USA > South Carolina > Charleston County > Charleston > History of the New England Society of Charleston, South Carolina, for One Hundred Years, 1819-1919 > Part 6
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"The sudden removal from us of the Rev- erend Samuel Gilman, D.D., has called forth the
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startled sorrow and profoundest grief of the com- munity in which, for almost half a century, he had lived the life and illustrated the example of a Christian pastor, and in all respects and relations so meek and gentle and lovable, so disinterestedly alive to the calls of courtesy and charity, so actively and efficiently identified with the literary culture and social amenities of our city that his decease will cast a shadow far beyond the pale of the congregation which has grown up under his teachings. We of Charleston all knew and loved him, and we had grown to think him so utterly and entirely our own that we had hoped uncon- sciously that even the inevitable message would have found and reached him in our midst and amid the scenes and calls of duty wherein his life has passed in honor and instructive example. We are startled that he so loved and honored should be thus taken, and we are more startled that the call should have found him far from us and from the home of his active and well-stored life.
"It will be the melancholy office of the citi- zens of Charleston, in varied relations and asso- ciations, to do honor to such exemplary worth and merits, and to abler-not more loving-hands,
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and to moments and occasions of more matured reflection, we commit and defer the offices of a more adequate tribute.
"We cannot, however, omit the sad occasion of stating and acknowledging the pleasures and benefits and delightful fruits of a long and intimate intercourse and acquaintance with our departed friend, who so happily illustrated all that the ancient moralists have taught us of friendship in its purest forms, and added withal the crowning graces and charms of the Christian life, example, and character.
"It has fallen within the editorial province of the Courier, at frequent intervals within the forty years which enclosed Dr. Gilman's residence and service among us, to give mention and proof of his active sympathy and zealous co-operation in all great and worthy purposes and projects of social, municipal, literary, moral, or religious advancement. It is scarcely six years since an interesting epoch in his pastoral relation-the renovation of the house of worship occupied by his beloved and loving parishioners-gave us an occasion to notice at some length his influence and services in our community. This character- istically appropriate discourse, full of patriarchal
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reminiscences and paternal instruction uttered, as was Dr. Gilman's wont, without affectation or assumption, was pronounced on the first Sabbath in April, 1852, as 'a farewell to the old church,' and was wrought out from the text: 'Old things have passed away.' With what emphasis and accent of sorrow will that text now be sounded forth in the ears and memories of bereaved and weeping friends, as they enter again and again their beau- tiful temple, now beautiful to them no more in the absence of him whose ministry and teachings were its most cherished adjuncts. From this discourse we gather a few facts, which will furnish melancholy interest at this occasion.
"Dr. Gilman received his pastoral call early in 1819, as successor to the Reverend Anthony M. Forster. After a few months of probationary service, he was confirmed and duly installed in the pastorate of the Unitarian or Second Inde- pendent Church of this city-the services being performed in part by Reverend Jared Sparks, D.D., LL.D. In the interim, the young pastor had been united in the only tie dearer and nearer to him than the vinculum of the pastorate-to her who was for nearly twoscore years a helpmate in life and example in labor and pursuits, and is now
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the chief mourner and stricken participant in an eclipse of grief, into whose sacred shadow we dare not intrude.
"Since that day, the life, labors, actions, and example of Samuel Gilman have been before this community and 'known and read' by us all. Up to the date of this discourse referred to, he had administered the last sad rites of the church at 300 graves, had recorded with the rites of baptism the names of 484 children and 37 adults, and had presided at 148 acts of marriage.
" At a later date, and within the last year, it was our privilege and pleasure to offer our readers two of the best of all the discourses and addresses that have been given to the public in any form by our de- parted friend. We allude to the sermon preached on the 22d February, 1857, at the call of the Wash- ington Light Infantry, and in commemoration of the character of Washington. Our demonstrative and occasional oratory has rarely given a contri- bution of more sterling value to permanent litera- ture. Christian oratory has never more fitly and impressively embodied and applied the lessons of any anniversary.
"We must omit, however, the extension of this public tribute, for which we are unfitted by the
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startling shock of its occasion, and by the general gush of sorrow around us that seeks and needs repose and some recovery before it can take articulate utterance.
"It is more fitting that we apply and digest in silent grief and chastened meditation the lessons of such a life and the mournful memories of so great a sorrow. 'Being dead, he yet speaketh,' and long shall that speech be heard in persuasive accents and utterances, pleading for truth and charity and purity and virtue, and reminding us all that the places which now know us shall soon know us no more forever."
Dr. Gilman became a member of the New England Society in 1821. He was for more than a generation one of its most prominent members, serving as a member of the committee on charity and as chaplain. His addresses on Forefathers' Day were among the most classic and profound utterances ever delivered before the Society. One of the most notable was delivered just before his death and is incorporated in the chapter on the Civil War.
In order to convey an idea of Dr. Gilman's devotional spirit and his poetical genius, a prayer offered at one of the annual celebrations of the
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his return to New England he wrote the following poem, which is of interest as an example of his poetry and as an index to his feelings both for Charleston and for his native New England:
Farewell, awhile, thou hospitable spot! Farewell, my own adopted dwelling-place! Scene of my future consecrated lot And destined circuit of my earthly race.
Farewell, my friends, who hung so long and true, With sleepless care around my fevered bed, And ye from whom a stranger's title drew Profuse attentions, delicately shed.
Yet why a stranger ? Since no other home Remains for me; e'en now, depressed, I fly For the last time through youthful haunts to roam, And snatch the breezes from my native sky.
Yes, dear New England! Help me from my breast To wean these childish yearnings, ere we part; Help me these cords to snap, these ties to wrest, So wound and stamped and woven in my heart.
A few more bounds along thy rocky shore, A few more pensive walks among thy streams, A few more greetings from dear friends of yore, A few more dreams-and then, no more of dreams.
Come sacred, solid duty! At thy call My cheerful will submissively shall flow; So, thou great source of strength and light to all, Lead me the awful way my feet must go.
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Teach me to bear the Christian herald's part, To set the slaves of sin and error free, To guide each doubting, soothe each aching, heart, And draw a listening, willing flock to thee.
FAIR HARVARD
Composed by Dr. Samuel Gilman, and sung at the centennial celebration of Harvard Univer- sity, September 8, 1836.
The following year Harvard conferred upon Mr. Gilman the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity.
Fair Harvard! thy sons to thy jubilee throng, And with blessings surrender thee o'er,
By these festival-rites, from the age that is past, To the age that is waiting before.
O relic and type of our ancestors' worth,
That hast long kept their memory warm!
First flower of their wilderness! Star of their night, Calm rising through change and through storm!
To thy bowers we were led in the bloom of our youth, From the home of our free-roving years,
When our fathers had warned, and our mothers had prayed, And our sisters had blest, through their tears. Thou then wert our parent-the nurse of our souls- We were molded to manhood by thee,
Till, freighted with treasure-thoughts, friendships, and hopes,
Thou didst launch us on Destiny's sea.
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When, as pilgrims, we come to revisit thy halls, To what kindlings the season gives birth! Thy shades are more soothing, thy sunlight more dear, Than descends on less privileged earth; For the good and the great, in their beautiful prime, Through thy precincts have musingly trod, As they girded their spirits, or deepened the streams That make glad the fair City of God.
Farewell! be thy destinies onward and bright! To thy children the lesson still give, With freedom to think, and with patience to bear, And for Right ever bravely to live. Let not moss-covered Error moor thee at its side, As the world on Truth's current glides by; Be the herald of Light, and the bearer of Love, Till the stock of the Puritans die.
SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born at Charlestown, Massachusetts, April 27, 1791. He died in New York, April 2, 1872. He was gradu- ated from Yale in 1810 and went immediately to England, where he studied art with Benjamin West: When he returned to this country, he sought to establish himself in a number of Ameri- can cities. He came to Charleston, South Caro- lina, in 1818 and remained in the "City by the Sea" for a number of years.
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In the winter of 1819 he wrote to his old pre- ceptor, Washington Allston: "I am painting from morning till night, and have continual applica- tions." In one year during his stay in Charleston Mr. Morse received more than one hundred orders for pictures. Among the orders he received was one from the city of Charleston to paint a life- size portrait of James Monroe, then president of the United States. The following notice of this order is taken from the Courier, April 29, 1819:
The City Council passed a unanimous vote at a meeting last month that His Honor the Intendant be requested to solicit James Monroe, president of the United States, to permit a full-length likeness to be taken for the city of Charleston, and that Mr. S. F. B. Morse be requested to take all necessary measures for executing the said likeness on the visit of the President to this city.
The request has been made by the Intendant to the President, who was pleased to grant his permission, but, on account of his limited stay and multiplicity of engage- ments, he would not be able to sit for his portrait while in Charleston. We understand that Mr. Morse has made arrangements with the President to take the por- trait in Washington, after his return from his tour.
This portrait was painted in Washington, and on its completion was placed in the City Hall and is still in perfect condition.
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Mr. Morse joined the New England Society in 1820, the year after its organization, and was a regular attendant at its meetings and dinners.
In 1823 Mr. Morse went to New York City and, after hiring as his studio, "a fine room on Broadway, opposite Trinity Church Yard," he continued his painting of portraits, one of the first being that of Chancellor Kent, which was followed soon afterward by a picture of Fitz-Greene Halleck, now in the Astor library, a full-length portrait of Lafayette for the city of New York, and a portrait of Major General Thomas Pinckney, of South Carolina.
During his residence there he became associated with other artists in founding the New York Draw- ing Association, of which he was made president. This led in 1826 to the establishment of the National Academy of the Arts of Design, to include representations from the arts of painting, sculpture, architecture, and engraving. Morse was chosen its president and so remained until 1842. He was likewise president of the Sketch Club, an assemblage of artists that met weekly to sketch for an hour, after which the time was devoted to entertainment. About this time he delivered a series of lectures on "The Fine Arts"
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before the New York Athenaeum, which are said to be the first on that subject in the United States. Thus he continued until 1829, when he again visited Europe for study and for three years resided abroad, principally in Paris and the art centers of Italy.
In 1832 he discovered the electric telegraph, which made him so famous that his work as an artist has been disregarded by the average reader of history.
BENJAMIN FANEUIL HUNT
Benjamin Faneuil Hunt was born at Water- town, Massachusetts, February 29, 1792. His father was the descendant of a clergyman who was among the early immigrants to that state. His mother was a daughter of George Bethune, of Brighton, and Mary Faneuil, of the Huguenot family, one of whom gave Faneuil Hall to Boston. Colonel Hunt's father died in 1804, but his widowed mother, perceiving his talent, had him prepared for college. In 1806 he entered Har- vard University, where he was graduated in his twentieth year.
Mr. Hunt came to Charleston in 1810 and began the study of law. He entered as a student
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the law office of the late Keating Lewis Simons, at that time one of the most distinguished orna- ments of the legal profession in this city. After two years' study he was admitted to the bar of Charleston at a period when it was crowded with eminent practitioners. Gifted with high intel- lectual powers and a ready and powerful rhetoric he at once took his place in the front rank of the profession. His practice was large and success- ful, and his professional triumphs generally, and especially in the defense of criminals in capital cases, were multiplied and signal. His ability and eloquence as an advocate soon gave him prominence in the field of politics, and he fre- quently served in the legislature of this state as a representative from Charleston and was always regarded as one of the ablest and most influential debaters on the floor of the House.
The following statement concerning Mr. Hunt is quoted from Sketches of Eminent Americans:
"On the declaration of War in 1812, Mr. Hunt aided in organizing a company which was drafted during the war into the service of the United States, and throughout its continuance faithfully fulfilled the responsible duties of his command. He successively rose through the intermediate
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grades, and about the year 1818 was promoted to the colonelcy of the Sixteenth Regiment and served in that capacity nearly twenty years. Since then Mr. Hunt has been popularly and familiarly known as "Colonel Hunt." In his military position he has always manifested the characteristic traits of energy, fearlessness, and ability, both as a soldier and tactician, that had so signally distinguished him as a lawyer and a legislator."
Colonel Hunt became a member of the New England Society April 7, 1819, and for a genera- tion was in constant demand as an orator on Forefathers' Day. At the annual celebration, December 22, 1824, five years after the organiza- tion of the Society, Colonel Hunt delivered the principal address, which made a profound impres- sion at the time and which is eminently worthy of quotation in this sketch. He spoke as follows:
"Upon the anniversary of events that have happily affected the destinies of mankind, it is delightful to trace the progress of the past and indulge in pleasing anticipations of the future. This day recalls to memory an occurrence that has already worked the most entire and the most important change in the civilized world, and
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hope itself cannot compass the prospects which are constantly expanding.
"Two hundred and four years ago, a few Pil- grims landed on these shores and laid the founda- tion of our country. Few in number, poor and defenseless, they encountered a bleak and untamed wilderness. Ordinary men would have shrunk from the enterprise, but they were the chosen heralds of civil and religious liberty. Mark the contrast which so brief a period presents. The forest is subdued-the wigwam of the savage is supplanted by the homes of the learned, the pious, and the free. Science now rears her temples and Religion wears her brightest robes and scatters her choicest blessings through this modern Canaan.
"It is worthy of the statesman, of the philos- opher, and the philanthropist to ascertain and illustrate the cause of a revolution so vast, so sudden, so admirable. In the meantime the other portions of the earth have experienced only the gradual and almost imperceptible changes produced by the lingering process of time. The nations of Europe have maintained, with little variety, the same relative position, while on this side of the Atlantic has sprung into existence,
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from a little band of pious exiles, a mighty Republic, defying the power of the strongest and emulating in all the refinements of life the most polished; enjoying its luxuries without their corruptions; religion without superstition; and liberty without licentiousness.
"This cannot be the effect of accident, neither of soil or climate, and least of all of patronage- for some of the most delightful and fertile regions have scarce advanced a step, some remained stationary, others have retrograded; and the his- tory of our infant settlements is a narrative of suffering fortitude struggling with the inclemen- cies of the seasons and the hostility of savages- of whole families perishing in the storms of winter, or butchered by the tomahawk that spared neither age nor sex-yet now peace crowns every hill and plenty smiles in every valley.
"After a passing tribute to the stout hearts that quailed not at all the complicated hardships of the pioneers of civilization, let us look for the great moral cause of all our present happiness and all our future prospects in the purity of the moral and political principles of our forefathers.
"Arrived on a part of the coast beyond the limits of their charter, they found themselves
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about to disembark upon an unknown wilder- ness, without government, without laws, without magistrates. They realized the state which phi- losophers had only imagined, and, recurring to the eternal principles of all legitimate rules, they framed and signed a written form of government by which each bound himself to the whole to obey the majority, and proceeded to elect the first magistrate whoever presided over a pure democracy under a written charter. The nearest approaches of the most celebrated republics will not bear comparison. Here were no ancient customs, no prejudices, no favored family whom the people had been used to venerate and obey, no inveterate predilections, rendered sacred by time, to destroy the harmony of the structure -all were equal, all had alike forsaken the land of their nativity and committed themselves to the trackless deep to escape the oppressions of the Old World, and, thus remitted to their primitive personal independence, they formed the first American constitution.
"The history of the world affords no other example of men yielding voluntarily to the restraints of government and basing it upon the true foundation, the sovereignty of the people.
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"Although compelled for a time to submit to the oppressive protection of a country that arrogated the name of mother, although she had exiled her offspring by her cruelty, they never lost sight of the first elements of their civil com- pact, and when time had matured their strength, and exactions repugnant to their notions of right afforded ample justification, these primitive repub- licans proclaimed an eternal separation from Britain and declared to the world that these states were, and of right ought to be, free, sovereign, and independent. This was the consummation of all the toils, all the suffering, all the moral forti- tude of the first settlers, and to maintain it the Patriots of '76 pledged to each other 'their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honors,' and nobly did they redeem the pledge; for now our country stands an equal among the mightiest empires of the earth. Her example has shaken to their centers the thrones of Europe and even now is about to constitute all America a continent of free men.
"The increase of population has been rapid beyond all precedent. Having secured at Plym- outh an asylum from the oppressions of rulers and the persecutions of priestcraft, new settlers
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soon swelled their numbers. The adventurous and the persecuted looked to these shores, and new colonies studded the coast from Maine to Georgia; and their children now mingle in har- mony, constituting one great people. Here the Huguenots of France found protection for them- selves and a rich heritage for their posterity. . Here, too, many an exile of Erin prays for the hour when he may write the epitaph of Emmett, 'when his country is free.'
"Such has been the growth of our country- from a few Pilgrims, wandering upon the bosom of the deep and cast upon an unknown shore, to more than ten millions of people, who obey no rulers but of their own choice and are governed by no laws but of their own making; whose religion wins by its own purity and, strong in the sincerity of its votaries, shackles nothing but guilt. But where is the prophetic eye that can gaze undazzled upon the bright visions of the future, when our eagle shall stretch his wings from the Atlantic to the Pacific; who can anticipate the exhaustless energies of civil, political, and religious truth? We have traced the infant efforts of liberty; who can foretell the glories of her final triumph ?
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"Yes, my friends, the unexampled and splen- did career of our country is to be ascribed to the pure doctrines and unsullied republicanism of our venerable forefathers. Her march has been the victory of civil and religious emancipation of the rights of man. This ceremony belongs not to us alone the anniversary we celebrate was the dayspring of an enfranchised world.
"Assembled as we are to celebrate an era so fertile of human happiness, although our pursuits in life have led us to a quarter of our common country far from the places of our birth and the scenes of our infancy, we will yet remember with filial fondness the green hills and pure streams of New England and pay the tribute of our affec- tions to a land rendered illustrious by the piety and valor of our ancestors and which now entombs their ashes.
"It was our destiny to have drawn our first breath amid scenes which are hallowed by many an eventful recollection. The rocks of Plymouth, the plains of Lexington, and the heights of Bunker recall to every patriot deeds that have enriched us with the choicest of human blessings and secured to millions yet unborn their perennial enjoyment.
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Breathes there a man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land!
"Suffer me, Mr. President, to offer as a toast:
"'The Land of the Pilgrims. Should it ever be polluted by the footsteps of a tyrant, may every height prove a Bunker, and every arm a Warren's.'"
Colonel Hunt died in New York, December 6, 1854.
BENJAMIN FANEUIL DUNKIN
Benjamin Faneuil Dunkin was born in Phila- delphia, Pennsylvania, December 2, 1792. His parents were sojourning in Philadelphia at the time, their permanent residence being in Massa- chusetts.
At the age of eighteen young Dunkin was graduated with distinction from Harvard. He came to Charleston the following year and began the study of law under the direction of William Drayton.
He served as an officer in the War of 1812.
He was admitted to the bar of South Carolina in 1814. He subsequently held the following
.
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eminent stations in his adopted state: a member of the legislature, and for two terms Speaker of the House.
In 1837 he was chosen chancellor in the Equity Court of Appeals, and in 1865 chief justice. He was chief justice three years, from December, 1865, to December, 1868. Harvard conferred on him the degree of LL.D., but such was his instinc- tive shrinking from self-glorification and the pomp. of distinction that but few of his near friends were made aware of this honor.
The following estimate of Judge Dunkin is from a memorial adopted by the Charleston bar at a meeting held December 18, 1874.
"It is not our purpose to contemplate his per- sonal and private character and domestic virtues. These are too well garnered and treasured in the hearts and affections of those who are near and dear to him by the sacred ties of blood and the social relations of friendship and connection.
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