USA > South Carolina > Williamsburg County > History of Williamsburg; something about the people of Williamsburg County, South Carolina, from the first settlement by Europeans about 1705 until 1923. > Part 19
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There are now three buildings standing in Kingstree that were erected prior to 1830, the Court House, the Nelson house, and a part of the Harper home. In 1820, Joseph Scott and William Reed established a sawmill on "The Branch" in the northeastern part of the present limits of the town of Kingstree. This was the first saw- mill established in Williamsburg. Up to that time all lumber had been made by whip saw, worked by man power. This sawmill furnished most of the lumber from which the reunited Congregation of Williamsburg built its meeting house in 1828. Some, however, came from the Bethel Meeting House, which was torn down when the congregation "turned again home."
Later, Joseph Scott established a steam sawmill on his wife's plantation on Finley Bay, where was used the first steam engine brought into Williamsburg District. The whistle was a most important part on the steam en- gines of that day. It is said that for years when Joseph Scott's whistle blew on Finley Bay, all Williamsburg, man and beast, stood at attention. Planters for miles around abandoned their noon day horns and gongs, for when this steam whistle sounded, it was twelve o'clock in all the land.
Willtown, on Black Mingo, was the first village settle- ment in ancient Williamsburg. It had a beautiful loca-
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HISTORY OF WILLIAMSBURG
tion in a rich and prosperous section and an excellent water way to the sea. James Fowler, a rich merchant in Charleston and a rice planter on Black Mingo, estab- lished a trading post at Willtown in 1750. He exchanged tape and buttons and rum and molasses for the cow hides, deer skins, and tobacco the people of Williamsburg brought. About that same time, Dr. John Augustus Fincke settled at Willtown and began the practice of "physic." He established an inn and was as celebrated as "Mine Host" as a healer of diseases. He practised medicine for everybody within a radius of thirty miles of Willtown. Men came from a greater range than this to refresh themselves at his "Barr and Board." From Dr. Fincke's old account books and the inventory made of his estate after his death in 1766, one may know the names of nearly every man in that country,-when he elected to "celebrate" a week, and when his babies came.
Willtown reached its zenith about 1800, even though a commercial traveller from Europe then described it as "a miserable hamlet with about thirty houses and eight stores." Among the merchants at Willtown at that time were: James Zuill, Thomas McConnell, John Ma- son, Hugh Paisley, John King, and Captain John Brock- inton. These merchants had large storehouses, and lines of sloops, flat boats, and pettiaguas running to George- town, from which place their own schooners carried the country produce they had collected at Willtown to Europe and brought back manufactured supplies. One might purchase from these merchants at Willtown almost any article he could find even in metropolitan markets.
The first postoffice established in Williamsburg Dis- trict was at Willtown. Willtown lay on the post route which Benjamin Franklin established from Savannah, Ga., to Wicasset, Maine. Since Willtown was on this post route from North to South, was a stopping place for travellers in those days, and since there were many
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wealthy cultured people living in the community, it be- came one of the best known points in South Carolina. Patrick Dollard had an inn there. He was a witty Irish- man and a genial host. Travellers anticipated their re- ception and treatment at his inn. He told them wonder- ful tales and fed them on well-prepared fish and game, for which this community is famous. In 1785, Bishop Asbury stopped at this old inn on his first visit to South Carolina, and he recorded in his diary that he was there "well used." Aaron Burr frequently halted there for refreshment and rest while he was visiting his daughter, Theodosia, who married Governor Alston of South Caro- lina and whose unknown fate is the subject of some of the most pathetic tales told.
In 1819, the rivalry existing between Thomas McCon- nell and John Dozier had reached such proportions that it was the subject of action on the part of the Legislature in that the public roads leading into Willtown were dis- continued and the bridge over Black Mingo was moved some miles below Willtown to Shepherd's Ferry. This action killed Willtown. From that time onward, these storehouses were one by one abandoned and were burned or fell into decay. Cleland Belin, however, began a mer- cantile business there about this time and was a great merchant for half a century.
A postoffice was established at Indiantown in 1818. It was kept by George Mccutchen on the Kingstree road about three miles from the church. This mail route ex- tended from Sumter to China Grove where it met the stage line from Cheraw to Georgetown. Indiantown at this time began to support a school. Levy Durant of Georgetown taught in the church for several years and until the Indiantown Academy was built. There were many men in Indiantown who owned a considerable amount of property. James McFaddin was banker for
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the section. He always kept money at hand and grew wealthy "shaving notes."
Puritanism was introduced into Williamsburg by Dr. James W. Stephenson, who was pastor of the Bethel Presbyterian Church at Kingstree and of the Indiantown Presbyterian Church from 1790 until 1808. He had been impressed somewhere before coming to Williamsburg with the principles of Arminianism. He, doubtless, believed that he preached Calvinism. His words may have been Calvinistic but his thoughts and his personality empha- sized the responsibility of the individual. He began Christianizing negroes. Calvinism never thought of ne- groes as of the elect, but of them as "being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation, to the praise of His glorious justice." Calvinistic ministers had preached in Williamsburg for three score years before Dr. Stephen- son came, and not one of them had said a word about the saving of the souls of slaves.
These Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of 1730 were about as far removed from Puritanism as were the Roman Catholics. The fact is, the average Scotch-Irish Presby- terian who came to Williamsburg, while he talked a great deal about his religion and had absolute faith in his church, yet he was restrained in his daily conduct by his religion and by his church about as little as any man who ever lived in the world. He said and did very nearly what he wished. It is true that the Session of Elders of his church would sometimes call him before it, making him confess his sins and fall down on his knees before the congregation and receive reproof for his irre- ligious conduct before receiving communion, but this was so common that offenders did not consider it too seriously. One usually offended again whenever it suited his will.
When Dr. Stephenson came to Kingstree in 1790, he found people here and at Indiantown much given to wordly amusements, frivolity and unpuritanlike conduct
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in general. They loved horse racing and frequently held races. Probably the largest crowds of people Dr. Stephen- son saw in Kingstree the first ten years he lived there were gathered about the old race course. Sometimes, men of Kingstree drank more whiskey than was good for them and every man kept a barrel of whiskey in his home. Nobody then thought of apologizing for offering a caller a drink of good whiskey, and most frequently the caller took two drinks. Dr. Stephenson found that danc- ing parties were frequent and sometimes grand balls were
held in the community. The most saintly men and women out of his flock even attended these dancing frolics and sometimes he saw one of his elders, more than four score years of age, indulging in the pastime.
In short, Dr. Stephenson found a band of rollicking cavaliers in these parts and his greatest sorrow lay in the fact that Dr. James Malcolmson, minister of the faction of the congregation controlling the old Williams- burg Church, rather encouraged these wordly amuse- ments. Furthermore, Dr. Malcolmson actually scorned the camp meeting Dr. Stephenson engineered at the Sandhills. Dr. Malcolmson even was chairman of a board that conducted a lottery for the building of the Wil- liamsburg Academy. The slave owners in Dr. Malcolm- son's congregation allowed their negro slaves to work on Sundays land which their masters had given them for producing crops. Dr. Stephenson's congregation had just seceded from Dr. Malcomson's congregation and had seen the new Light. Dr. Stephenson preached about all these things which Dr. Malcolmson's congregation did and when Dr. Stephenson left for Tennessee with his congre- gation in 1808, he took with him most of the people in Williamsburg whom he had succeeded in making Puri- tans. Dr. Stephenson, however, sowed the seeds of Puri- tanism and helped lay the foundation for Arminianism in this district.
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By 1800, Williamsburg had recuperated from its losses in the Revolutionary War and began an era of prosperity which continued until the Confederate War. While some of the paragraphs in sermons preached by Dr. Stephenson indicated that the people of Williams- burg lived riotous lives, the fact is, they were conser- vative in all things. While they enjoyed horse racing, dancing, and some of them even an occasional drink of good whiskey, the vast majority of the people did only those things which were conducive to strength and to progression. There were many lovers of blooded horses in this district. Major John James had introduced some of the best strains of Arabian blood many years prior to the Revolution and there were some excellent horses on the plantations at this time. John Keels, on Mount Hope Swamp, had some very fine horses. He kept a race track on his own plantation. Samuel Tisdale in the Cedar Swamp section owned a race track. Captain John James had one. James Burgess, of the Pudding Swamp section, sometimes entertained his friends on his planta- tion race track.
At one of the dances held in Kingstree in 1805, John and Samuel McGill of Williamsburg, who had been work- ing as apprentice carpenters under Colonel David Gor- don in Sumter for about seven years, introduced short hair for men in Williamsburg. Up to this time, all men had worn queues. When these two young men entered the ball room, their short hair created a sensation. The wearing of queues by the men of Williamsburg up to this time indicates a distinct English influence in the dis- trict. Until this day, stories are told of the dances that were held at the homes of Samuel McGill and of Colonel William Cooper of Indiantown, of Joseph Scott and Samuel Fluitt at Kingstree, and of Major James Camp- bell and Francis Lesesne of Campbell Swamp.
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Town of Williamsburg.
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State of South Carolina.
Pursuant to an order of the Hon Thomas Broughton, Esq. Lieutenant Governor, and his Mo- Jesty's Surveyor Gen! bearing date 8th August 1735 I have
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containing 350 acres of land, the river swamp fronting the town including. But. ting and bounding North. degree Westerly on lands laid out to David Johnson and Some Ervin - to the South 75 degrees wester. ly on Black River- to the North and East on land laid out unto Roger Gordon and John Henderson and to the South 15 degrees on Archibald Hamilton, and hath such shapes and marks forms and numbers of lots as are
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ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL LIFE, 1783-1830
In 1830, property was probably more equally distri- buted in Williamsburg than in any other district in South Carolina. There were practically uo poor whites here. Everyone, except overseers, owned a plantation, and these plantations were miniature empires. A sufficient number of the sons of overseers to supply the demand remained. The surplus went West. Some of this surplus became the bitterest element of the abolition party in Kansas and Nebraska of later years. "Free schools," designed for people too poor to have their children taught to read and write, were authorized in South Carolina in 1811. There were none of these schools in Williamsburg.
Lands were worth from $2.00 to $3.00 an acre; slaves from $500.00 for an ordinary farm hand to $3,000.00 for a skilled blacksmith, carpenter, or patroon. Black River was navigable for flatboats carrying a hundred bales of cotton for some miles above Kingstree. Black Mingo was navigable up to the site of the old Indian village on Indiantown Swamp. There were three times as many slaves as whites in the district.
Up to this time, when a man died he usually willed all of his land to his eldest son and provided for his other children out of his personal property. Many of the younger sons took their property and migrated into other states. A number of these younger sons founded families in Western South Carolina, and in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Tennessee.
CHAPTER XXI.
INDIANTOWN CHURCH, 1819-1830.
The Session of Elders of Indiantown Presbyterian Church was the supreme court of all that section. In civil as well as religious matters, the people required no other tribunal than this ecclesiastical court. No Sanhe- drim at Jerusalem nor College of Cardinals at Rome, in its time and place, ever exercised more complete control than did the Session of Elders at Indiantown. A re- markably conservative citizenship has composed the In- diantown Congregation in all its history. It is very pos- sible that no other community in this country has for so many years required so little interference by civil authority. The unwritten law is so high in conception and so strong in execution that hardly ever is it neces- sary for the State to use its authority in Indiantown.
The Session Records of Indiantown Church from 1819 are complete and existing. On February 12, 1819, the Reverend Robert Wilson James, a graduate of Princeton, and a licentiate of the Presbytery of Harmony, was or- dained pastor of the Indiantown Church and of the Bethel Church at Kingstree. At this time, the old Williamsburg Presbyterian Church was maintaining a feeble organi- zation and had not had a minister for a score of years. The other faction of this old Williamsburg Church, the Bethel Church, had lost most of its leading members by removal to Maury County, Tennessee, and to other states. Indiantown Church was the only strong militant con- gregation worshipping in Williamsburg District.
For eighteen years, from 1790 until 1808, Indiantown enjoyed the ministry of the Reverend James W. Stephen- son. Dr. Stephenson had a remarkable influence upon Indiantown. He came very near Puritanizing it in a single score of years. The other ministers who had fol-
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INDIANTOWN CHURCH, 1819-1830
lowed Mr. Stevenson up to the time of Mr. James' com- ing were all good men and the church was in excellent condition when he was ordained. Some of these old re- cords in the Session Book here are copied :
"The following infants were received into the church by Baptism, February 22, 1819: Calvin, son of Hugh and Elizabeth Hanna; Alexander James, son of Alex- ander and Martha McCants; William Hitch, son of John and Jane Price; Mary Scott, daughter of George and Jannet Barr; Frances Jane, daughter of Alexander and Jane McCrea; Samuel Davis, son of Mary Ann and Samuel McGill; Alexander Washington Jackson, son of William and Susan Graham. In the summer and fall of 1819, the following infants were received into the Church by baptism: David Flavil, son of Samuel J. and Jane Wilson; David Edward, son of David D. and Mary Wilson; Sarah Margaret, daughter of William and Esther Daniel; Jane McGill and Elizabeth, daughters of Enos and Mary McDonald. This year Hugh Hanna, George Barr, George Mccutchen, Jr., and Samuel J. Wilson were elected and ordained to the office of Ruling Elders. In November, applications for membership from two black men received attention. Upon recommenda- tion of their masters and after satisfying the Session as to their knowledge and piety, Cupid was first admitted to the ordinance of baptism and then to the Lord's Sup- per; Hannibal, having been previously baptized in the Methodist Church, was admitted to the Supper."
"At this meeting of the Session of Elders, a young woman in the community who had, some years before that time, been charged with incest, applied for member- ship in the Church, making full confession before the Session. The Session was uncertain about receiving her into full membership and referred the case to the Pres- bytery, to which the Presbytery at its next meeting re- plied, 'The opinion of the Presbytery in the above case
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is, the person in question may be correctly admitted to the communion of the Church, upon giving satisfactory evidence of experimental piety; and that it be recom- mended to the Session to receive a public confession of penitence for the crime above alluded to. Signed: John Cousar, Moderator.' This recommendation was made known to the applicant, but she declined to make a con- fession of her crime before the congregation and she was not admitted to membership."
April 30, 1820, "At a meeting of the Session, the Elder- ship came to the determination to take into considera- tion and to state formally to this Church Judiciary the conduct of some members that were guilty of unchristian practices. At a meeting held in May, the following members were reported : Hugh Paisley, charged with intoxication ; John J. Mccullough, intoxication; Robert Brown, gambling and fighting; John S. Dick, intoxica- tion; Samuel James, intoxication; Sam, a black man, theft.
"The Session adjudged it most proper that Hugh Pais- ley shall be conversed with by two of their members in a private manner referring to his crime. George Mc- Cutchen, Sr., and Samuel J. Wilson were appointed for this purpose. The Session adjudged that John J. Mc- Cullough should be warned of his crime, reminded of his relation to the Church and informed that the Church would proceed farther in the case without his reforma- tion. George Mccutchen and James Daniels were ap- pointed to converse with him. The Session adjudged that Robert Brown should be warned of his conduct by a private letter. Hugh Hanna and George Barr were ap- pointed to converse with James Barr and warn him that he had scandalized his Christian profession and that the Session would find it necessary to exclude him from the communion, unless he manifest the fruits of repen- tance and reformation. The Reverend Robert W. James
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INDIANTOWN CHURCH, 1819-1830
was appointed to converse with John S. Dick and Samuel James and warn then against their alleged crimes. Captain John James was instructed to collect the evi- dence against Sam, the black man, and lay it before the Session.
"The committee appointed to wait on James Barr re- ported that he would not hear or attend to the warning of the Church. Samuel James acknowledged his offense and professed repentance for it. John J. Mccullough acknowledged the crime made to his charge, admitted its being a crime, but excused himself as being under the decree of God. He made a promise that he would en- deavor to amend. The Session did not accept Mr. Mc- Cullough's excuse and refused to admit him to partake of the Communion of the Lord's Supper until he had further acknowledged his crime and repented. Hugh Paisley came before the Session, acknowledged his crime, was permitted to make profession of his repentance agree- able to the form prescribed in the Book of Discipline. James Barr was suspended. The black man, Sam, was rebuked but permitted to retain his privileges in the Church."
This entry is found in the records of the next meeting of the Session, "The Session of this Church has to lament the apostacy of Hugh Paisley, who has again been guilty of intoxication and appeared in that condition in the presence of the whole church on the Sabbath Day." It was then resolved that Hugh Paisley be cited to appear before the Session on the 2nd day of February for trial for his crime.
"2nd of February, 1821. The Session at this time finds itself at a loss on the cases of two negro men who have been in communion with the Church and whose wives have been removed from them by their owners. These men have taken other wives. The Session is at a loss to determine on the propriety of their conduct. It
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refers their cases to the Presbytery and suspends them until its opinion is known.
February 4, 1821, James Daniel, a Ruling Elder in this Church came forward, confessed to the Session that he had been overtaken with the crime of intoxication and professed a sincere repentance. The Session deemed it advisable that James Daniel, in consequence of his stand- ing as an officer of the Church, should make public con- fession of his crime and repentance.
"October 10, 1822, three black persons in connection with the Methodist Church made application for member- ship in this. It was the voice of this Session that if they fell under its jurisdiction, it should be satisfied with their piety and knowledge. They were accordingly examined, but being very deficient in knowledge so far as this Ses- sion could judge, they were for the present excluded.
"June 1, 1823, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was administered and the following black members received into full communion : Sena, Phœbe, Jannet, Cupid, and Jenny, of the Methodist Society.
"October 29, 1823, charges next were exhibited against Entrum, a black man on the plantation of Mr. Hugh Mccutchen. Entrum was charged with adultery. Two witnesses supported this charge and his own state- ments amounted to a confession. The Session, after giving the parties a full hearing, decided that Entrum should be suspended from the Church.
"The Pastor of the Church now laid before the Ses- sion plans for carrying into operation a Bible class, a Sunday School, and a regular catechizing of the black people, which plans were concurred in and measures taken for their early commencements.
"January 22, 1825, David Wilson, a Ruling Elder of this Church, with Sarah Florilla Wilson, his wife, took their dismission from this Church to remove with their family, James Stephenson, Thomas Edwin, Robert Man-
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ton, Samuel Addison, and William McClary, to the State of Alabama.
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