USA > South Carolina > Historic houses of South Carolina > Part 13
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A most amusing story is told concerning an occurrence taking place at one of these houses during the courtship of Catherine Porcher (sister of Charles and daughter of Philip) by a Mr. Huger. He came a courting the lady, but evidently his manner of addressing her did not indicate that he would go mateless to the grave if she refused him, intimating that he would seek elsewhere. Thereupon she furled her fan and bid him begone to seek the other maid-a very proper display of spirit upon her part.
While in Charleston the Porchers occupied the house on Pitt Street now owned by Mr. Wm. Cogswell, which is nearly opposite to Bethel Methodist Church.
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On the road between Mexico and Pineville, a distance of five or six miles, lies Belle Isle plantation, where are deposited the remains of General Marion. The tomb is in a neat enclosure which formed a family burying ground; it is a plain marble slab, slightly elevated upon a brick foundation, and bears a simple and most appropriate inscription. The house at Belle Isle is still standing, but is not in very good repair, nor is it inhabited. To Shirley Carter Hughson, now Superior of the Order of the Holy Cross, belongs the credit of properly mark- ing Marion's grave.
Among the most honored and beloved names connected with the history of St. John's is that of the Dwight family. Sam- uel Dwight, the son of the Rev. Daniel Dwight and his wife, who was Christiana Broughton, married Rebecca Marion. lle was generous enough to allow his son Francis to change his name to that of Marion, as General Francis Marion had no children and the name would otherwise have been lost io posterity.
Robert Marion, Esq., son of Gabriel Marion, resided at Belle Isle, and a part of this plantation was Burnt Savannah, where General Marion had his residence. Belle Isle also em- braced the homes of Peter Couturier and Dr. James Lynah.
The Palmers were also connected with this old parish. Webdo was the residence of Joseph Palmer. He had one daughter, who married Peter Sinkler. Johnsrun plantation, the first settler of which is unknown, but which was once owned by a Williams, was purchased after 1793 by Capt. John Palmer, and in 1858 was the residence of S. Warren Palmer. Pollbridge, three miles to the south of Clay Bank, was settled by Peter Palmer after 1790. Gravel Hill was the home of John Palmer, Gentleman, whose successful enterprise in the collection of naval stores earned for him the name of "Tur- pentine John." It was his son John who lived at Richmond, and Peter who lived at Pollbridge. Ballsdam plantation, near the old Santee settlement of St. James, was the property of Dr. John Saunders Palmer.
Charlotte Rebecca. fourth daughter of John Palmer and Catherine Marion Palmer, of Cherry Grove plantation, St.
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John's Berkeley, married Ellison Capers, who had a brilliant war record, and afterwards, in 1893, was unanimously elected Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina.
"The Fair Forest Swamp is one of the principal features of the western branch of the Cooper River, into which it flows through Watboo Creek. It rises in the bays, within a few miles of Santee Swamp," and there it is, that a close connec- tion between St. James, St. Stephens, Eutawville, and the headwaters of the western branch of the Cooper River is formed.
EUTAW SPRINGS AND VICINITY
The road to the "Congarees." on the old map called the "Charichy" path, ran directly to Nelson's ferry, over which. the trade to the interior northwest passed. During the war of the Revolution it was the highway for the passage of the armed forces of both sides, and it was at Eutaw Springs, near this road, that the battle of Eutaw Springs was fought in 1781, which practically ended all British occupation of South Caro- lina outside of the City of Charleston and its environs, even though tactically General Greene and the American Army were repulsed. General Greene, in his letters to the Secretary of War, says:
"We have 300 men without arms, and more than 1000 so naked that they can be put on duty only in cases of a desperate nature. . Our difficulties are so numerous, and our wants so pressing, that I have not a moment's relief from the most painful anxieties. I have more embarrassments than it is proper to disclose to the world. Let it suffice to say that this part of the United States has had a narrow escape. 'I have been seven months in the field without taking off my clothes.'
The brave men who carried death into the enemy's ranks at the Eutaw, were galled by their cartridge boxes, while a folded rag or a tuft of moss protected the shoulders from sustaining the same injury from the muskets. Men of other times will inquire, by what magie was the army kept together? By what supernatural power was it made to fight ?"
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SINKLER HOUSE, ADJACENT TO " BELVIDERE," EUTAWVILLE
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ST. JOHN'S AND ST. STEPHEN'S
A monument to these brave men has been placed on the Battlefield of Eutaw Springs, which was on the Sinkler tract about a mile and a half from the house.
It is hard to make a distinction between Eutaw place and its sister plantation, Belvidere, to which it lies adjacent. Mrs. Harriette P. Gourdin, of Eutawville, a lady well over 80 years of age and a life-long resident of that section, writes in 1920, that "Henry Sinkler's home is on Eutaw plantation, and the house is built near the bank of a portion of Eutaw Creek which divides the place from Belvidere, another Sinkler homestead. Over this creek stands a narrow foot-bridge for the use of the two places. The house at Eutaw place was built by Henry's great-grandfather."
In Lossing's Field Book of the Revolution we find the fol- lowing entry speaking of the action around Eutawville in 1781 :
"While the British fell back a little, Greene quickly pre- pared for battle, and pressing forward the action commenced with spirit in the road and fields, very near to the present en- trance gates to the seat of residence of Mr. Sinkler.
Of this place Lossing again speaks in describing his trip to the Southern battlefield :
"At 8 o'clock (Jan. 26, 1849) I arrived at the elegant man- sion of William Sinkler, Esq., upon whose plantation are the celebrated Eutaw Springs. It stands in the midst of noble shade trees one-half mile from the highway. These springs arc in Charleston district near Orangeburg line, about 60 miles north of Charleston."
The largest spring is at the foot of a hill 20 or 30 feet in height, from which it emerges after traversing a subterranean passage under the hill for 30 rods, and reappears on the other side. There is a tradition that an Indian made the successful attempt to follow the spring through the hill. The Santee River is reached about two miles below.
Ramsay says, relating to the battle of Eutaw Springs, that : "the British were vigorously pursued, and upward of 500 of them were taken prisoners. On their retreat they took post in a strong brick house, and in a picquetted garden."
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Mr. DuBose Seabrook, who is now living, tells of walking near the springs with his mother and being told by her that a pile of bricks adjacent to the spring which they found there were the remains of this house.
Charles Sinkler resided at Belvidere plantation in Upper St. John's Berkeley. His home life eminently represented that splendid type of Southern manhood-the flower of the patri- archal slave-holding civilization -- which is but a memory to a few, and a tradition to the people at large. Mr. Sinkler was the grandson of Capt. James Sinkler, of the Revolutionary War, whose brother Peter Sinkler, of Marion's Brigade, died of typhus fever in the cellar of the Charleston Postoffice, a prisoner in the hands of the British. Charles Sinkler was born on Eutaw plantation, which partly covers the sight of the battlefield, and he inherited from his ancestors that intense love for the State which was the preeminent characteristic of the South Carolinian of the old regime. In March, 1836, he entered the United States Navy as a midshipman, was pro- moted, and soon after married Miss Emily, daughter of Judge Thomas Wharton, an eminent jurist of Philadelphia. While serving as sailing master of the United States brig Perry, which had just returned from the seige of Vera Cruz, he was wrecked on Sombrero Reef, about thirty miles from Key West, Florida, on a voyage from Havana to Charleston, and a graphic description has been written by a brother officer, Lieut. (later Rev.) R. S. Trapier, of the cyclone through which they barely escaped with their lives.
In February, 1847, Mr. Sinkler resigned and came with his wife, a lovely young girl, to his estates in South Carolina. Here he lived the life of the ideal Southern planter, and for- tunately for him and for the many beneficiaries of his bounty, the war and its more direful results made no essential change in him or his belongings. Belvidere, his beautiful home, was the scene of the graceful and bountiful hospitality which had characterized the homes of his friends in better days. At his death it passed to his son, Charles St. George Sinkler, and his wife, Anne W. Porcher. Dr. Wharton Sinkler, of Philadelphia, who married a Miss Brock, of that city, was a brother of Mr.
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"BELVIDERE," THE SINKLER HOUSE, NEAR EUTAW SPRINGS
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ST. JOHN'S AND ST. STEPHEN'S
Charles Sinkler, and his sisters were Caroline Sinkler and Mrs. Charles Brown Coxe, of Philadelphia, and Mrs. Charles Stevens, of Charleston.
Mr. Sinkler and his wife, Anne Wickham Porcher, have three daughters, all of whom have married and moved away, but the ancestral home is still the residence of Mr. Sinkler. His daughters are Mrs. Dr. Kershaw Fishburne, of Pinopolis, Mrs. Nicholas Roosevelt, of Philadelphia, and Mrs. Dunbar Lockwood, of Boston, Mass. Pictures are given of both of the Sinkler houses, much alike in construction and detail.
HANOVER HOUSE
A primitive wooden house of a type still to be seen in rural districts of South Carolina is pictured and described in "Rav- enel Records" (intended for private distribution), issued in 1898 by Henry I. Ravenel, of Spartansburg, S. C., "Attorney at law; Master of Arts; Alumnus of the College of Charleston; one of the authors of 'Ravenel and McHugh's Digest,' etc., " so we may rely upon his work being good. The photograph and cut are both very defective, says Mr. Ravenel, but the house is very interesting in appearance and stands in a characteristic clearing of pine and oak trees, draped with moss. It is still in use after two hundred and five years.
Hanover House was completed about 1716 by Paul de St. Julien. As it is "roomy though small." one is not surprised at the fact that difficulty was found in supplying the brick for it when the extravagant manner of their use is seen. "The basement walls and cross walls are thick enough to hold a small Eiffel tower, " and the basement itself is large enough to be used as a kitchen and pantry.
The chimneys to this house are most curiously constructed, Wwing really two chimneys at each end of the building, one mastructed outside of the other from the ground to the top. ". The inside section must be about eight feet wide ; the overlap- ping flue somewhat narrower." The legend "Peu a Peu" on the north chimney near the top remains perfectly distinct. It is deeply cut in the cement, and shows its excellent quality. There is, however, no date given.
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Hanover was settled by Peter de St. Julien, third son of the Huguenot emigrant, Paul, who died there in 1741. He married Mary Amy Ravenel, youngest child of Rene Ravenel, the emigrant. Curiously enough there are still Ravenels liv- ing near Charleston possessing the characteristic looks, color- ing, bearing, manners and achievements of their French forbears, and among them is found a René.
It is said that at Hanover "Peter de St. Julien designed to build a half story brick house, " on the plan of the North Hamp- ton House, so the builder made a kiln of brick to start with. When the foundation was completed to its present state, Peter discovered that he would not have bricks enough to carry out his designs of a brick house, but thought he would have enough for chimneys. In this he was again disappointed, owing to the curious construction of the chimney within the chimney, and the building ended by being made of wood, on a brick base- ment, three kilns having to be made to supply the bricks for even this much, so that "Peu a Peu," or "Little by Little" (said to have been put there in 1716) is literally true.
Hanover descended by inheritance to Mary St. Julien, the eldest daughter of Paul, who married Henry Ravenel, son of René Louis. A small book bound in calf is said to be the diary of this latter, and is in the possession of Mr. Thomas P. Rav- enel. The following entry is taken from this old record :
"Henry Ravenel marryed to Mary De St. Julien the 13 of September, 1750. We came to live at home, called Hanover, the 13 of April, 1751, and went back to Pooshee the 9th of June, and my wife was delivered of a son on the 26th of said June. Then we came back home again the second time the 1st of October 1751."
The diary continues until about 1785, in which year Henry Ravenel died and was buried at Hanover, at the age of fifty-five years. The orchard became the family burying ground, and we find from the records that only six out of the sixteen chil- dren of Mary St. Julien and Henry Ravenel lived to maturity. Many of the children who died were buried at Hanover in the "orchard."
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Another Henry Ravenel died at Hanover in 1823, aged seventy-two years and eight months. His age would indicate that he was born in 1751 and was probably the first son of Mary De St. Julien and Henry Ravenel, spoken of in the diary as having been born on the 26th of June, 1751. He too was buried in the family burying ground at Hanover.
In Ravenel Records it is stated that Stephen Ravenel, of Hanover (son of Henry and Mary), was married December 11, 1800, to Catherine Mazyek, daughter of William and Mary Mazyek, at the residence of Mr. Mazyck in Archdale Street. This residence still stands, as fine a house as one would wish to see. Stephen Ravenel was Secretary of State, but did not long continue in public office. Although he lived in Charleston, he spent much of his time hunting at the plantation, being devoted to the sport, and is said to have killed many deer. Later be lived at Hanover, where he and his wife are both buried, and as they had no children, the plantation was left to Stephen's brother, Daniel, better known in local circles as "Uncle Daniel."'
"Uncle Daniel" was for many years Secretary of the famous "St. John's Hunting Club, " whose Club House stood nearly opposite the Black Oak Church on the north side of the road. This Club House was built in 1500 by "Coll Senf, Engineer and Superintendent of the Santee Canal which runs through Wantoot plantation, " and was pulled down by the negroes very soon after the first raid of the Yankee Army.
René Ravenel's Book says : "The original rules of the St. Stephen's Club are fair specimens of the rules of such societies of that day (1825) and section." These rules gave the name of the organization, time and place of meetings, and other regulations. Rule 3 specified that "Each member shall find a dinner in the order in which he shall become a member," and Rule 4 stated that "dinner shall be on table at half-past one o'clock." Rule 7 said. "The member finding the dinner shall be President of the day." It is to be noted that no sale. negro trial or card-playing was permitted at the club house on club days.
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Dinner was the great event and as they used spits in those days, roasted meat meant that the meat was really roasted. The list of edibles suitable for club dinners specified :
"Roasted Turkey, Two Ducks, Two fowls or a dish equiva- lent to two fowls, one half of a shoat or sheep dressed accord- ing to the option of the finder, one ham or piece of salted beef, one peck of Rice, Two loaves of Bread, Mustard, Pepper, Salt, Vinegar, Eight bottles of Madeira Wine, Two bottles of Brandy, one of Gin, one of Whiskey, Twenty-five Spanish and Twenty-five American Segars (Cigars), Two dozen each of Plates, Tumblers, Wine Glasses, Knives and forks."
These club meetings were a prominent feature of the social life of the planters, and some lively anecdotes are told in con- nection with them. It is said that on one occasion a horse was ridden upstairs to the second story of a house, and difficulty was experienced in getting him down again. But passing by the excesses of those days, the clubs were undoubtedly effec- tive in keeping alive the fraternal feeling, and contributed to the public spirit of the district.
Daniel James Ravenel ( "Uncle") died at Hanover in 1836, leaving Brunswick and about sixty negroes to his nephew, Benj. Pierce Ravenel (son of Paul de St. Julien Ravenel and his second wife, Abigail Pierce, of Newport, R. I.). He left Hanover and about seventy negroes to his grandnephew, Henry LeNoble Stevens, a son of Charles Stevens and Susan Mazyck Ravenel ( daughter of Rene, the son of Henry of Han- over). During the Civil War Henry was aide to Col. P. T. Stevens (late Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church) and was shot at the second battle of Manassas, August 30th, 1862. dying seven days later in a field hospital at Warrenton, Va. His body was subsequently brought on and interred at Black Oak churchyard. This Henry Le Noble Stevens had married Henrietta S. Gailliard in 1849 and their children are still large landholders in that section.
The Ravenels have built and occupied many beautiful and historic places both in country and town, and the history of Hanover has been given in full, because it is closely connected with the history of "St. John's. " divided so quaintly by the in- habitants thereof into Upper, Lower and Middle St. John's.
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These romantic houses of the past can never be created. To own one of them is to be not only the possessor of an his- torical house, but also of something entirely unique. In having a home of historical associations one is endowed not only with a thing of beauty, but with a possession which has a precious quality of its own wrapped up with its glorious history.
Architecturally speaking, these old houses display sym- metry and real dignity; albeit it they are very simply con- structed, they have a look of intrinsic power and strength which has come to them with the passing of the years. Mellow- ness is not to be bought with money. It is the gift of age.
WANTOOT
Among the numerous Ravenel properties was a plantation, Wantoot, once the home of Daniel Ravenel, who married Catherine Prioleau. Their son, Daniel Ravenel (1789-1873), was of Huguenot lineage not only through the Prioleaus, but through the emigrant, Rene Ravenel, of Bretagne.
Many of the Ravenels have been men of scientific achieve- ment, including Dr. Henry Ravenel, to whom botany was sub- ordinate to nothing. It was the constant all-absorbing passion of his life, the more so that serious deafness shut him off from the academic professions which would otherwise have appro- priated him. A biographical sketch and somewhat incomplete bibliography of Dr. Ravenel in Professor Wilson Gee's "South Carolina Botanists," seem to be all the accessible published information in regard to him. The Charleston Museum is endeavoring to get together an interesting collec- tion of letters written by him, which it purposes to publish from time to time as a contribution towards an ultimate biography. The most important are the generous gifts of the Misses Gibbes, daughters of Lewis R. Gibbes.
The Ravenel mycological herbarium, now owned by the Museum, was collected before 1853 during Dr. Ravenel's resi- dence at Pooshee and Northampton plantations near the Santee Canal. From similarity of labeling, the specimens given by Miss Heyward, of Wappaoolah (or Wappahoola), seem to belong to the same period, or the Georgia ones possibly
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after removal to Aiken, S. C. Dr. Ravenel's later, larger, and more valuable collection of fungi was sold to the British Museum. Correspondence shows his desire to have it depos- ited in the Charleston Museum, but circumstances prevented. The Ravenel herbarium of flowering plants from the Santee Canal region was rescued and remounted, and with the Stephen Elliott herbarium forms the classic basis for botanical work in this vicinity.
On July 5th, 1920, the St. John's Hunting Club, organized over a century ago, held one of its semi-annual meetings at Wampee plantation, with Mr. Thomas P. Ravenel, of Savan- nah, Georgia, in the chair. The semi-annual dinners of the club are events at which it is a privilege to be present; the delicious dishes, lively and entertaining table talk, and the de- lightful trysts beneath the ancestral oaks are golden links in the chain of life's enjoyments.
In the South we find a very distinctive style of house ; high pitched, with dormer windows set in the roof. The chimneys are built at the gable ends of the house, but constructed entirely on the exterior of the building, and greatly resemble English chimneys in the way they widen at the bottom. Quaint little entrance porches are often found in these houses, and the materials used vary from native wood to imported brick. The gambrel roof is seldom if ever met with in this section.
Many old wooden houses are found in South Carolina up along the eastern branch of the Cooper River and into St. John's and St. Stephen's Parish, which all conform to the same simple lines of architecture found suitable for our southern type of life, and while the possibilities for decoration are never great these houses are entirely delightful, plain buildings. Generally they are of two and a half stories set on basements, and having wide piazzas for use during the long, hot summers. The halls are broad, with wide, low windows, lofty ceilings, and painted and paneled walls. Having once given a descrip- tion of one, you have virtually described all of this particular type of Carolina colonial, which in its way is equally as per- fect as any Colonial design of other sections.
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ST. JOHN'S AND ST. STEPHEN'S
Some one has used the happy expression "The Casual Artistry" of the past, and this applies with peculiar force to the old wooden buildings in St. Stephen's and St. John's, where time has mellowed their old walls, and the years have thrown an air of mystery and enchantment over these dear, plain old places, bestowing on them that gift of age and mellow- ness ever present in these quaint, old-fashioned homes, with their adzed beams, their regular and irregular windows, and their "off-center" chimneys.
But the houses are far from being frowsy or slatternly. They are fine and natural and dignified, so well expressing, in their old age, the builders' instinct for what was appropriate and fitting.
Mills' Statistics tell us that the upper and lower parts of St. Stephen's Parish were originally distinguished by the names of French and English Santee. The latter (what is now St. Stephen's) was situated about fifty miles to the northwest of Charleston; it was bounded on the northeast by the Santee River, on the southwest by St. John's Parish, and on the south- east by St. James Santee, thus St. Stephen's originally was a part of St. James Santee, and was divided from it about the year 1740.
The village of Pineville is in this parish. It began to be settled in 1794 as a retreat for health in summer and autumn by the families of the planters who lived on nearby planta- tions bordering on the rivers. In the beginning of 1784 St. Stephen's was one of the most thriving parishes in the State, and in proportion to its size one of the richest. It was provided with an educational institution called Pineville Academy.
Robert Marion, representative of Charleston district in the U. S. Congress, and Theodore Gailliard, formerly speaker of the House of Representatives of South Carolina and in 1826 one of the judges of the circuit court of law, both belong to this parish. But John Gailliard was perhaps the best known public man. Mr. Lawson speaks of Mons Galliare's (Gail- liard) the Elder:
"who lives in a very curious contrived house, built of brick and stone which is gotten near the place. Near here, comes in the
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Road from Charleston and the rest of the English settlements, it being a very good way by land, and not above 33 miles, al- though more than 100 by water.
On a piece of high land about a mile from Pineville there is a quarry of hard, brown stone, which is very heavy and has the appearance of iron ore. Some of this stone was used by Col. Senf, the engineer who constructed the Santee Canal. They were great on canals in these days. There was one projected from the Edisto to Ashley River, and one constructed from the Santee to the headwaters of the western branch of the Cooper River.
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