USA > South Carolina > Marion County > A history of Marion county, South Carolina, from its earliest times to the present, 1901 > Part 50
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
son was no ordinary man-a born leader, and, with all, was very popular, shrewd and sagacious ; he represented the county in the House and Senate; was also a member of the Secession Convention in December, 1860; he commanded respect in whatever position he was placed-a high-toned gentleman and of the strictest integrity.
In former times there was another family of Johnsons in the Temperance Hill and Buck Swamp region, of prominence and standing, but by death and emigration they have dwindled to only a few. Old Enos Tart's wife, "Susannah," was a daugh- ter of one of these old Johnsons. The mother of old John and Absalom Turbeville was another daughter, and, doubtless, there were others of that generation, but the writer has not been able to get them in any traceable shape. The late Samuel, Carey and David Johnson were descendants, also Hardy and Zeno, and, perhaps others, all from the same stock. These de- scendants, as known to the writer, are and were good, honest men, respectable citizens all of them. Samuel Johnson, whose wife was a Turbeville and still survives, was a most excellent citizen, died childless. Carey and David had families, more or less large ; also Hardy and Zeno. David Johnson left, I think, two children, who are now among us. One of his daughters, Anne, married Milton F. Price, a nephew of the writer; they have a family of five or six children, only one son among them, Connerly, by name, a grown young man, steady and level- headed, a promising boy.
Seventy years ago there was another Johnson, suppose not connected with any of the above named Johnsons, whose name was Lewis Johnson. He lived then and owned the place after- wards owned and occupied by old Dew Rogers, on the north side of Bear Swamp, below Gaddy's Mill, on the road leading to Fair Bluff, N. C .; he was well-to-do, and then an old man ; he had an only son, Allen, who married a Miss Elvington, sis- ter of old Jessee Elvington ; he settled and lived on the road to Fair Bluff, lower down the swamp, opposite or rather below Page's Mill (then called Ford's Mill), and on Cowpen Swamp -place now owned by Isaac Spivey or estate of the late Joseph N. Page. The son, Allen Johnson, had also an only child, a son, named Alexander, with whom the writer went to school,
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
in 1832-Alexander was then grown ; the next year, I think, in 1833, Alexander married a Miss Thompson, daughter of "Moccasin-jawed" William Thompson, three or four miles be- low Lumberton, N. C. There was something peculiarly ro- mantic in the incidents to that marriage, which from their character are worth relating at this late day. Old man Thomp- son was a well-to-do man, of more than ordinary intelligence, but very unique ; had an angular character-some of the angles were very acute, others were obtuse, more generally acute. Young Johnson had been paying attentions to his daughter, Mary, for some time, and the old gentleman, suspecting that matters between the young couple were about to come to a focus, kept out of Johnson's way, to prevent Johnson asking for her-or, rather, the old man's consent to their marriage. It was said old man Thompson, having several daughters, never consented to any of their marriages. Johnson went two or three times, intending to ask for her, but never could meet up with the old man, who managed to elude him. He asked the mother, who readily consented-it was a very good match for her daughter, and the old lady had sense enough to see it. At last Johnson met up with the old man one morning early-as he was making off to avoid Johnson, but the young man antici- pated him, and met him as he was going off. Very unexpect- edly to the old man, Johnson "popped" the question to him. The old gentleman replied, "I cannot consent to it, but you and Mary can do as you please." This satisfied Johnson-think- ing, although he did not consent to it, yet that he would not oppose the marriage. The old man pretended to be in a hurry and left him. A time was appointed for the marriage. John- son lived in Marion, some eighteen or twenty miles from Thompson. On the morning appointed for the marriage, at breakfast, old man Thompson said Mary should not marry Johnson-that he intended to take Mary and carry her off, if he had to tie her to carry her. The old lady and Mary, know- ing the old man so well, suspected some sort of trouble with him about it, and they had everything ready to spirit Mary away, with her trousseau, clothing, &c. Mary got up and left the table." The old man said he would go and get a line to tie her with, and went out-ostensibly to get it. The old lady
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
followed Mary, and got a negro to take her to the Widow Pit- man's, who lived on the road that Johnson would travel in coming. Mrs. Pitman, I think, was a sister of Mrs. Thompson (I suppose Mrs. Pitman had been posted before). The negro carried Mary to Mrs. Pitman's, and Mrs. P. sent her into a bay not far off on the road, and put one of her own negroes on the road near the bay to cutting wood-this negro was let into the secret, and instructed to tell Johnson, as he passed, where Mary was. Johnson did come that afternoon, with some few friends, and among them Major Benjamin Lee, who was a Magistrate, brought along to perform, as he supposed, the ceremony at old man Thompson's house. When Johnson and his party ap- proached the negro cutting wood, the latter stopped him and told him where Mary was, and conducted him to her ; she came out of the bay, and Johnson took her in his gig (no buggies in that day), and they drove up to her Aunt Pitman's, and Squire Lee married them, and the party then rode back to Lee's (the White House), some twelve or fifteen miles, and there stayed all night. Next day Johnson carried his wife home, and they had a big infare, as it was called-to which the writer was in- vited and which he attended, and has personal knowledge of much of what has been written of this marriage. They lived there together. Johnson's father and mother having died, he sold out and went West, after having three or four children ; heard nothing from them since. Alexander Johnson was at least five or six years older than the writer. I am very sure there are none now living (1901) that ever saw old Lewis Johnson, and may be none that remember his son, Allen. The episode above written only impresses a lesson, long since learned by observant minds-that is, that when two young peo- ple, of opposite sexes, get it well into their heads to get mar- ried, the opposition of parents don't amount to much. It is about as easy to stop Pee Dee River from running as to pre- vent them, and especially when they have the mother on their side. Nothing will here be said of the lawyer Johnsons in Marion ; they are well known in the county and their names will herein be transmitted to succeeding generations among the list of lawyers practicing in the Courts of Marion since 1800, when the first Court was held in the county.
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
There are other old families and names in the county, which have not been specifically mentioned herein, for the want of knowledge or information concerning them-they are not omitted designedly. For instance, the Baxleys, the Drews, the Britton's Neck Watsons, the Williams, the Holdens, the Wall- ers and others. Of these, so far as known, they are all good people, honest, law-abiding and harmless-never heard of any one of them being in the criminal courts of the county. There are others in the county not mentioned herein, to wit : the Cald- ers, the Turners, the Cooks, the Barrentines and the Sweats. They are an humble, obscure and honest people; made good soldiers in the war; associate only with themselves, content to be humble and obscure, but are doing their part in the general make-up of the county, and contribute their share to its gene- ral prosperity ; and to these may be added the Christmas fami- lies. Many not specifically named herein are incidentally brought forward, in connection with those named. It is gene- rally the case that females lose their name and identity upon their marriage, taking the name of the husbands, yet they transmit the blood, if not the name, and in many cases purer and more surely than do the males. In these pages I have traced the genealogy of families through the female line as well as the male, whenever I could; and in so doing, many not specially named are included in those connections.
In reference to the conduct of our soldiers in the Confeder- ate War, the writer has said but little, for the reason that it would take up too much space-it would take more books than one to tell of all the gallant deeds and exploits of each soldier ; moreover, where all were good soldiers and all did their duty so well, it would be invidious to tell those of one and not of all. As a whole, our soldiers did their duty, and where any did not, it is an exception, and does not affect the general rule. Besides, it will be seen by examining the copy of the Marion County rolls, herein published, who did their duty and who failed-that is, in a great measure. Hence, in speaking of any particular soldier, it is only in a general way, so as not to dis- parage others equally good and brave.
SELLERS .- This family, to which the writer belongs, came
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
from about Tarboro, N. C., about 1750. They were of Scotch, Irish and English descent. My great-grand-father, William Sellers, headed the family; he settled in Columbus or Bruns- wick County, N. C., on what was called the "Seven Creeks ;" he had and raised six or seven sons-Elisha, Joel, Matthew, Henry, Benjamin and Sion-of these, my grand-father, Benja- min, was born about 1740; grew up and married a Miss Bry- ant, by whom he had five children-of these my father, Jordan, was the eldest, and the only one raised to be grown. My father was born 16th February, 1763, and died 9th September, 1838, at the age of seventy-five years, in this (Marion) County. My grand-father, Benjamin, married, a second time, don't re- member to whom; by this marriage he raised four children- three sons, Wright, Luke and Levin, and one daughter, Rhoda ; my father was half-brother to these. Rhoda married Jonathan Rothwell, on Cape Fear River, Bladen County, N. C. Roth- well was a very successful man, and accumulated a large prop- erty. The writer has seen some of the descendants of Roth- well since the war-they were good people and well educated. Wright Sellers, the oldest son by the second marriage, married a Miss Duncan, of Horry or Columbus County, and settled and lived on the Iron Springs Swamp, near what is now called "Green Sea," in Horry. My grand-father, Benjamin, had in the meantime moved to that section, owned and had taken up much land in that community, and died there in April, 1817, at the age of seventy-seven years. My uncle, Wright Sellers, had and raised one son, Benjamin D., and six or seven daugh- ters. The Sellers and Nortons built the first church at Green Sea, then called "Norton's Church," between the years 1801 and 1807. My grand-father was a Methodist preacher, and was ordained by Bishop Asbury in 1801 (see Asbury's Jour- nal, 3 vol., p. 9). The Nortons and Sellers kept that church up or were the most prominent members in it until 1826, when they sold out and went to Alabama. Luke Sellers, the second son of my grand-father by his second marriage, married, don't know who, and had one son, Jacob, and died. Jacob grew up and married, and also went West. Levin Sellers, the young- est son of my grand-father, grew up and became a Methodist preacher, joined the Conference in 1806 or 1807, and was sent
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
first to Edisto Circuit (now Orangeburg), and the next year to Cypress Circuit, where he died in August of that year. My father, Jordan Sellers, went there and got his horse, clothing, saddle-bags, books, &c. The Methodist preachers in that day traveled on horseback and carried their clothes, books, &c., in saddle-bags-not so with the preachers in 1901. My father, the only child raised of the first marriage of my grand-father, at the age of eighteen years joined the Continental Army of the Revolution, under the command of General Nathaniel Greene, and was in the battle at Eutaw Springs, S. C., 8th September, 1781, and served to the end of the war. The results of that battle turned the tide of success of the British arms in South Carolina, and with the fall of Yorktown, Va., a month or two afterwards, under Washington, forced the evacuation of Charleston in 1782, and finally forced George III. to acknow- ledge the independence of the United States of America early in 1783. At the age of twenty-six, in 1789, my father married Miss Elizabeth Hunchy, a Dutch lady ; by her he had one child, a daughter, Mary; the wife was an invalid, bed-ridden from the birth of Mary, for twenty-four or twenty-five years, when she died; Mary grew up, and married James W. Edwards, and in 1819 moved to Montgomery County, Ala., then a frontier region ; Edwards raised seven or eight children; amassed large property, and he and wife both died, and are buried about four miles below Montgomery, Ala. The writer was in the grave- yard in 1854, and saw their tomb-stones, and while there learned that the children were all dead, except two, Dr. Charles Edwards, of Prattville, Ala., and one daughter, Amanda, who was the wife of a Methodist preacher, a presid- ing elder (name forgotten). In 1817, my father married again, my mother, Mary Osborne-he being fifty-four years of age and she twenty years ; I was the oldest child, born 27th March, 1818; they raised to be grown three sons-the writer, James O. and Bryant J., and two daughters, Susan and Civil. I am the only survivor of the five. My brother, James O., went to Alabama, married there a Miss Willis, and had and raised one son, James Jordan, and four daughters. James O. was killed in a skirmish in Hood's Army, 28th October, 1864. Bry- ant J. went into the army in a Marlborough company of cav-
1
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY.
alry, Peter L. Breeden, Captain ; he died of typhoid fever, 13th August, 1863, at McPhersonville, S. C .; I brought him home and buried him at Dothan, in this county; he left two sons, James F. and Thomas W. James F. married Miss Chloe Rogers, daughter of Johnson Rogers, in the Mullins section ; he died in 1889; left four sons and one daughter, now in that community. Thomas W. Sellers married Dora Campbell, daughter of Theophilus Campbell, of the Mullins section; she died four or five years ago, and left two children, girls; the father has not remarried. Of the daughters, Susan married James J. Rogers, brother of Johnson Rogers; he died last October, childless, and Susan died 17th May, 1901. My sister, Civil, maried Ruffin Price, of North Carolina; he left her with two children, boys, Milton F. and Joseph M., both now citizens of Mullins, both married and have coming fam- ilies. I married Miss Martha A. Bethea, daughter of Philip Bethea, as already stated herein among the Betheas ; we raised six children, three sons and three daughters, John C., W. W., Jr., and Philip B .; of the daughters, Anna Jane, Rachel and Mary, all married, as will be found among the Maces, Betheas, Nortons, McMillans, DuBois and Godbolds. Of the five brothers of my grand-father, Benjamin Sellers, they scattered, and they and their posterity may be found in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and perhaps other States. My mother's father, Joseph Osborne, was an Englishman-came here as a British soldier in the Revolution; was taken a prisoner by the Americans, and, though exchanged, refused to return to England; married in Sampson County, N. C., to Miss Civil Foley (Irish people), and by her had four children, of whom my mother was the eldest-born in 1797, and died 12th February, 1868; had only one son, Charles Osborne, who died years ago, childless. Hope I will be pardoned for having said so much about my own fam- ily, but knowing so much about them, I could not well say less.
The Negro.
The negro was introduced into the province of Carolina al- most coeval with its first settlement in 1670. The first ship- ment was made by Sir John Yeamans, in 1671. He was an
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A HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY:
Englishman, who went to Barbadoes and there procured a small colony to go with him to Carolina. Large grants of land had been obtained by him from the Proprietors in Carolina. And from Barbadoes, he not only carried his small colony, but also a number of negro slaves. These were the first negroes in South Carolina. How or by whom they were carried from Africa to Barbadoes, does not appear (Ramsay's History of South Carolina, pp. 2 to 18). The colony of the year before was under William Sayle as Governor, who died soon after his arrival, and was succeeded by Joseph West, 28th August, 1671 ; and he was succeeded by Sir John Yeamans, 26th December, 1671. He held till 13th August, 1674. Negroes had been previously imported into Virginia. Thus was established the nucleus of slavery in South Carolina, and the germ for our present negro population in the State. Whether wise or un- wise, yet remains to be determined. "There is a Providence that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we may." They are here and, I suppose, her to stay-not as slaves to the cupidity of man, but as human beings entitled to the benefits to be derived from the laws and usages of humanity. He came here a bar- barian, a savage-could not speak or understand our language, knew not how to work-in fact, knew nothing except what his animal instincts and propensities taught him ; he knew nothing except by intuition-nothing except to gratify his animal pro- pensities, and to supply his natural wants. He knew nothing of civilization and its concomitant and consequent pleasures and enjoyments, and as for a God, that rules and governs all worlds and is everywhere and at all times present, disposing of the destinies of all men and all worlds, the negro had never heard. His two hundred years of hardship and slavery has been greatly for his benefit. It has transformed him from a barbarian to a civilized and christianized man. He has not only learned to speak our language, but to read and write it; he has not only learned to make and use all the arts of civilized life, but has learned to appreciate them. The thick darkness that beclouded his mind as to a true and living God, that cre- ated and upholds and continues all terrestrial things for man's benefit, has been dispelled. His mind has been enlightened, and he feels and knows that he is accountable to that Great
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Being for all his actions-that there are rewards and punish- ments in the future. The great struggle in the South from 1861 to 1865, involving his continuous state of servitude or his freedom, terminated in his favor, and he was set at liberty, and the powers that then were conferred upon him all the rights and privileges of citizenship, civil and political-whether he was fitted for the political privileges conferred upon him has been and still is a disputed question. I, for one, did not, nor do I yet, think he is fitted for the due and proper exercise of that high privilege. There are a few, compared with the whole, that might be trusted with the ballot in this free country, and, I think further, that it ought to be intrusted to them gradually, as they may develop a fitness for it, and thus in the progress of time all may attain to that high privilege. The negro, as a race of people, is unlike every other race. He lives for the present, while the Mongolian lives in the past, and the Caucas- sian or European lives in the future or for the future. The negro is improvident, as a general rule; he looks only to the present, and if he has enough, however simple it may be, for the present, he is satisfied-his wants are few and they are easily supplied; hence he is the best laborer that the South can have-his place as such cannot easily be filled. He is con- tented with his status and condition, wants employment only to supply present and pressing needs-is easily satisfied; not aspiring, since the days of carpet-baggery and scalawagism- and they were to blame, not the negro, and were not as trust- worthy as the negro; they stole it by thousands, the negroes only by littles. They are mostly gone-left for the country's good, and to save their mean carcasses; the negro is still here and, I trust, for all time to come. He does not seek, nor does he expect, social recognition-they gang to themselves, and would not be contented otherwise; they have a contempt for the white man who puts himself on a level with them. As a race, they are cowardly-at least, as to the white man. They are somewhat brutal among themselves, and especially to their children. The negro can live on less than any one among us- his wants are few. There are few or no strikes in the South- the negro don't strike; the agricultural people of South Caro- lina and of the South will never suffer from a strike as long as
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they employ negro labor. The negro has a monopoly of that class of labor, and the agriculturalists have a monopoly of its employment-the one monopoly is entirely dependent upon the other, and so long as that relation subsists and is maintained, there will be no friction, but harmony and good feeling will be maintained. Destroy that relation, and bring the white labor- a laborer that is hard to satisfy, that is ever looking out for the future, and seeking avenues to better his condition and for- tunes, constantly demanding social recognition for himself and family-there would soon be friction and trouble, no end to it; and we of the South would soon be involved in a strike, such as now pervading other parts of the country, where corporate wealth and corporate greed abound. Agriculture would lan- guish, and every thing dependent upon it would be wrecked. The means of supplying the natural wants of man and beast would be cut off, and bloodshed and revolution might follow in the wake, and finish up the sad catastrophe of our now happy country. If the negro is wisely utilized, our section of the country will be spared the direful calamity.
The conduct of the negro during our late unpleasantness, from 1861 to 1865, is without a parallel. There were then, say, six millions of slaves (negroes) in the Southern Confed- eracy. The section was drained of its effective men-every effective man from the Potomac to the Rio Grande was re- quired to be and was at the front. The old and ineffective men and boys were alone left at home with the women and children, as their only protection, surrounded with these six millions of negroes. Did the negroes rise in mass, and massacre these old men, boys, women and children, which they could have done at any time in 1864 and '65? and which any other race of people, similarly circumstanced, upon the face of the globe, seeing their opportunity, would have availed themselves of, and instituted a general butchery throughout the length and breadth of the Confederacy. Nothing to hinder them. No; instead thereof, the negro was loyal, truly loyal, to his master and his family, and also to his section of the country. He labored upon the farm, raised provision crops for the support of them- selves, their masters' families, and to support and maintain our vast armies in the war. But for them, our armies would have
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had to disband and give up the cause for which they had gone to war and for which they were fighting-there was no other source of supply. The negro knew all this; that the war was being waged on his account, and upon its result depended his freedom, or his continued state of slavery; yet, knowing all this, he chose, under the providence of God, to be loyal to his master and to his master's cause. It is without a parallel, and I may say miraculous. Had he chosen to take advantage of the situation and to strike for freedom, the results, horibile dictu, would have been indescribable, and horrifying beyond toleration. I will turn from its contemplation and let the reader do the further imagining. We owe the negro a debt of gratitude immeasurable, and which can never be paid. He is now our only and best laborer-he is emphatically "a hewer of wood and a drawer of water," and it is probable he ever will be. We should utilize him, but treat him justly and fairly, aid him in every way we can to better his condition, and elevate him to a plane of self-respect in his status and position in society. We are due him this much, at least, as some sort of reward for his loyalty to us, in a time and in a crisis when we most needed it, and where it was the very sine qua non of our existence. There are those among us who are advocating the policy of applying the taxes paid by white people to the public education of the white children of the State, and the taxes paid by the negro to the public education of the negro-the latter a mere bagatelle What base ingratitude does such a proposition evince! It is to be hoped such a policy will never be adopted in the South, and especially in South Carolina. It would be rank repudiation of the debt of gratitude we owe them-it would be publishing ourselves to the world as a set of ingrates. The white people now control the policy of the State, and I hope ever will-but do not bring upon us such moral degradation as such a policy would betoken and entail. We claimed to be a civilized and christianized people-if so, we cannot favor and adopt such a policy.
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