USA > South Carolina > Historic houses of South Carolina > Part 21
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The Wilkinson family is connected by marriage with the Jerveys and with many of the other old low-country families. The Morton connection has, however, vanished and we look into the records of the past for further facts of interest. One of the earliest bits of information concerning Landgrave Mor- ton is found in a letter of Edward Randolph to the Board of Trade (1698-1699) "In year 1686, one hundred Spaniards, with negroes and Indians landed at Edistor (50 miles to the Southward of Charles Town) and broke open the house of Mr. Joseph Moreton, then Governor of the Province, and carried away Mr. Bowell, his brother-in-law, prisoner, who was found murdered two or three days after: They carried away all his money and plate, and 13 slaves, to the value of £1500 sterling, and their plunder to St. Augustine."
An inventory of the estate of Mr. John Morton in 1752 reveals some choice belongings for these early days, among them being "eleven mahogany chairs, two elbow chairs and a
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couch, a mahogany book case, two long sconce Glasses, card table, a round Tea lavee, pictures of the twelve months in proper dress and the Rakes and Harlots progress, also a harpsi-cord and a pair of Red and Green enameld china bowls ; showing culture and good taste." The inventory included the names of many books and carried also a goodly number of guns and swords.
The direct descendants of the Wilkinsons are lineal descen- dants of Landgrave Morton. Representatives of the family are not only found on Edisto Island but on other adjacent Sea Islands. The old homestead is situated on the high road that crossed Edisto in a diagonal direction,
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CHAPTER XII
BEAUFORT-INCLUDING COMBAHEE AND CHEE-HA DISTRICTS-WITH TWO PICTURES OF WILLTOWN HOUSES AND ONE AT BARNWELL
BETWEEN CHARLESTON AND BEAUFORT
JOURNEY from Charleston to Beau- fort in 1785 or 1786 is most delight- fully described in the diary of Timothy Ford; who begins the account thus :
"Friday 4th Ap. This day set out in a chair with Mr. De Saussure for Beaufort about 70 miles where the circuit court is to be held. We rode through very heavy sandy roads with fatigue and diffi- culty until we reached Ashley ferry (Bee's ferry), and after crossing it had very good roads causways only excepted which are frequent in this country & generally bad. As our rout was for some distance on the side of the river we were often enter- tained with the prospect of country seats of which there is a number and some of them fraught with taste and magnificence. In the evening we reached the plantation of Mr. Waring. We stay all night at this mansion & are most hospitably entertained. In the morning we set off at 8 o'Clock upon our journey. We ride Eleven miles to Pompon ferry. (at Jacksonboro settlement).
The old places on the Combahee deserve notice, even if fragmentary ; there are three men now living who can supply probably better than anyone else the history of this once pros- perous and now deserted region. One of these is Capt. William Elliott, over eighty years of age, who served in the war be- tween the States, now of Yemassee, S. C. He lived many years at Ball's, on Chee-Ha, upper Chee-Ha neck, and is familiar with the local history. Another authority on the subject of Combahee matters is Mr. Daniel J. Chaplin, now living at
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Walterboro, whose mother owned Fields' Point, the last plan- tation on Combahee, next to the sound. Mr. Ambrose E. Gon- zales, of Columbia, S. C., also knows a great deal of the history ; he used to live ou Chee-Ha. his father having been General Gonzales of the "Bluff" plantation, who married Mary Elliott, daughter of the Hon. William Elliott of this locality.
Mr. James Henry Rice, Jr., tells us that the only houses left below Bonnie Hall are those of Oaklands (Col. Lowndes), Rose Hill (Mr. Theodore D. Ravenel), and negro streets at Cypress (Col. William C. Heyward), with overseers' houses at Paul and Dalton. Combahee had no mansions on it at any time, so far as is known, only frame structures; this was gen- erally true of Chee-Ha as well, whose history is infinitely more interesting and valuable than Combahee. More has been heard of the latter merely because rice continued to be planted on it after the war, and still is planted, whereas Chee-Ha was allowed to go down.
Brick House, the present home of James Henry Rice, is on Chee-Ha, and belonged at one time to Colonel B. F. Hunt, a friend of Petigru, Webster, and other celebrities. It is said to have been the first place settled, and to have on it the first house built in that part of South Carolina.
To quote Mr. Rice, "Combahee flows roughly southward; to the west are marshes and low islands, dividing it from Wimbree Creek and lower down still comes Willimon Creek, back of Willimon Island: settlements on Combahee, after leaving Combahee Ferry (situated on Nieuport plantation -- Henry Cheves) with the exception of two, one of which belongs to Cheves and the other to Dr. Wilson, of Savannah, are on the east side. Facing the ferry on the east are Cypress plantation (Col. W. C. Heyward before the war) and Oakland, Colonel Lowndes; then comes Hickory Hill, Rose Hill (Ravenel), Longbrow (F. Q. O'Neill), Paul and Dalton, Magwood, Old Combahee (properly Woodburn plantation) Middleton . . Tar Bluff (Fripp family), and Fields' Point, composed of two small plantations, Walnut Point, facing Chee-Ha and Fields' Point, facing Combahee.
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"Former Governor Heyward, the irridescent and cloud- massing Clinch, occupies with his associates, the Du Ponts, the upper stretch of Combahee, where it is formed by the june- tion of Cuckold Creek with Saltkehatchie. . . .
"The scenery along the river is picturesque, with a haunt- ing appeal, such as far countries make when first beheld, much as Australia and Patagonia, for example. There is nothing on the coast exactly like it. The bold bluff, from Fields' Point to Old Combahee is without parallel in the entire South.
"It is crowned with magnolias, palmettoes, giant live oaks, and with a few large pines that the vandals have not cut yet. At intervals sharp and deep ravines cut through it, just as they do in the mountains, the sides of which would keep a botanist, a mycologist and musicologist busy for months. Far away to the southeast the smoke of the Beaufort factories may be seen, and, in the immediate foreground, lines of palmettoes look so much like date palms that one fancies the Nile just above Cairo when looking toward Ghizeh."
In 1768 the third Landgrave Bellinger sold 977 acres he had inherited from his sister Elizabeth to Barnard Elliott, in whose hands it became known as Bellevue. It was on this plantation that Colonel Barnard Elliott erected, before the Revolutionary War, the "Temple" of which Mr. William Elliott in his Carolina Sports gives an account in the chapter "A Day at Chee-Ha."
"The traveller in South Carolina, who passes along the road between the Ashepoo and Combahee rivers will be struck by the appearance of two lofty white columns, rising among the pines that skirt the road. They are the only survivors of eight, which supported in times anterior to our Revolutionary War, a sylvan temple, erected by a gentleman, who to the higher qualities of a devoted patriot, united the taste and liberality of the sportsman. The spot was admirably chosen, being on the brow of a piney ridge, which slopes away at a long gun- shot's length into a thick swamp; and many a deer has, we doubt not, in time past, been shot from the temple when it stood in its pride-as we ourselves have struck them from its ruins."
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It was at the headwaters of the historic Chec-Ha River, which is second only to the Ashley and Cooper, that Colonel Barnard Elliott erected the Temple. The next place is put down in Mills' atlas as Marchland, and just below it was Hutchinson, named for a noble family. Mr. Hutchinson hired a tutor from the North named March, who made the most of his opportunities and married Miss Sallie Hutchinson, who had long been classed as an old maid (they were considered old maids when youthful in those days). On the first visit of the newly wedded couple to Beaufort in a rowboat the negroes improvised a chorus, thus "Miss Sallie, she got husbon'; shum dar, shum dar." All the way down and back this "epithala- mium" resounded. One of their daughters married a physician of Philadelphia, but they were later separated, and she after- wards married in Paris Count Tedini, an Italian, cousin of the King of Italy. For many years she and the Count lived at March plantation, by which name Hutchinson was then known. The house there has fallen down, but the grove is one of the noblest on the coast, and still remains.
Stock plantation, which adjoins March plantation, has a noble house site, overlooking miles of marsh down Chee-Ha, with enough large live oaks left to add all needed picturesque- ness. The old house is gone, but it was here that John Laurens spent the last night of his life. He was buried the next day in the graveyard at Stock, but his body was later removed by his father, Henry Laurens, to the plantation of Mepkin. The next place below, and on the west side of the Chee-Ha, was bought by Shaffer, for some time sheriff of Colleton County, and it is held by his son, E. T. H. Shaffer, of Walterboro. The adjoin- ing plantation is the Baring place, later known as the Farmer place, when acquired about the time of the war by a member of Judge Farmer's family, Both of these last two places, how- ever, were cut from the original Minott tract. The next plan- tation on the same side is Whaley, owned formerly by the Whaleys of Edisto Island. Then comes Brick House, and lastly Riverside, on which there was a frame house, near which was the cemetery. Over this cemetery the Savannah River Lumber Company has erected its saw mill plant.
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البها ئية
第で
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"PROSPECT HILL" NEAR " WILLTOWN" (OR " WILTON")
Formerly a Barnwell-Manigault House, now owned by Mr. Bissell Jenkins
கள் வீஸி, செவ்வாய்- ஸ் மனி அற்பவர்.
BEAUFORT
On the east side of the Chee-Ha the first place belonged originally to Colonel Barnard Elliott and was later bought by Mr. Robert Chisolm. It is at present cut into two places owned by a Mr. Boynton and a Mr. Savage. Below this, on both rivers (the Chee-Ha and Ashepoo are here close together) everything was owned by Thomas Rhett Smith (born 1800) whose ancestors had owned it from earliest times. His daugh- ter married William Elliott (author of "Carolina Sports"), and from her brother, Thomas Rhett Smith, Jr., she inherited an additional twenty thousand acres, all of which passed to the Elliott descendants. The greater portion was acquired by Ambrose Elliott Gonzales, whose mother was Mary Elliott, and whose father was General Ambrose Jose Gonzales, one of the Confederate and Cuban Armies.
Thomas Rhett Smith, Jr., was a man of culture and travel. He had many visitors from different parts of the world, espe- cially from England and France, as did William Elliott, who enjoyed a wide acquaintance in those countries. One of the most conspicuous names was William Makepeace Thackeray, who spent a month at the Bluff, on Social Hall, with Mr. Elliott. The lower place was known as Airy Hall, and there was a Con- cert Hall above, the exact location of which cannot be deter- mined. Mr. Thomas Rhett Smith, Jr., kept a French gardener to look after his flower garden and his rosary, the latter con- taining ten acres. He had an English gardener for his vege- tables. Mr. Smith had a large library, and a nearby hill where he used to retire to study is known as "Study Hill." Chee-Ha neck shows signs of Confederate fortifications from end to end, these having been designed by General Pemberton and Captain William Elliott, of Yemassee, who has been previ- ously mentioned.
Timothy Ford writes : "The planters all fix (live) at a dis- tance from the road with avenues cut through the woods lead- ing up to their houses. The negro houses are laid out like a camp & sometimes resemble one."
Edwin De Leon, writing in The Southern Magasine on "Ruin and Reconstruction," says :
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"One of the most curious and attractive sights on a South- ern plantation used to be this negro quarter, with its regular rows of small cabins grouped together, with narrow streets between, and as fresh and smart-looking as whitewash could make them externally, and compulsory scrubbing and sanded floors could make them within. Generally remote from the planter's mansion and outhouses, contiguous to the fields under cultivation, these cabins had allotted to each a small patch of land, on which the negroes could raise their own vege- tables, poultry and pigs, which were their private property, and from which, when industrious, they could earn pocket- money by selling the surplus to the master, or to outsiders, at will. Their regular supplies of food, or rations, were regu- larly supplied, irrespective of the products of these small patches-which were considered and treated as their private property-so that the chance even of accumulation was given them, of which. however, they seldom availed themselves. At- tached to these cabins was always a large hospital or infirmary, with a regular physician visiting it at stated intervals ; so that the infirm or sick were promptly and properly cared for and cured-an advantage shared by no other class of laborers anywhere. Disabled or aged slaves were, until death, the pensioners of the slaveholders, who could not, if they would, shirk the charge.
"The negro quarter was the little world wherein the slave lived and moved in his hours of leisure. . .
From the cabins from nightfall until midnight might be heard the sound of banjo, 'bones,' or violin, the loud laugh or the peculiar sounds of negro minstrelsy, and the dance was as frequent as the song. With a quick air for music, and sweet, clear, though uncultivated voices. the negro race everywhere enjoys melody, and used to indulge freely in it, both of a religious and secular character. The voice of prayer and praise used to ascend from those cabins, for the negro women were great psalm-singers and the men great exhorters ; and their masters encouraged religious exercises among them."
But "over master and man the tide has swept," and in the great rice planting regions, near Beaufort particularly,
68 the eye of the visitor roves over great tracts of cultivation, semi-tropical in outward aspect, where the planter's lordly mansion stands (in some few instances), em- bowered among evergreen live-oaks, magnolias and cedars, whose hedges of Cherokee rose and jessamine fill the air with
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perfume, and the fig, banana and orange are flourishing in the open air, laden with their luscious fruits. Long reaches of marshlands, as flat and as fertile as those of the Egyptian delta, which they strikingly resemble, stretch out as far as the eye can reach ; and the great rice-grinding buildings, crammed with their costly machinery, tower aloft and give a fictitiously busy air to the deserted plantations."
Concerning Combahee Mr. Langdon Cheves writes briefly. "There must have been a good house at Sheldon from early times, as the Bulls were one of the leading families of the Province and kept some state in their domestic affairs. The Yemassee Indians delayed development in this section and such plantations as were owned there were held by non-resi- dents. It was not until after the Revolution when tide water cultivation of rice came in, that large plantations were devel- oped by resident owners on both sides of the river and good houses built. There were large houses at Bonny Hall, Tomot- ley and many other places, down to Clay Hall in later times. Although most of these places were burned during the Civil War their history is worthy of preservation." Mr. Timothy Ford's diary (1785) tells of his arrival late in the evening at the "widow DeSaussure's, where we are regaled with a dish of tea and spend the night. This is a very pleasant place but very solitary, no neighbors in less than 4 or 5 miles wh in- duced me to recommend to Miss DeSaussure to get married in self defense."
Daniel DeSaussure, the oldest son of Henry, was born at Pocataligo in 1735. His father, of an old French family of Lorraine, which left France on account of religion in 1551 and moved to Switzerland, came to Carolina in 1731 from Lausanne and settled near Coosahatchie. Daniel moved to the town of Beaufort and took an early and active part in the Revolution. In 1778 in command of a company, he captured, near St. Helena, a British transport with troops and two captains. During the seige of Charleston, he bore arms and was sent a prisoner to St. Augustine and was liberated in 1781. He was appointed president of a branch Bank of the United States at Charleston, and was president of the Senate of South Caro-
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lina in 1798, when he died. He lost two brothers in the Revolu- tion and his ouly surviving son was the distinguished Chancellor, Henry William DeSaussure.
After the visit at the DeSaussure's, Timothy rides into "the little village of Beaufort. It consists of about 30 houses- stands on an arm of the sea very pleasantly & is stiled a very healthy place. The inhabitants are almost all connected by marriage." He proceeds to give his impressions of the town, which differ but slightly, with the exception of the number of houses, from what would be said about it to-day, Beaufort has always been famed for the beauty of its women and the culture and bravery of its men.
The earliest mention of the name "Beaufort" in connection with the town is found in the minutes of a meeting of the Lords Proprietors of the Province held December 20, 1710, where it was agreed that a seaport town should be erected at Port Royal in Granville County to be called Beaufort Town. An order was passed on June 6, 1717, by the Council of the Prov- ince, that any person taking up any of the front lots in the town should be obliged to erect thereon, within two years, a house fifteen feet wide and thirty feet long; those taking up any of the back lots were to build houses of similar dimension within three years from the date of their grants.
A map supposed to be either the original or a copy of the first map of Beaufort is in the Historical Commission at Col- umbia. The street or space along the water front is not desig- nated by any name on the plan. In the grants and in some deeds giving the boundaries of the front lots this street is called Bay Street, or The Bay, and as such it is known to-day.
In 1785 the commissioners (John Joyner, William Haz- zard and Robert Barnwell) are directed by an Act passed March 24, of that year, "to expose to sale in whole or in lots the land commonly known to be common adjoining the town of Beaufort." The funds secured from the sale were to be used for rebuilding the parsonage house on the globe lands.
The house which was sold to St. Helena's Church as a rec- tory is in front of the east gate of St. Helena's Church, and is
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ST. HELENA'S CHURCH. BEAUFORT, ESTABLISHED FR From a hand-colored print
THE RECTORY, ST. HELENA'S, FROM THE CHURCHYARD Built long before the Revolutionary War
BEAUFORT
one of the oldest houses in Beaufort. It was the home of John Barnwell, who was called "Tuscarora Jack" from having driven that powerful tribe of Indians out of Carolina. He came to this part of the country in 1701.
BARNWELL HOUSES IN BEAUFORT
At the corner of Washington and Cartaret Streets, on the Point, stand the ruins of the "old tabby house, " once owned by John Barnwell grandson of "Tuscarora Jack." John Barnwell married Sarah Bull, the daughter of General Stephen Bull.
Stephen Bull and John Barnwell were the two most promi- nent names in the first permanent settlement in the neighbor- hood of Port Royal, which, having the finest natural harbor in the State, was naturally first selected for settlement. It was so difficult to defend, however, that the first two attempts failed. The annals of Beaufort County during its first century may be said to consist of accounts of these two gentlemen.
The son and grandson of Stephen Bull were both named William, and both were Royal Governors of South Carolina. Stephen Bull had unusually large land grants, and was very wealthy ; he endowed and built Sheldon Church, twice laid in ruins (during the Revolution, and again during the Confeder- ate War), and he is buried in a vault under this church.
Colonel John Barnwell founded the town of Beaufort, which at the commencement of the Confederate War was chiefly in- habited by his descendants, in families of Elliott, Stuart, Rhett, Fuller, etc., and he seems to have been the founder of Beaufort Church, near the east end of which he is buried in a vault, only a few bricks of which are visible above the ground.
Up to the time of the Confederate War the old tabby house of the Barnwells occupied two squares ; that in front was kept as an open lawn, on which the boys of the town played ball, and the Beaufort artillery drilled. Large oaks festooned with moss were on the side. Directly in front of, and on the sides of the house was a pretty flower garden, and separating it from the yard on the east side of the house was a row of orange
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trees. In this yard was a two-story servant house, constructed of the same primitive material as the main dwelling, a com- pound of oyster shell and lime called tabby, as was the two-story carriage house. To the rear of these was the vegetable garden.
The oldest house in the town was built in 1690 at the north- east corner of Mrs. Waterhouse's lot, and it is said that Sen- ator John Barnwell, who fought in the Revolutionary War (a grandson of "Tuscarora Jack"), was born there in 1748. As Mr. Edward Barnwell, a nephew of "General Jack," and father of Mr. Osborne Barnwell, was also born in this house in 1785, and it is probable that the place belonged to the Barnwell family for many years during the early period of the settling of Beaufort. It is so constructed with long piercings in the foundations, that muskets can be aimed in either direction, and underneath them a ledge runs along, on which munitions may be stored. This structure was erected when the Yemassee and Cherokee Indians used to make war on the whites. In those days warning signifying uprisings was sent from island to island by the waving of a red flag.
Mr. Fickling bought the house for a school, but it was after- wards used as a Masonic Hall, when it received its present name of the "Temple of the Sun," the porch with four large columns facing the east. Later the house was bought by Mr. Zealy, whose family occupied it until 1861. It is now the resi- dence of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Van Bray, Jr.
Beaufort district was for many years known as "Indian Land." A discovery was made on Little Island, Beaufort County, of a communal dwelling that could have been built and used only by a people kindred to the Aztecs, to the tribes who owned the stern sway of Powhattan, and to the fierce Iroquois and Hurons-the "Mingos" of Cooper's tales, who differed racially, and probably radically, from the nations of Algonquin stock who inhabited the entire eastern coast from Florida to Canada. There are certain Aboriginal mounds on the coast of South Carolina.
On the Bay in Beaufort is an attractive two-story wooden house with a hipped roof and large chimneys, which was once
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known as the Calhoun residence, and is now occupied by Mrs. O'Dell, mother of Mande O'Dell, the noted actress. It is perhaps best known as the home of Edward Barnwell; and the fact that he was married three times, and was the father of sixteen children, may account for the substantial wings built to the east and west of the house, and the very large piazza adorning the entire front of this establishment. With such sizeable families it is natural that many other quaint and de- lightful houses in Beaufort, in addition to the three already mentioned, should have been connected with the historic Barnwell name.
HOMES ON THE POINT
The Paul Hamilton house is rightfully considered one of the handsomest places in Beaufort. It occupies a beautiful situation on "The Point," to distinguish this section from "The Bay," which is noted for its magnificent live-oaks. The house overlooks a slightly terraced garden leading down to the water's edge, with a quaint sea-wall on three sides to pre- vent the tide from overflowing the flower beds. The building is of the usual square style common to the Sea Island dwell- ings, which are designed for coolness and airiness. The princi- pal features of this low-country architecture are the wide halls, rooms with high ceilings, and large verandas, all of which make for comfort in these southern latitudes.
The Hamiltons are a distinguished family in South Caro- lina history. Paul Hamilton, Comptroller of the State from 1799 to 1804, showed that, in time of stress and danger South Carolina had, during the Revolution, contributed more than five million dollars for the general defense. He also possessed a clear and systematic head, and made the first reports on the resources, debits and credits of the State ever compiled. His reports astonished the legislature, as they then for the first time knew their real fiscal condition, and were enabled to deal intelligently with the resources of the State.
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