USA > South Carolina > History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, Vol. I pt 1 > Part 12
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The name of Elias Prioleau and that of Jeanne Merlat, his wife, head the list of French and Swiss refugees in Carolina, who obtained naturalization in 1698.+ There are said to be manuscript copies of the productions of Elias Prioleau exist- ing among his descendants, delivered in France as early as 1677, which are characterized by great doctrinal purity, deep piety, elegance of diction, and vigor of mind. In his will, written in French, and executed in Charleston, on the 8th of February, 1689-90, 'he styles himself "minister of the holy Gospel in the French Church of Charlestown." But it would seem that he preached to other congregations also. The fol- lowing is an extract from the will :
"I direct my said wife" (his sole executrix) " to give imme- diately after my death five pounds sterling to the church to whose service I shall be most ordinarily attached at the end
* Histoire de l'Edit de Nantes, tome troisième, pp. 385-391.
t A copy of this list is in our possession, entitled " Liste de François et Suisses Refugiez au Caroline qui souhaitent d'e [tre] naturalizes Anglois." It was discovered in a parcel of old papers belonging to Henry de St. Julien, who died seventy years of age, in 1758 or 9, and was the youngest son of Peter de St. Julien, mentioned in the list. From a family Bible, still in exist- ence, it appears that a child, whose name is given in the list, was born May, 1694, and died Sept., 1695.
111
ORANGE QUARTER.
1685-1700.]
of my days; and if there are two which I serve with equal assiduity, she shall give to each of said churches two pounds and a half sterling. If she cannot pay in money the sum of five pounds sterling, either in whole or in part, she shall give the value of it in what she can.".
Mr. Prioleau owned a farm on Medway river, a branch of Cooper river, over against Cote Bas, and opposite the French settlement of Orange Quarter, and no doubt gave his services at times to that settlement.
The pastor Prioleau died in 1699, and was buried at his farm on Black river. He has left behind him numerous descendants in South Carolina, who cherish his memory and emulate his virtues.
The colony which was sent out by Charles II., in the ship Richmond, forty-five in number, in the year 1780, were settled, it is believed, on the East branch of Cooper river, and formed the nucleus of what was known as ORANGE QUARTER, and sub- sequently the parish of St. Denis. It has been conjectured that the first name was derived from the principality of Orange, in the province of Avignon, which at the period of the revocation belonged to William, Prince of Orange, afterwards king of England, and where they had been terribly persecuted under Louis ; an assembly for public worship having been attacked, a large portion captured, both men and women, and delivered over to the civil authorities, while the fugitives were pursued into the woods, some stripped, tied to trees, and left to perish with starvation. "Females were afterwards found with their noses cut off and their eyes put out, stripped of all their clothing, and in this pitiable condition wandering in the woods and highways." The name St. Denis is supposed to commemorate the battle-field of St. Denis, in the vicinity of Paris, which was the scene of a memorable encounter, in 1567, between the Catholic forces, commanded by Montmorency, and the Huguenots, led by Admiral Coligny and the Prince of Condé, in which Montmorency was slain .* Some thirty-two families were settled here soon after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and by the culture of the vine and the olive, attempted to carry out the wishes of the proprietors, who had desired to introduce the manufacture of wine, oil, and silk. The climate proved insalubrious : the land, except on the
* Southern Literary Gazette, July, 1856
112
COOPER RIVER.
[1685-1700.
margin of the river and the creeks, was unproductive, and did not reward the care of the cultivator. Among the set- tlers are the names of Bineau, Boisseau, Bonneau, Boudinot, Douxaint, Dupré, Dutarte, Guerard, La Pierre, Le Jean, Lesesne, Lenoir, Martien, Moze, Peyre, Poitevin, Roche, Rember, Simons, Tissot, Thomas, and Videaux.
We have seen, from the will of Cæsar Moze, that in 1687 they were accustomed to assemble here for divine worship, if there was not a church already organized. We have men- tioned the probability that Elias Prioleau frequently minis- tered to them, as he had property in that neighborhood. The Rev. De la Pierre is supposed to have been their first pastor, but when his pastoral office commenced is unknown. This settlement was in advance of the English population.
There was another settlement and church of the Huguenots on the WESTERN BRANCH of COOPER RIVER. Of this, Anthony Cordes, M.D., who arrived in Charleston in 1686, was one of the founders. His brothers were James, Isaac, and John, who resided in St. John's, Berkley, and have no descendants. Ten families composed this settlement at the close of this century, who, though greatly scattered, were organized into a church. Their first and only pastor was Rev. Florente Philippe. Trouillart, whom we have found associated with Elias Prioleau in the pastorship of the church in Charleston. When he left that church is nowhere recorded, nor is there any record of his previous history. Mr. Daniel Ravenel once possessed a certificate of marriage in his handwriting, and in the Latin tongue, the penmanship and diction of which showed that he was an educated man. In this settlement were to be found the names of Guerard, Dubose, La Salle, Le Bass, Cordes, Verditty, De Rousserye, Monck, De St. Julien, Marion, &c .*
There was still another French settlement on the SANTEE, more considerable than the two which have been last men- tioned. Towards the close of this century there were two dis- tinct settlements south of that river, known as the French and the English Santee. The first of these was in what is now the parish of St. James, and the other in the parish of St. Stephen. The two communities had but little intercourse with each other. Of the families in French Santee was that of Boisseau, of Dubose, of Dutarte, Gaillard, Gendron, Gig-
* Presbyterian, June 15th, 1850.
113
CHURCH ON SANTEE.
1685-1700.]
nilliat, Gourdin, Horry, Huger, St. Julien, Le Grand, Mayrant, Michaud, Porcher, Postell, Ravenel, Rembert, Richebourg, Robert, and others.
To what date we should assign the organization of a Hugue- not church on the Santee it is difficult to determine. Like the date of the first settlement, it is involved in uncertainty. The refugees, who emigrated to the British provinces in groups, were usually accompanied by their ministers, and their earliest solicitude, after a settlement had been effected, was the erection of a church and the institution of worship. It was for this they abandoned their native country. We cannot doubt that the Huguenots on the Santee, contemporaneously with their first possession of their newly-acquired territory, reared a church in the wilderness for the public exercise of their religion. The writer whom we quote, says, we may date their colonization antecedent to the year 1690, and ex- presses the opinion that this was the third church erected in the province. The settlement, again, has been referred to a date contemporaneous with the revocation, 1685; and it has been thought questionable whether the church was not older than that in Charleston. Others make it the third church probably in the province .* Rev. Pierre Robert was their first pastor. There is an ancient register of his family in which he is said to have been the first Calvinistic minister who preached in South Carolina. He is said also to have been the first person in the settlement who owned a horse; which was im- ported for his special use, to enable him to attend religious services, held often at remote distances from his house. There are said to have been eighty families of French Protestants on the Santee before the close of this century.
There was still another small settlement of the Huguenots . on GOOSE CREEK, which was probably earlier than any other out of Charleston. They would easily find their way to this neighborhood after their arrival. But they never formed, so far as we can learn, any organized congregation.
The number of French Protestants in these several settle- ments, in the year 1698-9, may be known from the following return made by Peter Girard to E. Randolph, sent out to look into the affairs of the colony by the Lords of Trade. He states the number of refugees of the French church of Charles- Town to be 195; of Goose Creek to be 31; of the eastern branch
* See Southern Literary Intelligencer, July, 1852, and Philadelphia Presby- terian for April 20th, 1850.
8
114
SETTLERS ON COOPER RIVER.
[1685-1700.
of Cooper River to be 101, of the French church on the San- tee, 111-being 438 in all. ,
In this enumeration is omitted the settlement on the west- ern branch of Cooper river, said to consist of ten families. The settlement on the eastern branch is said to have em- braced thirty-two, and that on the Santee from eighty to one hundred families at the beginning of the eighteenth century, which would suggest a larger number.
Among the early emigrants entitled to honorable mention was Benjamin Marion, grandfather of Gen. Francis Marion, of Revolutionary renown. The year of his arrival in the col- ony has been variously stated. Dalcho names 1694, Judge James and Simms about 1685, the author of "the Marion Family," 1690. There is an order of the governor and council, addressed to Job Howes, surveyor, to survey and admeasure 350 acres of land for Benjamin Marion, he having imported into the province seven persons, viz., Benjamin Marion, Judith, his wife; Andrew DeLean, Madelean Budnat, Mary Nicolas, servants; Toby, and Rose, a negro woman. This order bears date, March 13th, 1693-4. Another of these emigrants was Solomon Legare, who left his native land for America in 1695 or 1696, and fixed his residence in the north- eastern part of the city of Charleston. He acquired in that quarter of the town a considerable landed property. He also purchased other property on the opposite side of the city, which is traversed by a street called Legare street. This property descended to his children. One of his descendants sold a portion of his estate in the city and purchased other posses- sions on John's Island, which became the seat of that branch of the family, and where still remain two ancient mansions, . erected by their forefather, the son of the emigrant .* Another family is that of General Horry, distinguished in the war of the Revolution; whose grandparents settled on the Santee, and began their fortunes, as the general often related, by working together at the whip-saw.t
There was a portion of this population reckoned as Hugue- not, who were natives of Switzerland, and another and smaller portion who were of the Waldensian church. The Duke of Savoy, who had pursued these heroic men for years with bloody wars and horrid persecutions, which we shudder to
* Biographical notice of Hugh Swinton Legare, prefixed to his works. Charleston, 1846, 2 vols., 8vo.
t Presbyterian, March 30th, 1850.
115
SWISS PRESBYTERIANS.
1685-1700.]
repeat, reduced them, in 1686, by falsehood and treachery, more than by arms, to unconditional submission, or forced banishment from the country. Multitudes fled to Switzerland as a temporary refuge, and reached at length our own shores. Their reception at Geneva was most noble and generous. One half of the population of that city, headed by the pat- riot Gianavel, came to meet them at the Arve, the boundary of their domain, and there competed with each other who should receive to the hospitalities of his dwelling the greatest number of exiles. Many remained there, near their much- loved valleys, which they hoped yet to recover ; others dis- persed for protection and final settlement to other countries. These were the people for whom Milton cried in his well- known sonnet :
" Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold."
Of those who came to Carolina, there were the names of Laurens, De la Bastie, Gautier, Leger, &c. Jean Laurens was the pastor of a Vaudois church, and signed an address to the Swiss Commissioners in 1686. Siderac de la Bastie affixed his signature as moderator of the synod of Lucerne, Augrogne, Perouse, and St. Martin. Etienne Gautier and David Leger subscribed the address-the former as a deputy, the latter as assistant moderator. It is not improbable that the late Henry Laurens, who was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was descended from a refugee from Piedmont.
There is an order of the Earl of Craven and others to Joseph West, governor, to assign to Jean François de Genillat, " the first of the Swiss nation to settle in Carolina," three thousand acres of land. Other names were Pierre Robert, first pastor of the church on Santee, Honore Michaud, Jean Pierre Pele, &c.
The predilections of the French were for Carolina rather than any other of the English colonies. It corresponded more nearly in climate and productions with their own country, and many who first landed at the north found their way here. Those who came to Carolina were either agriculturists, or tradesmen and mechanics. The last found employment in Charleston. Among these were merchants, goldsmiths, watch- makers, shipwrights, blockmakers, sailmakers, coopers, weavers, leather-dressers, gardeners, apothecaries, gunsmiths, and wheelwrights. Some seventy families settled in Craven county, on the Santee, or on Cooper river and at Goose Creek,
116
GOVERNOR MORTON.
[1685-1700.
and addicted themselves to the culture of the soil. Some of these were possessed of considerable property in France, which, being converted into funds, enabled them to take up large tracts of land, to obtain servants, and to surround them- selves soon with comfort and plenty. Grants of land were made to them, including a small portion to some Swiss reckoned among them, to the amount of more than fifty thou- sand acres within a period of two years.
CHAPTER II.
AT the commencement of the period we are now considering, and contemporaneously with the commotions in France, Joseph Morton was governor of the province of Carolina. He is spoken of as a man of deeply religious character, of sobriety and wisdom. He had married the sister of Joseph Blake, lately arrived from England ; was himself a dissenter from the Established Church ; and great hopes were entertained that his administration would have secured perfect harmony in the infant colony. But there had already arisen two parties, one supporting the prerogatives of the proprietors, the other contending for the liberties of tlte people. He found it beyond his power to control the turbulent spirits who appeared, offered insult to his person, and complained of his adminis- tration. The Spaniards, whose headquarters were at St. Augustine, viewed the English colony as intruders. They claimed Florida both by the right of prior discovery and by a special grant from the pope, and regarded the southern Atlantic coast for an indefinite extent northward as included under their right. They encouraged indented servants to leave their masters, and gave them their protection; pre- judiced the savage tribes against their British neighbors, and instigated them to destroy them. It was the expectation of the proprietors that the Scotch colony of Lord Cardross would have proved a barrier to the Spaniards on the south, and it was for this reason that the order was given by them that the six pieces of cannon lying dismounted and use- less at Charlestown should be delivered up to Cardross. In 1686, while England and Spain were at peace, the Spaniards came with three galleys, and effected a landing at
117
SCOTCH COLONY BROKEN UP.
1685-1700.]
Edisto. With them was a force of Indians and negroes. They pillaged the houses of Governor Morton and Paul Grimball, secretary of the province, who were on duty at Charlestown, murdered the brother-in-law of the governor, carried off his money, plate, and thirteen slaves,-gathering a booty from these two individuals valued at £3000 sterling. They then attacked the Scotch settlers of Stuart-Town, who had but twenty-five men in health to oppose them, killed some, burned one alive, took others captive, whom they barbarously whipped and plundered, and destroyed the entire colony. The fugitives escaped to Charlestown .* Some of them may have returned to Scotland, and others settled in that vicinity. The name of Robert Ure occurs as having made a bequest to the church of Jolin's Island in 1735; and it is not impossible that he may have been either the Robert Urie named in Wodrow as of Lord Cardross' colony, or his son. William Dunlop was in the colony in 1687, and, according to Hewatt, was on a committee appointed to revise the Fundamental Constitutions, and draw up a new code of laws to be transmitted to England for the approbation of the proprietors.t He re- turned to Scotland in 1690, and became, in the same year, principal of the University of Glasgow.# Letters were written to the proprietors by Cardross, complaining of the ill-treatment he had received in Carolina, to which they replied, March 3d, 1686-7, that all this was without their concurrence, expressed their regret at his losses from the Spaniards, and their deter- mination to apply to the king for reparation.§ Broken by his
* Letter to Sothel .- Rivers, Appendix, p. 425.
.+ Hist. Coll., vol. i., p. 92.
# Wodrow, iv., p. 522.
§ Coll. of Hist. Soc., vol. i., p. 118. The invasion above alluded to put a stop for a season to all party strife in this vexed and turbulent colony. Thie people were roused with the greatest indignation against their Spanish neigli- bors. A parliament was summoned by Morton, then governor, and an act passed for raising a force against the Spaniards. An assessment of £500 was made. Two vessels were manned, and a company of four hundred men were on board, ready to sail, with the determination of taking St. Augustine, when they were arrested by the arrival of James Colleton, from Barbadoes, who was brother of Sir John Colleton, one of the proprietors, and had been created a landgrave and governor of Carolina. He commanded the return of the troops, and threatened any that persisted with hanging. The pro- prietors approved of the course of the governor, and wrote that, if the expe- dition had proceeded, "Mr. Morton, Colonel Godfrey, and others might have answered it with their lives." This indignity the colonists never forgave. In their charges against Colleton, whom, by act of parliament, they afterwards banished from the colony, they allege as one of his misdemeanors that he "did, contrary to the honor of the English nation, pass by all the bloody insoleneys the Spaniards had committed against this colony ; and did, with
118
GOVERNOR JOHN ARCHDALE.
[1685-1700.
misfortunes and suffering in health, Cardross returned to Europe, and attached himself to the friends of liberty in Holland, whence he came over to England with the Prince of Orange in 1688. He raised a regiment of dragoons for the public service in 1689, and, in the same year, obtained from parliament the restoration of his rights, privileges, and estates. He died at Edinburgh in 1693, in the forty-fourth year of his age. His son David succeeded him in his estates, and after- wards became the Earl of Buchan .* The governmental seal used in his colony was returned by the then Earl of Buchan in 1793, one hundred years after his death, as an object of curiosity, and was deposited in the Charleston library.} The happy change produced by the accession of the Presbyterian Prince of Orange to the British throne, in 1688, put a stop to the persecutions in Scotland, and the attempt to re-establish the Scotch colony was never resumed.
Besides the emigrants already mentioned, there were others who came into the colony from New England. Under the government of John Archdale, [August, 1695,] a pious and intelligent Quaker, means were taken to propitiate the Indian tribes, and to protect them from injustice. His ideas respect- ing their conversion were simple indeed, and contrary to the dictates of experience and apostolic example. He would have missionaries sent among them skilled in chemistry and mineralogy, to win their respect. He would have English children sent with them, who should become familiar with the Indian children, and introduce them to a knowledge of letters. He was successful, however, in propitiating the native tribes both towards the north and the south, and took them under the protection of his government. The good results were soon witnessed. Among others who enjoyed its benefits were a company of emigrants from New England, fifty-two in number, who were shipwrecked at Cape Fear, and finding themselves surrounded by barbarians, expected nothing but immediate death. They threw up around themselves an entrenchment, for their protection, the Indians, meanwhile, making signs of friendship, showing them often fish and corn to invite them
others, enter into a contract of trade with the Spaniards." " As Englishmen, who wanted not the corage to doe themselves honorable satisfaction, we could not but admire yt soe execrable a barbarity committed upon the person cf an Englishman; and the great desolation yt was made in the south part of this settlem't should be buried in silence for the hopes of a little filthy lucre."-Letter to Seth Sothel. Rivers, Appendix, p. 418; and text, p. 145.
* Wodrow, iv., p. 194. + Ramsay, i., p. 127.
1
119
· NEW ENGLAND COLONY.
1685-1700.]
out. At length they were compelled by famine to resort to them, and were kindly entertained by the chief. Some of their number then visited Charles-Town, and informed Governor Archdale of their misfortune. He sent a vessel for them, and settled them on the north side of Cooper river, thus forming a settlement in what is known as Christ's Church parish, and within which the Congregational church of WAPPETAW was afterwards gathered, whose uncertain date, however, belongs to the early part of the next century, and not to this. . The arrival and settlement of this New England colony occurred probably late in 1695, or early in 1696. About the same time Archdale received the following letter from Ipswich, Massa- chusetts, "from a person of note there, on the behalf of a number of people" desiring to emigrate into this province, couched in terms sufficiently flattering to the vanity of the Quaker governor :
IPSWICH, 26th June, 1696.
" GREAT SIR,-I had not thus boldly intruded myself in this manner, or been the least interruption to your public Cares, but that I am commanded to do this Service for a considerable number of Householders, that purpose (with the Favor of God's Providence, and your honour's countenance) to Trans- port themselves into South Carolina, as it now stands circumstanced with the honour of a true English government, with virtuous and discreet Men Ministers in it, who now design the promoting the Gospel for the increase of Virtue among the Inhabitants, as well as outward Trade and Business; and considering that the well peopling of the Southern Colony of the English Government or Monarchy may, with God's blessing, be a Bulwark to all the Northern Parts, and a Means to gain all the Lands to Cape Florida (which are ours by the first discovery of Sir Sebastian Cabot, at the Charges of King Henry VII., to the Crown of England ; and being credibly informed of the Soil and Climate, promise, that all adventurers, with the favour of God, shall reap Recompence as to Temporal Blessings.
"Sir, These and suchi like Reasons have encouraged and produced the afore- said Resolutions. And farther, Sir, your great Character doth embolden us, for it is such as may be said, without Flattery, as was said of Titus Vespasian that noble Roman, Ad gratificandum assiduus Natura fuit : So praying for blessings upon your honorable Person, concerns and Province, I rest, etc."
We are not informed whether the persons thus referred to emigrated to the province .. That they did is most probable, and that they became a component part of the New England col- ony, whose principal seat was on Sewee Bay and the river of the same name. In confirmation of this conjecture, see Felt's History of Ipswich, Mass. "Rev. Wm. Hubbard wrote to Archdale in favour of certain emigrants. This appears to liave been done Oct. 11th, 16 [ ] when several were dismissed from Salem Village (now Danvers) who were bound to the same part of the country." So Oldmixon. "In his (Archdale's) time several families removed from New England to settle at Carolina, and
120
DANFORTH'S SERMON.
[1685-1700.
seated themselves on the river Sewee in North [South] Caro- lina."*
Another important colony, which seems to have originated in great part from religious motives, was the colony from Dor- chester, in Massachusetts, which founded the town and settle- ment of Dorchester, in South Carolina. This also took place while Archdale was governor, and sixteen years after the foundation of the present city of Charleston. They came into this country as a missionary church, to plant the institutions of the gospel. In the farewell sermon of Rev. Mr. Danforth to the colony when leaving, he reminds them of the "importunity both by letter and otherwise that was used with our minister, that both a minister should be sent to these remote parts and that he should be ordained also ; sundry godly Christians there being prepared for and longing after the enjoyment of all the edifying ordinances of God ; there being withal in all that country neither ordained minister nor any church in full gospel order ; so neither imposition of the hands of Presbytery, nor donation of the right hand of fellowship can be expected there." The text of Mr. Danforth's sermon was Acts, xxi. 4, 5, 6,-" And finding disciples, we tarried there seven days : who said to Paul through the Spirit, that he should not go up to Jerusalem. And when we had accomplished those days, we departed and went our way ; and they all brought us on our way, with wives and children, till we were out of the city ; and we kneeled down on the shore and prayed. And when we had taken our leave of one another, we took ship ; and they returned home again." This text is a description of the parting scene between the Christians of Tyre and Paul and his companions, and was peculiarly appropriate to that occasion when a beloved pastor took his farewell of those to whom he had ministered for thirteen years as they were to go forth as mis- sionaries of the cross.
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