USA > South Carolina > History of the German settlements and of the Lutheran church in North and South Carolina : from the earliest period of the colonization of the Dutch, German, and Swiss settlers to the close of the first half of the present century > Part 8
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How the name originated, as applied to this township, it is impossible to state. It certainly was not so called in compliment to the Germans who settled there, as they came from a different section of Germany ; it is possible that the name, "Saxe-Gotha," was applied to this scope of terri- tory during Queen Anne's reign, as intimated by Dr. Hazelius, and thus, even by name, it was to be
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distinguished as a future home for German emi- grants.
The following record of this settlement is made in the Urlsperger Reports, vol. iii, p. 1791 : " Wed- nesday, December 2d, 1741. We had heard nothing before of Saxe-Gotha in America, but we have just received the intelligence that such a town (town- ship) is laid out in South Carolina, twenty-five German miles (100 English miles) from Charles- town, on the road which passes through Orange- burg, and settled with German people. Doubtless the majority of them were German Reformed, as they have a Reformed minister among them, with whose character we are not yet acquainted." This minister was the Rev. Christian Theus, of whom we shall say more hereafter. He commenced his labors in Saxe-Gotha as early as 1739.
The Geiger families and their neighbors were not compelled to remain a long time as isolated settlers in their new homes; the name Saxe-Gotha sounded so agreeably familiar to the ears of the Germans that they flocked in numbers to this Germany in America.
Besides, a certain German, named Hans Jacob Riemensperger, contracted with the government to bring over a number of Swiss settlers, many of whom he located in this township, as we learn from Urlsperger, vol. iii, p. 1808, and from the Journals of Council, on several different pages. In addition to these settlers, this same Riemen- sperger, in company with a Mr. Haeg, brought a number of orphan children to Saxe-Gotha, for
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which service to the province, as well as for the boarding of the children, they brought in their accounts to the Council for payment. Vol. viii, pp. 69 and 70.
Settlement of Redemptioners.
Some of our best and most useful settlers in the South were persons, who, too poor to pay their passage-money across the ocean, were sold by the captains of the vessels, that brought them to America, to any one of the settlers who felt in- clined to secure their labor. The price for which they were sold in Carolina was usually from five to six pounds, sterling money, and both men and women were thus alike sold to service; and then, by hard labor, which extended over a period of from three to five years, they eventually redeemed themselves from this species of servitude.
The advantages of such an arrangement to them and to their adopted colony were, upon the whole, important and salutary.
1. Our infant colonies stood in.need of a useful population which would prove a defence to the country in case of the execution of the continued threatenings of a Spanish invasion, and the sudden attack of hostile Indians.
2. Besides, labor was greatly needed for the cul- tivation of the virgin soil, and these poor Germans -many of them excellent farmers, some of them useful artisans, and all of them hard-working people-furnished this labor, and at very cheap rates.
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3. The country also needed permanent settlers who would become habituated to the soil and cli- mate, who would learn to love their adopted coun- try, by being compelled to remain until they had fully tested all the advantages of the same; these the Redemptioners abundantly supplied in their own persons.
4. Nor were the advantages to them of slight importance. They had nothing to risk in the shape of property, as they possessed nothing 'of this world's goods, and thus they never became a prey to those landsharks which often despoil the less sagacious immigrants of much of the posses- sions which they brought with them to America.
5. Besides, they were the poorer class of people at home in Europe, and would always have re- mained in this condition, had such an arrangement not existed; but now they enjoyed the flattering prospect of receiving competency and wealth at some future day.
6. Then again, their servitude became their ap- prenticeship in. America; in the meantime they learned the English language, they became ac- quainted with the laws and customs of the new country, they discovered by silent observation what would in future be to their advantage, and thus in every way did they become qualified by sagacity, industry, and economy, for their new and independent sphere of life.
Yet it must be confessed that they had to endure many hardships; often were they rigorously treated by their ship captains ; ill and insufficiently fed on
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their voyage across the ocean, and on shore before they were purchased for their services; exposed publicly for sale as the African slave ; often treated harshly by their masters who purchased them, and compelled to labor in the broiling sun of a south- ern climate, and many, by disease and death, fre- quently closed their short earthly career.
However, when our country had become suffici- ently populated, the government interposed and put an end to this kind of servitude, on account of the severity of the lot of these unfortunate la- borers, and thus abandoned this source of coloni- zation. In confirmation of these facts, the follow- ing extracts will furnish abundant proof, and are herewith submitted :
Journals of Councils, vol. xiv, p. 37, January 24th, 1744: "Read the petition of a considerable number of Protestant Palatines, most humbly showing that the poor petitioners have been on board the St. Andrew's, Captain Brown com- mander, these twenty-six weeks past, and there is as yet no likelihood for them to get free of her, because there are none of us yet who have pur- chased their service; they therefore humbly pray his Excellency and Honors that they may find so much favor as to their passages that a sum equiva- lent to discharge the same be raised by the gov- ernment, for which they promise to join in a bond to repay the same within the term of three years, with lawful interest; and that if any of them shall not be able to pay the above sum within that time, that the government in that case shall have full
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power to dispose of them and their families as they shall think proper, &c. Ordered to make investi- gations, and report."
Vol. xiv, pp. 62 and 63: "Several Protestant Palatines, who arrived hither on Captain Brown's ship, and whose services have not as yet been pur- chased, sent a complaint, by their interpreter, to the governor, that the said Captain Brown had often withheld their diet from them on board his ship, and that they had been several days without meat or drink; particularly that last Friday they were the whole day without any, the least, sustenance, and had been the like for several days before, and not only they, but all the rest of the Germans that still remain on board Captain Brown's ship.
" Captain Brown being sent for and interrogated whether he had used those foreigners in the man- ner they had represented, answered, that if they had asked him for food in their language he would not have understood them.
" His Excellency ordered the captain's steward to be sent for, who attended accordingly, and the original contract between Captain Brown and those Palatines in Holland was also sent for and laid before the Board, which being read and the particular species of diet that was allowed for every day of the week specified, his Excellency asked, in particular, if the said Germans had been fed last Friday in the manner contracted for ?
"The steward replied that the Germans would sometimes reserve the taking of diet on certain days in order to have double allowance another.
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But his Excellency gave Captain Brown to under- stand that as he was by virtue of his contract bound to maintain those foreigners till they were disposed of, if any should die for want while aboard his ship, he must answer for their lives ; after which they withdrew."
The accounts of the trials and hardships of these persons, as narrated in the Urlsperger Reports, are entirely too numerous to be inserted in these pages; those who feel inclined to search for them- selves are referred to the volume and page of those Reports, where they can find all they desire to know concerning the Redemptioners. Vol. i, p. 10; vol. ii, pp. 2472, 2482, 2508. How the Re- demptioners conducted themselves can be learned from vol. ii, pp. 2193, 2200, 2213, 2221, 2404, 2413.
One account is here translated for the informa- tion of our readers. Vol. ii, p. 2472:
"The poor people which Captain Thomson brought over with him as servants for this colony are chiefly Palatines and Würtembergers, a whole vessel full of men, women, and children; these are to be sold for five years' service, but for which the inhabitants have neither money nor provisions. An adult person costs £6 5s., sterling. After I had preached to these poor people from Rom. 8 : 28, they thronged around me and besought me to take them to our place (Ebenezer, Georgia), but which was out of my power. An old widow of fifty years, who had lost her husband at sea, and who, on account of her age, was despised and neg- lected, have I besought General Oglethorpe to release, and sent her to our Orphan House."
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This was the general condition of these poor persons in almost every seaport of America. The following extracts indicate that many such ser- vants were sold and located in Saxe-Gotha, and after their legal discharge from servitude they ob- tained the king's bounty and tracts of land, the same as other settlers.
Journal of Council, vol. xi, p. 486 : " Petition of John Wolfe and wife, natives of Berne, Switzer- land, too poor to pay passage-money, entered into the service of Anthony Stack, of Saxe-Gotha, for three years, being now discharged from ser- vice, prays for his quota of land and bounty-money. Granted, on evidence of his written legal dis- charge."
Vol. xi, pp. 142 and 143: "Fullix Smid, of Switzerland, servant of David Hent, lately deceas- ed, discharged by his executors, applied for and received 150 acres of land and bounty in Saxe- Gotha."
It is useless to multiply instances, which could easily be done; these extracts will fully show the correctness of all the foregoing statements, and that Saxe-Gotha, with many other settlements, re- ceived her full share of this class of useful settlers, who proved to have been upon the whole a great benefit to their adopted country.
During the period that intervened between the years 1744 and 1750, Saxe-Gotha received a large influx of population, and much of the available land of that township was then occupied. The vessel which bore them across the ocean was the ship St. Andrew, Captain Brown, commander,
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who doubtless treated his paying passengers well, although he acted so unfeelingly to those who were to be sold for their passage-money. Mention is likewise made of a Captain Ham, who brought other German settlers to South Carolina, but whose passengers chiefly located themselves in Orangeburg, whilst others settled in Saxe-Gotha.
All these German colonists came mostly from those provinces bordering on the Rhine, such as Switzerland, Baden, the Palatinate, and Würtem- berg. They excelled as tillers of the soil, and were accustomed to the culture of the vine, and thus they constituted the very class of people which did become greatly serviceable to the pros- perity of Carolina, but whose influence upon the physical welfare of their adopted country has been as yet little noticed by the various historians of the South.
The Saxe-Gothans were fortunate and blessed in obtaining the services of a pious and faithful pastor ; all the records extant speak in the strongest terms of praise concerning him, but, at the same time, all agree in stating that he had a hard life of it, that he was not appreciated, that he was often persecuted for righteousness' sake, and this treatment he received at the hands of the very people for whose good he labored and prayed. Two years after the first settlers set foot upon the soil of Saxe-Gotha, the Rev. Christian Theus ar- rived and labored in their midst; and as these settlers were not neglected in the administration of the means of grace, which unfortunately was
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the case with many others of the early colonists, they really had no excuse for their conduct, and should have treated their pastor in the most friendly manner.
Dr. Muhlenberg's journal, published in the Evangelical Review, vol. i, p. 540, contains the following statement:
" October 22, 1774. This afternoon I had an ac- ceptable visit from the Reformed minister, the Rev. Theus, of the Congaries (Congaree River), in South Carolina, 120 miles from Charleston. His brother Theus, a painter, lately deceased, re- ceived me as a stranger most kindly into his house when, thirty-two years ago, I travelled through here on my journey from Savannah to Philadel- phia, and afforded me an opportunity to preach on Sunday to the then yet few German families. The Lord requite his love in eternity ! The aforesaid pastor, Theus, came with his parents into this country from Switzerland as a candidatus theologia, was examined and ordained by the Reverend English Presbyterian Ministerium, and since 1739 has performed the duties of the ministerial office in the scattered country congregations among the German Reformed and Lutheran inhabitants, and has conducted himself with the propriety and fidelity due his station, according to the testimony of capable witnesses. We had agreeable conver- sation, and he promised me a written account of church matters in these country congregations, which, moreover, he is best able to furnish, having lived longest in this country, and being an erudite man."
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It is to be regretted that this "written account of church matters," if Dr. Muhlenberg ever received it, has never been published; what interesting material it could now furnish the Church, which must forever be buried in oblivion !
The Doctor continues : " He also furnished me with a more detailed description of the sect men- tioned October 5th, the members living near him. At a certain time he came unexpectedly into their meeting, and found Jacob Weber contending that he was God, and the said Smith Peter (or Peter Schmidt) insisting that he himself was Christ, and that the unconverted members must be healed through his stripes. Pastor Theus, op- posing such blasphemy, the leaders became en- raged and threatened his life, and counselled with the rabble whether to drown or hang him. He escaped, however, from their hands, fled to the river, and fortunately found a negro with his canoe at the shore, sprang into it, and was conveyed across."
Here we have the impartial testimony of Rev. Dr. Muhlenberg, gathered from " capable wit- nesses," of the parentage, ordination, date of min- istry in Saxe-Gotha, piety and learning of the Rev. Christian Theus, up to the period immedi- ately preceding the Revolution. This brief nar- rative, coming from such a source, is not only en- titled to our entire credit, but speaks as much of that devoted man of God as though a volume were written to perpetuate his name and memory.
Rev. Theus lived to be an aged man, for we
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discover his name in the list of members of the " Corpus Evangelicum," and present at every meet- ing of that body until the year 1789, the last meet- ing of which the records are still extant. How much longer he was spared to do good we know not; but from the dates which are in our posses- sion, he had at that time been half a century in the ministry of his Savior.
His resting-place is still pointed out to the stranger, and is located in a field along the state road, between Columbia and Sandy Run, about eight miles from Columbia. It is the only grave that can still be seen there, and tradition says that his dwelling was located not far from that grave- yard. Mr. Abraham Geiger, now also in eternity, erected the tombstone, at his own expense, at the head of Rev. Theus' grave, to perpetuate his mem- ory. Had Mr. Geiger not performed this labor of love, the Church and the world would never even have known where the first pastor of Saxe- Gotha, the contemporary of Geissendanner, Bol- zius and Gronau, had been laid down to rest. The inscription is now much defaced by the hand of time, and can scarcely be deciphered ; nevertheless, we are thankful for this much, and would wish that we could gather similar mementoes of the resting- places of all the first German ministers in the South. The inscription reads as follows :
" This stone points out where the remains of Rev. Christian Theus lie. This faithful divine labored through a long life as a faithful servant in his Master's vineyard, and the reward which
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he received from many for his labor was ingrati- tude."
Rev. J. B. Anthony, one of the late pastors of Sandy Run Lutheran Church, adds yet this infor- mation, published in the Lutheran Observer, A.D. 1858: "Among the octogenarians of this vicinity we have not been able to learn much more of Mr. Theus than the rude stone, now standing in a vast cotton-field, records. Few now living recol- lect to have seen him. No records of those early times are known to exist. The small school- house, which is said to have stood near his grave, has long since disappeared. A few other graves are said to be here, but as no stones can be found in this sandy section to place at the head and foot, light-wood knots are frequently substituted by the poor, hence, when these decay, there is nothing left to mark the place."
The spiritual and moral condition of the Saxe- Gothans is not very highly extolled in the Urls- perger Reports. Rev. Bolzius, who gives us the account, may have been somewhat prejudiced, in- asmuch as his Ebenezer colony had lost some runaway white servants, who probably concealed themselves in the neighborhood of the Congaree River, and in several pages of his diary he berates both the Saxe-Gothans and the government of South Carolina that they were not returned; thus, perhaps, his human feelings were too much en- listed on the side of prejudice and interest whilst speaking of these people. We insert the follow- ing extract :
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Urlsperger Reports, vol. iv, p. 672: " Wednes- day, April 25, 1750 .- The German Evangelical Lutheran inhabitants of Congaree, in South Caro- lina, which new settlement has been named Saxe- Gotha, had besought me, several months ago, to come to them and preach for them, and admin- ister the Lord's Supper. I sent them books suit- able for the edification of adults and the instruc- tion of children, and wrote them that my circum- stances did not permit me to make so long a journey. Now I have received another letter, in which the former request is renewed, and in which they likewise beseech me to assist them in the erection of a church and in obtaining a pastor. They have a congregation of about 280 souls, who all could attend church if the house of worship were erected in the midst of their plantations.
"The Reformed have received 500 pounds, Carolina currency, from the government, which amounts to something more than 500 guilders, for the building of a church, but no one is in- terested for the Lutherans, unless I would do something in their behalf. They live with the Reformed in great disunion, at which I showed my displeasure in my former letter. A few fami- lies have removed from this place among them, who might have supported themselves very well here; afterwards three adult youths were per- suaded to leave their service here, and two (white) servants ran away, all of whom are harbored in the Congaree settlement. The citizens them- selves, as a Carolina minister once wrote me,
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lived disorderly among each other, and estimate their Reformed minister very low. I have no heart for this people. If they were truly con- cerned about God's word, then so many unworthy people would not have located in their midst, as there are other places where good land and sub- sistence may be obtained.
"In this very letter they inform me that they have built both a saw-mill and a grist-mill, and expect to build more of the kind. Why then should they be unable to erect a house of worship if they were sincerely in earnest ?"
The above record in Bolzius' diary, published in the Urlsperger Reports, is in strict accordance with the testimony of Dr. Hazelius on the Weber- ites-which sect arose some ten years later,-with Dr. Muhlenberg's account, with the inscription on the tombstone on Rev. Theus, and with several living witnesses, who were contemporaries with many old citizens of a former day, whose narra- tives they still well remember.
Whilst many of the Saxe-Gothans were not devoid of blame, and deserved censure in those days, there were others whose life and conduct were praiseworthy, and others who were devotedly pious, and who were anxious to enjoy the bless- ings of the means of grace, and it is sad that Rev. Bolzius permitted his feelings of interest for his own colony to cause him to act so unfriendly to- ward this people, and to send no kind word of encouragement to them, when they besought him to visit them and break to their hungry souls the
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bread of life. Who knows what good he might have accomplished by a friendly visit? Who knows what future evil, e. g., that Weber heresy, he might have been the instrument of preventing? Besides all this, he, as a minister of the Gospel and of like persuasion with these people, had no right to withhold his influence and sympathy from two hundred and eighty souls, (we are surprised at so large a number) who extended such a Macedonian call to him, and besought him twice to interest himself in their behalf in procuring a minister for them, who were almost as sheep without a shepherd. Who could calculate the influence the Lutheran Church would have exerted in those regions, had this large congregation been properly cared for, and supplied with the means of grace ? Besides, had Rev. Bolzius been instrumental in securing a pious and efficient pastor for them at that early period, and this pastor, laboring side by side with Rev. Theus, how much that faithful servant's hands would have been strengthened, and how much good seed might have been sown, springing up to everlasting life, which would have entirely changed the spiritual and moral condition of this people. Deprive men of the Gospel and the Sacraments, take away or refuse to give them the benign influences of Christianity, and we need not be astonished at "disorderly living" and heresy in doctrine.
Another Lutheran minister in South Carolina at this time, A.D. 1750, and one of the right char- acter, Rev. Giessendanner being then in Orange-
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burg, who, in that event, might have remained in the Lutheran Church, with the three Eben- ezer pastors in Georgia, these five might have formed the nucleus for a Lutheran Synod in the South, almost as old as the Pennsylvania Synod, which could have instructed and ordained other pious men for the Gospel ministry. At a later date the pastors of other established Lutheran congregations would have connected themselves with this Synod; their synodical reports sent to the city of Augsburg, in Germany, would have made the Urlsperger Reports as interesting in its records of Church affairs, as the Halle reports are now, filled, as they are, with general accounts of Church matters in the entire Province of Penn- sylvania, and not simply the detailed accounts of daily occurrences in a single settlement. What short-sighted people even the most pious ministers of the Gospel sometimes are!
The present citizens of old Saxe-Gotha, now Lexington County, are an entirely different people; their forefathers could not prevent unworthy set- tlers from locating themselves among them. Many of those depraved men met an untimely death in the war with the Cherokees; a few perished miser- ably at the hand of administrative justice; others were cut off by disease and an early death; whilst a number moved to other parts of the country. It is exceedingly doubtful whether many of those reprobates left their descendants behind them in Saxe-Gotha, as all traces of Weber and Schmidt have entirely disappeared.
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We have seen that Rev. Theus came to the Congaree settlement in the year 1739. In what building he. first preached is unknown, but ar- rangements were soon made for the erection of a church. As early as 1744-5 John Jacob Riemen- sperger petitioned the government of South Car- olina to do something toward the erection of churches and school-houses for the German set- tlers in various localities; otherwise they would continue to do what many had done heretofore, move with their families to Pennsylvania, where all these advantages could be enjoyed. That the government entered into such an arrangement we have already seen from the Urlsperger Reports, for five hundred pounds currency was donated for the building of a German Reformed Church, which, we presume, had been completed at that time, A.D. 1750, and the people were enjoying the means of grace in their new house of worship. Tradition informs us that this German church stood near the spot where the remains of Rev. Theus are deposited, but it has long since been no more. We now turn to an ancient map of South Carolina, originally published in 1771 and 1775, and recently reprinted in " Carroll's Collec- tions." Near the Congaree River, a short distance below the confluence of the Saluda and Broad Rivers, and in the township of Saxe-Gotha, a church is laid down, bearing the name St. John's. This substantiates all the above-mentioned records and traditions, gives us the exact locality of that church, which, in the proper proportion of dis-
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