most wealthy. He is said to have given one hun- dred slaves to each of three sons. He died before the Revolu- tion." He took up large bodies of land up and down the Pee Dee River. Malachi Murphy, senior, had also three daughters. It is naturally to be supposed that he provided for his daughters as well as for his sons, and if so, he was certainly the wealth- iest man in the Pee Dee section of the province. We have no account that he made his money in any other way than by stock raising, yet we are bound to suppose that having as many
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