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 4
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CHAPTER V.
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.
Priests and kings could not make these Scotch-Irish conform to a religion which was not of their very own, but these same priests and kings could withhold lands from them and could confiscate what little worldly goods the Scotch-Irish accumulated from time to time.
The original settlers of Williamsburg came to this wilderness for economic reasons-to secure titles to land and to make it bring forth what was necessary for their sustenance and comfort. They were called "Poor-Protes- tants" when they came and were so described in official records of South Carolina until the War of the Revolu- tion. Their struggles against the fearful power of the mediaeval political state church gods had made them poor, and had bereft them of all save their strong bodies and their unconquerable spirits.
These Scotch-Irish paid their passage to this province, but accepted aid from the King in the way of provisions and agricultural implements for the first few years. It takes a strong imagination to conceive the conditions the first forty found when they arrived at the King's Tree on Black River in 1732. Immediately surrounding the King's Tree were swamp lands within which sandy pine barrens were scattered. These swamps were thickly covered with cyprus trees bearded with long gray moss. Underneath these cyprus trees were massed and matted luxuriant un- dergrowth tangled with muscadines, Cherokee roses, and jessamine. Over the tree tops, strange birds screamed. From the dark recesses about their roots, wolves and pan- thers howled; venomous snakes crawled here and there; and swarms of death-dealing insects shaded the sunny skies. But in the midst of all this rampant nature, the mocking bird sang and the wild dove called, and the Scotch-Irish
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knew that a benevolent God reigned and rewarded right- eousness. They found dry places in the pinelands and there they erected rude huts as they had known in Ireland.
Clearing this thickly wooded land was a labor of Her- cules, but these Scotch-Irish toiled until they had pre- pared and planted grain in a soil of which they knew but little. The soil here was not like that in Northern Ire- land, and their first harvest brought but little reward for their labor.
In 1734, Samuel Eveleigh, a merchant in Charleston, wrote to George Morley, Provost Marshal of the Colony of South Carolina, who was then in London, a letter from which the following is an extract: "Last November was twelve months came over a party of Irish Protestants from the North of Ireland, which the Governor got set- tled at a Township called Williamsburg at Winyaw on Black River, where the land is good. They immediately made up some huts to cover them from the weather and then went to clearing the land, which they planted and made very good crops so that they had grain enough for themselves and five hundred bushels to spare. There are several families since arrived and gone there to settle and I believe in the usual time, it will be a considerable set- tlement. I can not tell you the particular allowance they have out of the public exactly, but I think it is a cow and a calf and a sow to two families, one hundred weight of beef, half a hundred of pork, one hundred weight of rice and five bushels of corn to each person, besides tools. This is and will be a considerable charge to the Province." This letter refers to the Colony under Roger Gordon, which first settled about the King's Tree.
In 1734, among the estimates made by the several colo- nial officials is found the following: "To allowance for one year to Mr. Roger Gordon and forty Highlanders in one of the Northern Townships (Williamsburg) and to Mr. William York with sundry Palatines from Philadel-
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HISTORY OF WILLIAMSBURG
phia and also to several from England, £5,000." The al- lowance made that year was to each adult eight bushels of corn or peas, two hundred pounds of rice, four hundred pounds of beef or three hundred pounds of beef and fifty of pork; to each child under twelve years of age, half these amounts.
From the beginning, the men produced an abundance of corn. They did not succeed in wheat cultivation. The rivers and swamps swarmed with enormous quantities of excellent edible fish and the forests were full of herds of deer. Wild turkeys were abundant. Fifty years later Cornwallis said "Williamsburg is worth capturing for the fish in Black River;" and a hundred years afterwards, John Ervin Scott, who lived in the Cedar Swamp section, said that he never went early in the morning to his hog pens, about a mile from his home, without seeing three or four deer.
Every two families among the original settlers were given a cow and a calf. These found abundant grazing lands all over the District and soon there were large herds of half wild cattle roaming the country. Cattle have been, from the first days of Williamsburg until the present time, the thing which has given hope to the people of this section, when everything else seemed wanting. They flourish in these meadows without any food except what they find themselves. From cow hides these pioneers made not only their harness for horses, but leather breeches for men, aprons for women, coverings for their chairs, and used them in the place of modern springs on their high posted beds.
Sheep and hogs were also brought to Williamsburg and they have proved continuous assets to the section. Both of these useful animals live well in the wildwood and mul- tiply rapidly. Much of the clothing of ancient Williams- burg was made on the plantations from wool produced at home. The first articles exported from the township
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were deerskins, pork, and lard. There were many horses in the colony. The original settlers brought some with them and they, too, multiplied rapidly in the swamps. Whenever a man needed another horse, he called together his friends, and they drove these half wild horses into a spe- cially made pen from which the party selected such as it needed.
The settlers, who came to Williamsburg, had learned the cultivation of flax in Ireland and many of them were expert weavers. In 1742, William Lowry, of Williams- burg, exhibited before the Governor and his Council in Charleston a sample of Holland's cloth, which he had made on his own plantation by his own hands, from the flax seed to the finished product. He was granted the sum of twenty pounds as an encouragement. There were many plantations in the District at that time making linen and some of it then made is yet held as heirlooms in the old families of Williamsburg. Some cotton was produced for plantation purposes. The seed were laboriously sep- arated by hand from the lint on long winter nights and the lint spun and woven into cloth.
For many years, these people fought the forests and the swamps, enduring and overcoming handicaps incon- ceivable. Slowly they prospered. Within a few years, they began to sell their surplus products in Charleston. In 1749, they had a crop failure; it did not rain that year. In August, they gathered together in the Williamsburg Meeting House to offer prayers for rain. The rains did not come in time to fill the ears of the withered corn. They bought corn from North Carolina, but that winter nearly one-fourth of the people of the colony died. Some strange sickness, probably influenza, overtook them, and caused eighty newly made graves in the Williamsburg Church- yard.
About that time, the planting of indigo was begun. Some few negro slaves had already been brought in the
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HISTORY OF WILLIAMSBURG
Township, and used in the cultivation of this indigo. Within five years after its first introduction, prosperity came to this people and riches were not far away. They bought more negro slaves and blooded horses from Charles- ton. It is said that indigo sold for such enormous prices that at this time a planter could fill his wallet with this product, ride horseback to Charleston and exchange it for a slave.
Indigo covered the country and every plantation had its indigo vats. These vats were holes in the ground about thirty feet square at the top, shaping downward to resem- ble half of a broken inverted pyramid. These holes were lined with a composition of sand and pitch which was waterproof. In these vats they poured water, into which they packed and crushed the plant. The water absorbed the dye from the bruised plant after a certain period of time. Another deeper pit was dug by this vat and from the bottom of this vat, a line of wooden pipe permitted the drainage of the water filled indigo to pass into casks in the pit below. This indigo filled water had to be drained from the vat at the proper time or the whole product would spoil.
Now these Scotch-Irish were the most God-fearing peo- ple in the world. On Saturday evenings they made their small sons go out into the fields and shut down their bird traps and their rabbit gums. They took their pocket knives from these youngsters at the same time. Promptly on Monday morning these boys were given back their knives and allowed to place their traps in proper con- dition to receive unwary game.
But these Scotch-Irish brethren simply had to devise some scheme to start their indigo tanks draining when their product would be damaged by waiting until the fol- lowing morning. One beautiful Sunday afternoon, when an Elder was strolling out with his family on its solemn service, he passed one of his indigo vats that was rich
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ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
and ripe for draining. Monday morning his indigo would be ruined. This good Elder's foot accidently struck the peg that held the rich, ripe indigo fluid in leash, the peg fell out and the casks below began receiving the bluish drippings. They had the future Revolutionary hero up in the Church for his accident, but the good Session of Elders finally decided that accidents would happen and that men could not be held too strictly accountable for them. Similar accidents often happened after that time, and much indigo was saved thereby for the commerce of the world.
CHAPTER VI.
CHURCHES AND CHURCHMEN.
While the original settlers of Williamsburg came to the township on Black River primarily for economic reasons, yet the congregational religious principle, which had grown in the majority of them for centuries and which was largely responsible for their temporary impoverished con- dition, was, in fact, the cause of their migration into this wild country.
Until the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1789, the Church of England determined the ecclesi- astical polity of South Carolina. The colonists were forced by law to support the Church of England and this was the only church recognized as such by law. No man could hold office under the government unless he were a com- municant of the Church of England and would take an oath that for one year prior to his accession to office he had not received the sacrament of communion except from the hands of a priest of the established religion, and, when a man took the oath of office, he was required, then and there, to receive the Holy Sacrament administered ac- cording to the ritual of the Church of England. Further- more, no man was allowed to teach school in the colony unless a communicant of the Church of England and duly licensed for such purpose by the Lord Bishop of London.
When Williamsburg Township was surveyed and laid out on August 28, 1736, the most desirable acre of ground in the town of Williamsburg was reserved for the Church of England, and an adjoining acre was granted for the Churchyard. These two acres of land were those making up the northwestern half of the block in Kingstree where- on the Bank of Kingstree now stands. At the same time, one hundred acres of glebe land on the northern boundary of the town of Williamsburg, adjoining the lands of John
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CHURCHES AND CHURCHMEN
Henderson, were surveyed and granted to the use of the minister of the town of Williamsburg.
But the Church of England and its "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts" were never too seriously concerned about the religious condition of the "Poor Protestants" of Williamsburg. A few times between 1735 and 1750, the Rev. John Fordyce, minister of Prince Frederick's Church of Winyaw, and the Rev. Joseph Bugnion, minister of Orangeburg, visited the town of Williamsburg on Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas, and conducted services, baptized a few children, and re- ceived nominal contributions from these poor Protestants in Williamsburg, but no Church of England was erected or even undertaken in this township on Black River.
Practically all of the original settlers in Williamsburg Township were of the Congregational or Presbyterian faith and their exceeding enthusiasm was shown in the promotion of Presbyterian principles. Although many of them inclined to the Church of Scotland as "reformed" by John Calvin and John Knox, yet in heart they were adherents of the untouched ancient doctrines.
On July 2, 1736, the following "indwellers in Williams- burg" met and formed the Williamsburg Presbyterian Congregation, which congregation has maintained its or- ganization continuously until the present day: John Witherspoon, John Fleming, William James, David Wil- son, James Bradley, Robert Wilson, John Porter, David Pressley, Robert Ervin, William Pressley, John Hender- son, William Frierson, Thomas Frierson, William Syms, David Allen, John James, James McClelland, and David Witherspoon.
This congregation petitioned for a grant of land for erecting thereon their Meeting House, but the Colonial Governor did not act promptly on their petition. Two years later, in 1738, they secured from Captain Roger Gordon two acres of land on the eastern boundary of the
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HISTORY OF WILLIAMSBURG
platted "Town of Williamsburgh", and there built the Wil- liamsburg Meeting House. On this spot, the congregation worshipped continuously until 1890, when the church was moved to Academy Street in the town of Kingstree. The lot was then devoted exclusively to the use of the white people of the vicinity as a burying ground.
The title to this property was made to the following as trustees of the Congregation : James Bradley, William Syms, David Allen, William James, John James, John Porter, James McClelland, and David Witherspoon. This Congregation chose as its first elders, John Witherspoon, John Fleming, James McClelland, James Bradley, Wil- liam James, and David Witherspoon. This Session of Elders and its successors have played a remarkable part in the administration of the law of Williamsburg, civil and religious, until this day.
The first Williamsburg Meeting House was built of logs and was used until 1746, when the log structure was re- placed by an excellent house of worship. William Swin- ton, a prominent member of Prince George's Church, left a legacy of one hundred pounds in his will for aiding the erection of this second Meeting House.
This was the largest building in the township until the War of the Revolution. It faced the East and was located in the Western part of the present Williamsburg cemetery. As one entered he came first to the Deacons' seats, ele- vated about six inches above the floor of the aisle. Back of the Deacons' seats, and elevated twelve inches higher, was the pew for the Ruling Elders, larger than that of the Deacons', and about square. Back of the Elders' pew and three feet higher and up against the wall was the pulpit. The pews were all high-backed. The head of each family owned a pew and the Church and the Minister were sup- ported by a tax on these pews. Some of the pew owners were not members of the Church, yet each pew owner had an equal voice and vote in the congregational meet-
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ings. This rule resulted in serious conditions in later years.
In 1770, on account of the rapid growth of the colony, both by birth and by new immigrants from Ireland, this house of worship was doubled in size, which was done by extending the side opposite the pulpit.
It was customary among the Presbyterians of ancient Williamsburg to leave something, if not more than one hundred pounds or fifty acres of land, in their wills to their church. Among the first bequests to the Congrega- tion were those of James McClelland, John Blakeley, James Blakeley, John Watson, John Scott, and Nathaniel Drew. Frequently, outsiders remembered this Congrega- tion at the King's Tree and made bequests. Henry Sheriff, of James Island, and William Swinton, of Georgetown, were among this class of non-residents. When one now looks over the list of valuable bequests to this congrega- tion during the first century of its existence, he wonders why the present Williamsburg Presbyterian Church cor- poration is not as wealthy as some other ancient church or- ganizations in America.
The first minister of the Williamsburg Presbyterian Con- gregation was the Reverend Robert Heron, of Ireland, who served three years, returning to his native land in 1740. The next minister was the Reverend John Rae, installed in 1743. He was a "high church" Presbyterian and saw that everything done in this pioneer settlement congre- gation was according to the ritual of the most elect and select Church of Scotland. He required his congregation to fast and pray on Saturday, listen to his four hour sermon on Sunday, and spend Monday in thanksgiving that they had heard such a wonderful discourse.
Mr. Rae was not much of a Puritan, since he did not preach about drinking whiskey, horse racing, and permit- ting slaves to work for themselves on Sunday, but he was a great Presbyterian advocate. His sermons were remark-
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HISTORY OF WILLIAMSBURG
able displays of theological learning. He hated the Roman Catholic Church a great deal more than he did the Devil, and feared God to the limit of his capacity.
May 19, 1752, the following officers of the Williamsburg Congregation signed the Confession of Faith : John Rae, minister; John James, James McClelland, James Wither- spoon, John Leviston, Robert Witherspoon, Samuel Fulton, Robert Wilson, Robert Paisley, Gavin Witherspoon, Wil- liam Dobein, Elders.
Mr. Rae served the congregation eighteen years and died in 1761 at Salem. He was buried in the Williamsburg churchyard, although the exact location of his grave is unknown. He was a man of strong personality and was very influential in his congregation. Dr. J. R. Wither- spoon says he went about "with unwearied diligence and fidelity reproving the negligent, encouraging the doubt- ful and desponding, visiting the sick, comforting mourn- ers, and relieving the distressed."
This Williamsburg Presbyterian Congregation was the only religious organization maintained in Williamsburg Township until 1786. Out of the township, prior to the Revolution, there went several colonies who formed Pres- byterian Congregations in other sections, and the Wil- liamsburg Church may rightfully regard them as offspring. Among these may be mentioned: Salem Black River, Aimwell on the Pee Dee, and Indiantown.
The first House of Worship or Church built on the ter- ritory now known as Williamsburg County was the Black Mingo Meeting House located on Church Creek in the corner where the Williamsburg-Georgetown County line road leads to the South from the Georgetown-Kingstree highway. This was an excellent brick structure, forty by sixty feet, and was erected in 1726 for use by the religious Dissenters in that Black Mingo community. The Reverend Elisha Screven, an Antipaedo Baptist Minister, was the moving spirit in the building of this Church, contributed
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CHURCHES AND CHURCHMEN
the greater part of its cost and preached the first sermon from its pulpit.
Although it was largely through Screven influence, money, and energy that the Black Mingo Church was built, since there were few of the Baptist faith in the community, this ancient Church was soon dominated by the Presbyterian element in the Congregation; and, after the death of the Reverend Elisha Screven, it became known as the Black Mingo Presbyterian Meeting House. It was used, from its beginning, by dissenting congregations, first come, first served. The Reverend John Baxter was the first Presbyterian Minister who preached there. In 1729, he baptized John Nelson, son of George and Helen Nelson, the first baptism among the Calvanists in Wil- liamsburg. This Church was the first structure erected by a dissenting congregation between the Santee and the Cape Fear Rivers.
The records of this old Church have all been lost. Here and there one finds reference to it and its congregations in old diaries written in that period. The last reference to it is found in the Indiantown Session Records of June 20, 1824, and reads as follows : "Mrs. Margaret McConnell was received into this Church on reputable testimony of her having been an acceptable member of the Black Mingo Church, this Church being now extinct."
The walls of this old Church stood until about 1890, when the bricks were hauled away and used for planta- tion purposes. The church site is yet plainly discernible, and about four acres of ancient graves, with a few old tombstones, still tell simple tales of the men and women who there more than a century ago lived and labored.
Indiantown Presbyterian Congregation consisted of John James, Robert Wilson, David Wilson, William Cooper, Sr., William Cooper, Jr., Robert McCottry, George McCutchen, George Barr, Thomas McCrea, Robert Wither- spoon, James McCutchen, and about fifteen other heads of
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HISTORY OF WILLIAMSBURG
families when it was organized in 1757. The first Indian- town Church was built that year on the four acre lot of ground left in the will of William Thompson for that pur- pose. Mr. Thompson also bequeathed one hundred pounds sterling towards the building. John James, Robert Wil- son, and David Wilson were its first elders and the Rever- end John Knox its first minister.
There were many causes contributing to the founding of Indiantown Church. Williamsburg Township had over- flown into this district, as had the Black Mingo section, and those who had settled in the Indiantown community had prospered. The founders of the Indiantown congrega- tion were, for the most part, the sons of settlers in Williamsburg Township.
At that time, there were two flourishing Presbyterian Churches in Williamsburg, the Williamsburg and the Black Mingo Churches. The founders of these two churches had come from Europe and were belligerent dis- senters. Many of them had actually witnessed, and some of them felt, the fires of religious persecution adminis- tered by the political state church. These Presbyterians represented one of the extreme factions in the religious life of the English speaking peoples for many genera- tions. While the Roman Catholic Church had been the organization of the other faction, and while the Church that was created with the view of reconciling these two extreme factions had succeeded in becoming the Church of England, neither the extremists of the Presbyterian fac- tion nor those of the Roman Catholic faction accepted the Church of England as constituted, but both factions hated it to the limit of their ability.
These Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, who came to Wil- liamsburg, were, for the most part, uncompromising in their religious conceptions. The ancient Presbyterian doc- trine was very largely monotheistic, strikingly similar to that of Judaeism. The Roman Catholic Church made
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Jesus Christ outstanding in the Holy Trinity. The Church of England adopted very largely the Roman Catholic idea of Jesus Christ. Scotch-Irish Presbyterians hated any- thing that had in it a suggestion of the Roman Catholic Church, and so the Presbyterian Churches at Black Mingo and at Williamsburg, following the doctrines of the Church of Scotland, were practically Unitarian. Their ministers were called to preach by virtue of their being entitled to certain hereditary rights under the British Government, the right of presentation to a benefice inherent in certain families, were educated in Scotland and Ireland, and preached in this country the doctrines of the Church of Scotland.
There are now, in old diaries, minute books, and other ancient documents, references to more than one hundred sermons preached by these ministers in these two old Williamsburg Churches and not one of these sermons was based on a text taken from the New Testament. The Church of Scotland ministers of that day seemed to over- look the New Testament. One finds among the original Presbyterians who came to Williamsburg Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses and Aaron, Nathan and David and other Old Testament names, but he looks in vain to find a man called Matthew, Mark, Luke, Paul, Silas, or Cornelius.
In all the wills of the pre-revolutionary period, the first paragraph dedicates the soul of the testator to God. There are shown in them two ideas of Christ-the Presbyterian, which does not call His Name; and that of the Episcopa- lians and the Baptists, which does. A typical Church of Scotland Presbyterian was James McCown, who says, "Principally and first of all, I give and recommend my soul into the hands of God that gave it, and my body I recommend to the earth to be buried in decent Christian burial, nothing doubtful but at the general resurrection, I shall receive the same again by the mighty power of God."
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