USA > South Carolina > Historic houses of South Carolina > Part 10
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"HAMPTON" THE HOME OF THE RUTLEDGES ON SOUTH SANTER
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would rejoice to hear of the happiness of hier friend. Harriet Rutledge: . Closed with sentiments of perfeet esteem and re- gard. I am my dear Madame your most obedient H'ble Ser'vt. Martha Washington."
Being on the highway between northern cities and Charles- ton, General Pinckney's house seldom lacked guests. Unless in old Virginia more genuine, habitual hospitality could no where be found than in the low country of Carolina. This feeling was embodied in the remark of a venerable citizen who lived in that vicinity. "if I see no carriages under the visitor's shed when I return from my fields to dinner, I say to myself, my friends have not treated me well to-day." An English gentleman of fortune, Adam Hodgson, of Liverpool, who spent three years in exploring our country, having brought letters of introduction, visited General Pinckney at Santee and Eldo- rado. His impressions of this visit are recorded in a volume of "Travels" which he published in 1824. The first thing which struck bim as he entered the house was the number and size of the windows, enough to make an Englishman shudder when he recalled the tax upon each pane of glass to which he was accustomed at home. The library was also a surprise. . "My host had an excellent library, comprising many recent and valuable British publications, and a more extensive col- lection of agricultural works than I had ever seen before in a private library. In works on botany and American orni- thology the supply was large. The latter especially interested me, not having seen them before."
He accompanied his host on his daily visits to the fields, the mills, and the hospital, and records his surprise when he heard this "benevolent master order wine and oranges for some sick negroes." He inspected carefully the houses, the food. the clothing of the negroes and admitted that in these matters our laborers compared favorably with those of other lands.
HAMPTON
When the Horry tract at Wambaw was divided, although the portion upon which the original house stood was sold, vet
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the eastern moiety remained in the possession of descendants of the original settler on the distaff side; it having passed to `the late Mrs. Frederick Rutledge, a daughter of Daniel Horry, and is now owned and occupied by Col. H. M. Rutledge, a grandson of Frederick Rutledge.
On this eastern tract there stands, a mile east of the original Horry house, a large and fine mansion. It was built in 1730, of yellow pine and cypress, over a brick foundation, by Mrs. Daniel Horry, widow of the French Huguenot who came over in 1686 and is buried just north of Hampton at Waterhorn. This house has long been the seat of refined hos- pitality, and is well known as "Hampton." It came into the Rutledge family through the daughter of Mrs. Horry, and has constantly remained a Rutledge home.
Of this place Archibald H. Rutledge, son of Col. H. M. Rutledge, says it is "one of the great rice plantations (contain- ing 1285 acres) that lie along the coast country of South Caro- lina. It was the headquarters of the 'Swamp Fox,' the daunt- less Francis Marion. ".
A mile or more of avenue leads to the massiveold colonial house on Hampton, opening upon the wide lawn dotted by those sentinels of the centuries, which, with the white mansion, its lofty portico and its simple, but beautiful pediment sup- ported by heavy columns, in its setting of giant oaks hung with Spanish moss, make a charming and impressive picture. Upon the occasion of a recent marriage in the family, although the guests were obliged to go by automobile, yet as one drove through the historic woods one's thoughts went back to olden times when the cavaliers and Huguenots, resplendent in cocked hats, ruffled shirts, knee breeches and brilliant coats, with dames and maidens in gay brocades of silk and satin, hastened along this way on similar errand bent.
Arrived at the house, instead of stately coaches with coach- men and outriders in livery, which one naturally would asso- ciate with this scene, the equipages of the guests were parked in front of the house, about the historic Washington oak. so called because the tree was spared from the axe by the request
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THE DINING-ROOM AT "HAMPTON"
THE PORTICO AT " HAMPTON"
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of George Washington when he visited Hampton late in the century.
. Perhaps the most impressive feature of Hampton is the portico which must be traversed in order to gain entrance to the house. Once inside the hospitable portals of this colonial home the visitors find themselves in a great reception hall, amply supplied with antique furniture and decorated with family portraits. Some of the rooms possess landscape wail- paper like that found at Friendfield. One of the beauties of Hampton is its great ballroom occupying the entire east wing. This has an immense carved chimneyplace lined with Dutch tiles, in which it is said that five person's can stand. .
Of course, this house has its ghost. The "Ghost-room," which is the guest room, is found over the dining-room. No one has ever seen there a "horrid spectre," for this ghost only makes a sound, and the noise is like someone moving a carpet stealthily over the floor.
At Hampton is kept a magnificent pulpit-bible, prayer- book, and "Book of the Institutions," presented to Wambaw Church by Mrs. Rebecca Motte, who. removed to St. James Santee after the historic burning of her house at Orangeburg. At the time of the Revolution these were captured by the Brit- ish and taken to England. Fortunately they were inscribed with her name, and tradition has it that a British officer who had re- ceived kindness from Mrs. Motte, seeing the books exposed in London on a book-stall, recognized the name of the owner, purchased the books, and turned them over to Mrs. Motte's son-in-law, General Thomas Pinckney, then Minister at the court of St. James, and were by him returned. to the parish of St. James, Santee, where they are now kept at the Rutledge home at Hampton.
EL DORADO ON THE SANTEE
El Dorado, on the Santee, was built by, and was the home of, General Thomas Pinckney, our "first American Minister appointed to the Court of St. James, and Minister to Spain, 1795." It was the second home of General Pinckney, the first having been at Fairfield, not far distant.
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The house at. El Dorado, "situated on a sandy knoll, jut- . ting out into the rice fields, embowered by live-oaks with their outstretched arms and lofty magnolias with their glittering foliage," was a typical Southern home. It was surrounded by the native evergreen shrubbery through which ran winding walks. "The spacious mansion, which he planned and built with his own carpenters, is very suggestive of a French château, with its wide corridors, its lofty ceilings, and its peaked roof of glazed tiles.
"After his return to America General Pinckney married another daughter of Rebecca Motte, Mrs. Middleton, the widow of a young Englishman who had crossed the Atlantic to bear arms in the cause of the colonies." He resigned Fairfield and purchased the prosont plantation, which he named Eldorado in remembrance of his Spanish mission, and from the golden but- tercups which covered the land.
"The house bere was built in conjunction with his mother- in-law. Mrs. Motte had sold her plantation on the Congarees, and removed to Santee to be near her daughters. The large rooms, the lofty ceilings, the numerous windows, seem now unsuitable for a winter home, and suggest a lack of prac- tical talent in the builder. . The planters in those days, however, occupied their homes all the year.
"The air was redolent of nature's fresh perfumes. The yellow jessamine, the sweet-scented shrub, and other native plants, which fill our forests with their fragrance, met here in rich profusion. The sweet rose of France, the English and cape jessamine, mingled with the odors of the orange-blossom in perfect harmony.
"From the windows of his stately home, General Pinckney could look out upon his own busy fields, and over many miles of rice-lands in the delta of the river. The banks and ditches which marked the separate fields, and the long canals which intersected the whole all were spread out before the eye. The quiet of the landscape was often relieved by the white sails of a schooner on the river. . . "
At the time of the Civil War, Eldorado, being so near the mouth of the river, was "exposed to the visits of vessels from
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the blockading squadron. The house was shelled by gnuboats from. the fleet in 1863, and bears the scars of war upon its face. The mills were burnt by a hostile party, landed * on the banks, and the house only saved from the torch by the timely arrival of a squadron of Confederate Cavalry under command of a grandson of its former owner.
"Mr. Pinckney's love of agriculture was manifest all through the period of his English mission. . Through his second wife a large body of marshlands at the mouth of the Santee, adjoining the ocean, came into the possession of this noted agriculturist, It was covered alternately by fresh and by salt water, and so impregnated with the saline element as to be considered entirely unfit for cultivation. When the execu- tor of the ostate handed General Pinckney the titles to this portion of his wife's property, he apologized for offering a gentleman anything go worthless, But the new owner remem- bered that the rich lands of Holland had been redeemed from
the sea ; . . and he imported from Holland a skillful engi- neer, who soon succeeded in protecting the land from the salt water, and introduced among the rice-planters of the State the Van Hassel system of.embankment.
"By repeated experiments the saline nature of the soil was rendered fit for the culture of rice, and by enlarging the culti- vated area, a large body of inexhaustible fertility was re- claimed, so that from this once contemptible estate a crop of twenty thousand bushels of rice was sent to market annually. Two of General Pinckney's children received the chief part of their inheritance from these lands."
In regard to the treatment of his numerous slaves, General Pinckney carried out the idea of the patriarchal relationship which the Southern planter felt towards them, making it pos- sible for the slaves to glory in their masters, and to look up to them as the Scottish clansmen did to their ancestral chiefs.
"In the familiar picture of the Washington family by Savage, a stately black butler stands behind Washington's chair. That is General Pinckney's body-servant, John Riley, a freeman, for many years in his employ. His wife was Mrs. Pinckney's maid, who accompanied her mistress to England.
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Not wishing to separate him from his wife during his residence abroad, General Pinckney carried. Riley with him to England. As the painter who was then engaged on the Washington family picture had no black model at hand, he borrowed John Riley from the American ambassador to pose as one of Wash- ington's servants.
"Thomas Pinckney died on the 2d of November, 1828, in the seventy-ninth year of his age. The uniform companies of the 16th and 17th regiments of South Carolina troops, a squadron of cavalry, and a detachment from the United States garrison at Fort Moultrie, formed the military escort at his- funeral. His horse, with its trappings and empty saddle, dressed in crapo, followed immediately after the bier, attended by his three aides, Colonels James Ferguson, Lewis Morris and Frederick Kinloch, then the officers of the United States and State of South Carolina. The procession moved from his house in Legare Street to St. Philip's Church, on the north side of which his remains repose. .
"The three swords which General Pinckney bad used in the wars of the Revolution and of 1812 he bequeathed by will to his three sons, with the injunction that they never be drawn in any private quarrel, and never remain in their scabbards, when their country demanded their service.' In obedience to his example and his instructions, fourteen of his descendants served in the Confederate Army.
The story of the Life of General Thomas Pinckney, from which many extracts have been quoted. was written by his grandson, the Rev. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, D.D., presi- dent of the South Carolina Historical Society.
NORTH SANTEE
The peninsula formed by Winyah Bay on the north, the Atlantic Ocean on the east, and the North Santee River on the south, with its various deltas, contains rich plantation lands adjoining the North Santee River. Many of the houses be- longing to these plantations were not built upon the rice-lands, but upon the highlands on the other side of the river. Starting at the ferry, in order are Hopseewee, Fawnhill, White Oak,
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"EL DORADO," ON THE SANTEE, ONE OF THE PINCKNEY HOMES
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" HOPSRENEE," LUCAS HOUSE, NORTH SANTEE Home of Thomas Lynch, the Signer
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Rice Hope, Camy Main and Bearhill, Behind this latter plan- tation are three tracts, Mill Dam, Pleasant Meadow, and The · Marsh, and on the river again are Green Meadow and Cat Island.
In 1855 the Bishop's Journal states that :
"Friday, 23rd ( March)-At North Santee, preached on the plantation of Mr. Ladson."
The church at North Santee was then called the Church of the Messiah, and the Rev. Thomas J. Girardeau was rector.
HOPSEEWEE
Hopseewce on the North Santee River, now owned by the Lucas family, was built about 200 years ago by Mr. John Lynch, who received the land grant from the King of England. The house stands on a high bluff on the northern bank of the river, and is built of black cypress on a brick foundation, The original veranda fell into decay very many years ago, and was replaced about 1850 by double piazzas. The floor plan is that of the typical square old southern dwelling : four rooms on cach of the two doors, all opening into the center halls, both upper and lower, which extend the entire length of the house. In the back of the lower hall is the stairway. The grounds are enclosed with ancient and majestic live-oaks, and beauti- ful japonica trees.
Thomas Lynch, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, was the son of the original owner, John Lynch, and was born at Hopseewee in August, 1749. He was educated in England, and in 1772 married Elizabeth Shubrick. He was a distin- quished political figure in this country from the time of his membership in the Provincial Congresses of 1775-1776, until his death in 1779 when he was lost at sea. He is spoken of as the "Signer," having signed the Declaration of Independence during his term "as a sixth delegate" from South Carolina to the Continental Congress.
In: 1762 Mr. Lynch sold the property to Mr. Robert Hume, a Goose Creek planter, and he in turn gave it to his son, Mr. John Hume, who died in 1845. It then came into the posses- sion of Mr. Hume's grandson, Mr. John Hume Lucas, who used
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it as a winter home, and it has subsequently been always owned by descendants of the Lucas family.
A will of Jonathan Lucas, who was probably a famous member of the family it former days (dated 1974), speaks of " my mill and planting establishments, " but there is nothing in the will to show where they are located; he may mean one on the plantation, or one that we know of in Charles- ton. As E. G. Memminger, Wm. Lucas, and W. J. Bennett were appointed execurors of the will it would seem to indicate that this is the rice mill commonly called Bennett's Mill.
The following extracts are taken from the Year Book issued by Mayor Courtenay celebrating the Centennial of Incorporation :
"LUCAS' RICE MILLS
"The various contrivances for cleaning rice from the crude wooden mortar and lightwood pestle of the seventeenth cen- tury, as well as the later inventions of Guerard and others, all passed away when Jonathan Lucas introduced here his im- proved rice mill run by water-power.
"To this citizen we are indebted for . the admirable machinery by which rice is cleaned and prepared for market ---- machinery which in its most improved state has been copied and introduced in the North and in Europe, serving materially to increase the consumption of the grain by supplying it in the most desirable condition to home and foreign markets.
"He was a thoroughly educated millwright, was born in 1754 at Cumberland, England. Shortly after the war of the Revolution he sailed from England for a more Southern port, but through stress of weather the vessel was driven on this coast and stranded near the mouth of Santee River. It was there that he noticed the laborious process then in use, for cleaning rice from its hull, and preparing it for market. His was the thought and his the skill which accomplished the won- derful economic improvements upon the old 'laborious processes' by which the great forces of nature were soon to be harnessed to new machines, and the cultivation and prepara- tion of this cereal to receive an impetus which subsequently resulted in greatly increased rice crops.
"In the year 1787 the first water mill was erected by Mr. Lucas, to whom the credit of the invention is understood to be due. This was built for Mr. Bowman on a reserve at his Peach Island plantation on Santee River. Jonathan Lucas,
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Jr", inherited his father's mechanical talent and skill, and . associated with hit constructed on Cooper River in 1801 the first toll mill for cleaning rice. He yielded at length to the invitations of the British Government, and passed the remainder of his dassin England (in 1822),
. The subsequent erection by Jonathan Lucas, Jr., and others of rice mills in Europe had the effect of drawing rough rice supplies not only from Eastern countries but from Charleston : under the influence of import duties on clean rice, that of Great Britain being equal to $4.00 per tierce of clean rice, mills were kept running in London, Liverpool, Copen- hagen, Bremen, Amsterdam, Lisbon and Bordeaux, and Carolina rough rice was shipped hence in cargoes to those distant mills.
Other rice mills built on the Santee by Mr. Lucas, Sr., were on the reserve at Washo Plantation, for Mrs. Middleton, after- wards Mrs. General Thomas Pinckney ; on a reserve of Winyah Bay for Gen. Peter Horry : on the reserve at the Fairfield plan- tation of Col. William Alston, on the Waccamaw River; and in 1791-92 Mr. Lucas built on the Santee. for Mr. Andrew John- son on his plantation called Millbrook, the first tide mill. A year or two later he ereeted an improved tide mill at the plantation of Henry Laurens, called Mepkin, and in 1795, on Shem. Creek. at Hardell's Point, in Charleston Harbor, he erected a combined rice and saw mill driven by water-power. This was the first mill erected in the immediate vicinity of the city.
66 About 1840, Jonathan Lucas, the grandson, built a steam rice mill upon the Ashley, where now stands West Point Mill. This mill was burnt, and the present West Point Mill Company built on this site in 1860-1861."?
This is located at the western end of Calhoun Street, within the city limits, and was operated up to the year 1919.
Hopscewee, at the present time, is the home of T. Cordes Lucas and his mother, Mrs. Wm. Lucas, and is in a remark- able state of preservation. The residents of the historic old place have a deep and thorough appreciation of it, and the writer has received much of the foregoing information through the kindness of Mrs. Lucas and her sister-in-law, Mrs. T. G. S. Lucas, of Charleston. At a recent exhibit of colonial
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relies at the Charleston Museum, there was displayed an ex- quisite wedding veil used by this family over one hundred and fifty years ago, loaned by Miss Sarah Lucas.
WINYAH BARONY
To the north of these, again, on the remainder of the penin- sula occupying the territory between North Santee and Win- yah Bay, is that portion known by the name of the Winyah Barony, deriving its name from its situation on the large bay. The barony . was originally laid out to Landgrave Robert Daniel, whose ownership continued one day, Landgrave Smith being the second owner. It is frequently referred to as Smith's Barony.
Here Thomas Smith had dreams of founding a town, and the South Carolina Gazette for the week 16-23 July, 1737, carried an advertisement stating the situation of the proposed town, and setting forth its advantages. Evidently the lots did not sell, and some months later Thomas Smith offered induce- ments "to all poor Protestants of any Nature whatsoever, that are willing to come and settle" on the Winyah Barony. He .died the next year, but before his death gave some of the barony to his eldest son, Thomas, who died before his father, but who devised 1000 acres of the 3000 given him by his father to his sister Justinah Moore. (It is to be noted that the 2nd Landgrave was twice married, and that he had by a second wife a younger son also named Thomas.)
The rest of the various tracts were disposed of by the will of Landgrave Thomas; it states that he had at the time 31 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The land at Winyah Barony and other Smith lands in the neighborhood are fully traced in Judge Smith's able article on Winyah Barony.
One of the sons of Landgrave Thomas named his portion of the Smith lands The Retreat. It is interesting to note that the lines of Winyah Barony as originally laid out encroach upon several inland plantations later found in possession of other people.
"On 28th August, 1733, Mr. Thomas Lynch had obtained a grant for 4500 acres, lying mainly to the South of the
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: WINYAH INDIGO SOCIETY HALL, GEORGETOWN From a print .
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Barony. It included, however, the valuable tidal rice swamps un Santer River which had been omitted from the barony grant. At the date the barony was run out the value of the tidal swamps for rice cultivation was not yet known. The lines of the new grant overlapped or interfered with the lines of the barony, and the result was litigation between Thomas Smith and Thomas Lynch. The exact result of this litigation the available remaining records do not disclose, but appar- ently by some settlement the title of the various purchasers from: Thomas Lynch to so much of their land as was included in this 'overlap' was confirmed."
Among the plantations affected by this overlap were Cat Island : Green Meadows; Tidyman's; Annandale; a Hazzard place upon which is found a fairly representative old house ; The Marsh, and the Retreat. Cat Island extends completely across the peninsula, from North Santee River to Winyah Bay. Across the head of this island is found the Estherville Canal, for small boats. Cat Island is a Lowudes possession.
The location of the town called Smiths-Town, apparently fronted on Winyah Bay just west of Estherville plantation, and cast of the east line of the Retreat plantation, where the highland comes to the beach or water's edge, without inter- vening marsh or mud flats.
Philip Tidyman, M.D., late of Charleston, owned a place in Winyah Barony. His will (1843) directs his executors to keep his whole estate together during the lifetime of his daugh- ter, Susan Tidyman, and to have his plantations cultivated by his slaves as they were at the time of his death. After the death of his daughter, the executors are directed to sell his real estate, including the Cedar Hill plantation in St. James Parish. By the breaking out of the C.S.A. and the U.S.A. War, and the threatened invasion by the forces of the latter upon the plantations mentioned, the executors were compelled for the safe keeping of the slaves, to remove them from the said plantation and abandon the culture thereof. George A. Tren- holm afterwards bought the Tidyman plantations in the Parish of Prince George Winyah (North Santee). After various logacios the will directs that the remainder of the proceeds of sales are to be equally divided between Mr. Tidyman's nieces.
CHAPTER VI GEORGETOWN AND VICINITY
GEORGETOWN
HE ground on which Georgetown stands was originally granted to Mr. Perry, the ancestor of the present family of Kin- loch, according to The Ancient Lady; ·through mistake it was granted a second time to the Rev. William Sereven, the first Baptist minister in South Carolina and one of the first settlers in the Prov- ince, but was later reclaimed and recovered by virtue of the earlier grant. The town of Georgetown was projected approx- imately in 1732 or 1733, but the land was not granted for the purpose until 1734. The following year George Pawley, Wil- liam Swinton, Daniel La Roche, and two others were appointed Harbor Commissioners to "lay out buoys. errect beacons, and regulate pilotage. ">
. About the year 1740 the indigo planters of the Parish of Prince George Winyah formed a convival club and decided to meet on the first Friday of each month in the town of George- town. This was called the Winyah Indigo Society. The old Oak Tavern which stood in Bay Street was the scene of these monthly reunions. On the first Friday of May, each year, the anniversary meeting took place, when the important busi- ness of the Society was transacted, and then the annual dinner, with its songs and anecdotes, occupied the attention of the members for hours, and tradition reports it as a very merry function. Fees and contributions were paid in the staple crop of the section-indigo-and by the year 1753 the club was a rich association. A proposal was made that the surplus funds be devoted to the establishment of an independent charity school for the poor. The meeting rose to its feet. "Every glass was turned down without staining the table cloth," and the school of the Winyah Indigo Society was established and
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