USA > South Carolina > History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, Vol. I pt 1 > Part 28
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262
SETTLEMENT OF UP-COUNTRY.
[1750-1760.
BOOK NINTH. 1750-1760.
CHAPTER I.
THE settlement of the central and upper portions of the province had now commenced and was rapidly advancing.
Richland began to be occupied by herdsmen in 1740, and soon after by German emigrants, at the junction of Little river and Cane and Kinsler's creeks with Broad river ; Fair- field and Lancaster by Presbyterians, from Pennsylvania and Virginia, in 1745. Sumter had been occupied by herdsmen. The Nelsons, near the ferry of that name, marked eight or ten hundred calves every spring. The Conyers, Mellets, and Canters were in the eastern part of the district, on the lead- waters of Black river and Lynche's creek. The Williamsburg Presbyterians overflowed into this district, following the course of Black river on either side, and in 1750 Samuel and James Bradley settled in the eastern part, in what is now called Salem. The high hills of Santee were reserved for the Scotch, who were exiled after the battle of Culloden in 1745; but they were driven into the Cape Fear by contrary winds, and these lands were granted to Virginians, among whom were Generals Sumter and Richardson. Kershaw was first settled by a colony of Quakers from Ireland, who sat down in 1750 on the spot now occupied by Camden; Darlington from Virginia in 1750; Marion about 1750 ; Spartanburg between 1750 and 1760, from Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Caro- lina ; Newbury in 1752; Pendleton in 1755; Marlboro in 1755-6 ; Laurens in 1755 ; and Abbeville in 1756. The entire population of South Carolina in 1750 amounted to sixty-four thousand, of whom something less than thirty thousand were whites. In 1751 upwards of sixteen hundred foreign Protest- ants arrived in the province .- (Holmes, Annals Univ. Hist., XL., 483.) New homes were thus formed here and there, and in great part by a Presbyterian people.
In pursuance of our plan, we will first present what we have been able to gather concerning the older churches in the Low Country.
We have hitherto found it difficult to separate those which were Independent or Congregational in order, from those
263
INDEPENDENT CHURCH, CHARLESTON.
1750-1760.]
which were more strictly Presbyterian. The churches of both organizations were few and their history is greatly inter- woven.
Beginning with the INDEPENDENT CHURCH in CHARLESTON, We find that its engagement with Mr. Fayerweather had ceased in the manner before mentioned. Mr. Fayerweather was in South Carolina on the 15th of June, 1750, the South Carolina Gazette containing a correspondence between him and Mr. Jonathan Bryan. On the 4th of April the name of the Rev. Mr. Zubly occurs as having been invited to deliver the Wednesday lecture, and as having declined. The congrega- tion gave Mr. Smith leave of absence a year, continuing his salary, and as his health required some careful attendant, giving him the use of the boy Boston, with leave to take him out of the province. They further request the assistance of Rev. Messrs. Osgood, Zubly, and Hutson in the supply of their pulpit, voting £15 per Sabbath as compensation. On the 1st of March they apply to the Rev. Doctors John Guise, Philip Doddridge, and David Jennings for a minister, having first consulted with their pastor, Rev. Josiah Smith. This letter rehearses the main points of their history, and has been quoted by us on p. 122. In it they allude to the secession from them of their brethren of the Scotch nation some eight- een years before, and add their conviction that " the Pres- byterian form of government as exercised in the Church of Scotland is neither practicable in England nor Carolina, where Episcopacy is the only church government established by law."-(MS. Records, i., fol. 96, 97.) Their clear preference for Congregationalism is thus expressed, although experience has shown that Presbyterianism flourishes best in America, and independent of the State. The American Presbyterian church far exceeds in its numbers the mother church of Scot- land and Ireland, and is greatly in the ascendant, while Con- gregationalism is comparatively restricted.
The revered gentlemen to whom they wrote seem never to have answered their letter, and on the 6th of April, 1752, they applied to Mr. Whitefield to send them a minister. He was in Charleston at the time the application was made to him, and sailed from that port to England at that time. He had preached for them on the 27th of March, Mr. Hutson having preached on the 8th (their services now being three weeks apart), and continued to do so daily to crowded audiences until his departure. Mr. Whitefield could not aid them. He seems to have written in their behalf to some one
264
CHARLESTON.
[1750-1760.
abroad as early as November 20th, 1751, " and had some close talk with Mr. L-, [Legare ? Lamboll ?] and several of Mr. S[mith]'s congregation concerning him." "All," says-he, "seemed unanimous to give you a call. I need only observe that if God should direct your course to them, you will find a generous, loving people, who will study to make your labors profitable and delightful to you. I doubt not but in the con- gregation there are many dear children of God. And there will be such an harmony between you and Mr. L -- , I hope you will be an happy instrument of promoting peace between all parties, and adding to the church such as shall be saved. Very near you are several pious ministers of other denomina- tions, who will be glad to keep up a Christian correspondence with you, and strengthen your hands."
On December 9th, 1754, Thomas Lamboll informs the society that some of the members had engaged Mr. James Edmonds, then officiating near Cainhoy, as a lecturer for six months. This term was extended to another six months. On the 15th of December, 1754, Mr. Edmonds is continued as their supply, but is requested to apply to the neighboring ministers for ordination. They resolved to elect him as their pastor. The ordination referred to took place late in February, 1755. Mr. Whitefield, writing from Charleston, March 3d, of that year, says, "Through divine goodness we arrived here last Wednesday afternoon ; on Thursday Mr. E[dmonds] was solemnly ordained."-(Letter MLXXV.)
By whom Mr. Edmonds was ordained is unknown to us. But in the records of the church, February 13th, 1757, he is called the Presbyterian minister of the Congregational church. It appears also that Rev. Mr. Hutson had served them most of his time during the year preceding that date in faithful labors, for which they agreed to give him seven hundred pounds currency. His Register of Marriages and Baptisms is continued, in connection with the Stoney Creek church, to the 18th of January, 1756; then from the 7th of July, 1756, the date of its next entry, in connection with the church in Charles- ton. From a diary of his, kept while he was pastor of this church, beginning February 27th, 1757, and terminating March 8th, 1761, we learn his occupations from day to day, the texts on which he and Mr. Edmonds preached, his trials and sorrows as a believer, in this season of imperfect sanctification, his meek and lowly spirit, his devotedness to the work of the ministry, of pastoral visitation, and of catechising ; his un- ambitious temper, and his generous and cordial love for
265
REV. JAMES EDMONDS.
1750-1760.]
his colleague, Mr. Edmonds. From this diary we learn that there was a Thursday evening lecture, that the first Friday in the month was observed as a day of public prayer, in concert with a number of other churches, and that their habit was to celebrate the Lord's supper once in every two months. The colleague pastorship of Mr. Edmonds and Mr. Hutson admitted of their occasional preaching elsewhere; and though we know nothing of Mr. Edmonds' engagements of this kind, we learn from Mr. Hutson's diary that he preached frequently at Wando Neck, Dorchester, Indian Land (Stoney Creek), his former charge, (near which, on the Combahee, he owned possessions,) and still more rarely at Pon Pon, Beaufort, James Island, Beech Hill, and at Rev. Mr. Pelot's, a minister of the Baptist church. . Mr. Hutson lost his first wife on the 21st of Novem- ber, 1757. Her maiden name was Mary Woodward. When he married her she was the widow of Mr. Isaac Chardon. She was a woman of singular discretion and piety, and her death- bed illustrated the power of the gospel. Extracts from her diary and letters were published in Charleston by Mr. Hutson in 1759, and republished, as we have before mentioned, in England, by Revs. John Conder and Thomas Gibbons, Febru- ary 11th, 1760, and in Boston in 1809. Mr. Hutson married again on the 10th of October, 1758.
Rev. James Edmonds was born in the city of London about the year 1720. With what denomination of Dissenters he was there connected is to us unknown. Equally unknown is the year of his emigration to South Carolina. He was offici- ating, as we have seen, as a licentiate, at Cainhoy, twelve or fifteen miles from Charleston, on the Wando river, December 9th, 1753. He had two children, one of whom died in earliest infancy. His daughter, Mary, was living in 1815, when Dr. Ramsay published the history of this church, and was for many years a pensioner upon the funds of the Clergy Society. Mr. Edmonds was probably not a man of highly finished education, nor fine elocution. He is described by one who knew him (Dr. J. Witherspoon of Alabama) as portly in person, and polite, affable, and dignified in manners. His manner of preaching was plain, solemn, and unostentatious. His sermons were short, practical, and altogether extemporaneous.
The congregation increased so considerably under the labors of these faithful pastors, that the enlargement of the house of worship was resolved on, August 26th, 1759, and was accomplished at an expense of £2579 17s. 11d. Mr. Smith was still active as a minister. Two sermons of Josiah Smith,
266
WAPPETAW .- REV. MR. ZUBLY.
[1750-1760.
V. D. M., from Ps. cxxvii. 1, and xxxviii. 2, are advertised in the South Carolina Gazette, April 7th, 1759.
The Independent church at WAPPETAW; in Christ's Church Parish, called also in Mr. Hutson's diary the church at Wando, and the church on Wando Neck, may have been vacant in the commencement of this period. On the 19th of March, 1757, Mr. Hutson speaks of preaching " at Brother Zubly's place, on Wando Neck," so that Mr. Zubly must have been officiating there at that time. The Rev. John Joachim Zubly was born at St. Gall, in Switzerland, August 27th, 1724, and was educated at the Gymnasium of that place, and ordained in the German church in London, August 19th, 1744 .- (Letter to Dr. Stiles, Dec. 10tl1, 1768, Stiles' MSS., Yale College Library.)
As early as February, 1743, the inliabitants of Vernonsburg and the villages adjacent, in the neigliborhood of Savannah, addressed a petition to the trustees of Georgia, " desiring a minister of Calvinistical principles to be sent to them," and recommended Mr. Zubly as the person of their choice. The trustees and Mr. Zubly could not agree upon terms, and they sent instead Rev. Bartholomew Zauberbuhler (see p. 217,) who was then in London, where he was ordained as deacon and priest by the Bishop of London. Mr. Zubly seems to liave come to Georgia some two years after, and to have ministered to the Germans of Vernonsburg and Acton, " where he con- tinued about three years, preaching the kingdom of God with success, and without any stated salary." " Afterwards the trus- tees" (of Georgia) " offered him £10 a year, which, with the improvements these poor Germans were to make on the glebe land, was to support him." Mr. Zubly looking upon this offer as a genteel way of dismissing him, or rather obliging him to leave the colony for want of a support, especially as he was then just married, was prevailed on, by many entreaties, to ac- cept of a dissenting congregation in South Carolina, " where," says Mr. Habersham, from whom we quote, "he now resides, but twice or thrice a year makes a journey of one hundred miles liere, to visit and preach to the first fruits of his labors, to whom he is greatly attached, and they to lim." Mr. Haber- sham proceeds to say, " Mr. Zubly is a person of no mean parts and education ; yea, I may say his talents are extraordi- nary ; but, whatis more, he is a faitliful, zealous, and laborious minister of the gospel, and would to God our colony, or rather the whole world, was filled with such." So writes Mr. Haber- sham of Savannah, to his correspondent (Lloyd) in London,
267
REV. JOHN MARTIN.
1750-1760.]
under date of August 3d, 1751. If Mr. Zubly went directly from Georgia to the Wappetaw church, his ministry com- menced there in 1748. But it appears that he preached for some time to the congregation at St. Matthew's, in Orangeburg district, previous to his connection with the church at Wap- petaw .- (Hazelius's Hist. of the Lutheran Church, pp. 101, 102.) " After the Spanish and French war began he removed to Orangeburg."-(White.) On the 25th of April, 1758, Mr. Hutson assisted at a meeting at the church on Wando Neck (Wappetaw), to take into consideration a very pressing call from both the German and English congregations of Savannah for Mr. Zubly's services. After sermon a church meeting was held " with great solemnity, and everything carried on in a very decent and becoming manner; and upon the whole the voice of the churchi was, That whereas Mr. Z- was plainly convinced it was a providential call, and they were not able to make the contrary appear, they submitted to the removal." On the 28th of January, 1759, Mr. Zubly occupied the pulpit in the Independent church in Charleston, and "preached his farewell sermon in a lively, powerful and satisfactory manner, from Acts xx. 32."-(Hutson's Diary.) In the South Carolina Gazette is an advertisement of " The Real Christian's Hope in Death, published by J. J. Zubly, lately minister of the Gos- pel in South Carolina," February 17th, 1759, which may be
the discourse alluded to. He seems to have been succeeded by Rev. John Martin almost immediately. July 1st, 1759, Mr. Hutson went to Wando to preach for Mr. Martin in his absence, and again on the 15th of the same month. Mr. Martin had prepared for the ministry under the celebrated Samuel Davies of Virginia, was taken on trial by Hanover Presbytery, March 18th, 1756, and licensed August 25th. He was employed in supplying vacancies, and was called to Albemarle, Virginia, April 27th, 1757. The New England Society for Propagating the Gospel resolved to support a missionary to the Cherokee upper towns, if the Scotch society would do the same. Mr. Martin was ordained June 9th, 1757, being the first Presbyterian minister ordained in Virginia, Davies preaching the sermon from 1 Tim. iii. 1. He engaged in the Indian mission, January 25th, 1758. Was at Pon Pon on his way to his missionary field on the first of March in the same year, and is spoken of in high terms by Rev. Archibald Simpson, who went to Pon Pon to see him. Mr. Martin's prospects were for a short time encouraging, but
26S
DORCHESTER.
[1750-1760.
the Cherokees took up arms against the colonists on the break- ing out of the French war, and the mission was abandoned .- (Webster, p. 674.)
The church at DORCHESTER and BEECH HILL, finding their situation on Ashley river unhealthy, and being confined to a tract of land too small for their purposes, in the year 1752 projected a settlement in Georgia. Their records after their transplantation date from this time.
"Our Ancestors," say they, "having a greater regard to a compact settle- ment and religious society than future temporal advantages, took up but small tracts of land ; many of which also, after their decease, being divided amongst their children, reduced them still to smaller. In consequence of which our lands were generally soon worn out. Few had sufficient for the convenient support and maintenance of their families, and some had none at all. Young people, as they grew up and settled for themselves, were obliged to move out from us for want of lands. For these reasons several persons among us seemed very much inclined to move out from us, and had several times searched for some other place in Carolina, proper for the settlement of a Society, but could find none capacious and convenient enough for that purpose ; notwithstanding which, the same disposition to remove continuing with several, occasioned some serious reflections on the state and circum- stances of this church; and it was thought probable that unless some tract of land, suitable for the convenient and compact settlement and support of a congregation could be found, to which we might move and settle in a body, the Society would, in a few years at most, be dispersed, so as not to be capable of supporting the Gospel among us. Especially if we should lose our present Pastor; and, which in that case seems not unlikely, be any considerable time without the administration of Gospel ordinances among us ; the only cir- cumstance which at present detains many, otherwise quite inclined to remove from us.
" Upon these considerations a removal of the whole Society seemed advisa- ble; and having heard a good character of the lands in Georgia, 'twas thought proper that some should take a journey to that Colony, and search out some place there, convenient for our purpose, which was accordingly performed, at several inquisitions, and issued, at length, in tolerable satistac- tion as to the capacity of the place, and a remove, hereupon, more generally concluded on.
" On Monday, the 11th of May, Anno 1752, three persons of our Society set off from Beech Hill for Georgia, to view the lands there. On the 16th they arrived at Midway (so called on account of its supposed equal distance from the rivers Ogechee and Altamaha), the place proposed. After a few days' stay, having viewed Midway swamp, and approveing of it, and heard of large quan- tatys of good lands adjoining, they returned home with an account of what they had seen and heard. The people were differently affected with the re- lation of what they had discovered. Several used their endeavors to frustrate the scheme ; notwithstanding which, an inclination to remove seemed consid- crably to get the ascendant.
" About this time (1752) a petition was preferred to the council of Georgia, and a grant of thirty-one thousand nine hundred and fifty acres of land was obtained.
"In the beginning of August six persons set off by land, and seven more by water, to survey the lands and make settlements. Those by land being dis- appointed in the coming of the Schooner, on board of which were their pro- visions and negroes, were obliged to return without accomplishing all they
269
DORCHESTER.
1750-1760.]
intended. Such as were on board the Schooner, meeting with contrary winds, were so long in their passage, that they spent most of their provisions before their arrival, and were obliged to return. On the 15th, while the Schooner lay in the harbor (near St. Catherine's Island,) there arose a hurri- cane, which was in Carolina the most violent that ever was known since the settlement of the English there, which in many places left not one tree in twenty standing. On the 16th they attempted to put out to sea, and could not, and therefore went within land to Tibi, where meeting with head winds they sailed up to Savana, where several leaving the vessel went home by land. The rest who remained in her had a tedious long passage and were met by a second hurricane before they got home, but were then also in a safe harbour. In their passage to Georgia, one negro fell overboard and was drowned, and those who went up by land had two of their horses drowned in their return. These adverse providences were very discouraging to most, and brought the affaire of our removeing to a very considerable stand.
" On the 6th of December, 1752, Mr. Benjamin Baker* and family, and Mr. Samuel Bacon and family, arrived at Midway and proceeded to form a settle- ment. Mrs. Baker died on the day after their arrival. Soon after, Messrs. Parmenus Way, William Baker, John Elliott, Jolin Winn, Edward Sumner, and John Quarterman, arrived and began to settle. Finding a general dis- position in the people to remove, the Rev. Mr. Osgood went into the new set- tlement in March, 1754, and the whole church and society gradually collected and settled there."
They soon erected a temporary house of worship, of logs, and the first sermon was delivered in it on the 7th of June, 1754, the congregation having worshipped on the four preced- ing Sabbaths in private houses. That they might leave their " children after them compactly settled together," and perpet- uate the religious character of their community, they agreed that no one of them should " sell his settlement or tract of land, or any part thereof, to any stranger out of the society, without giving the refusal of its purchase to the society." The attention paid by the congregation of Dorchester to their own intellectual improvement, while yet they remained in Carolina, is evident from the fact that they had instituted a library society, called the Dorchester and Beech Hill Alphabet Society, which is still perpetuated (1859), in the Midway con- gregation, under the name of the " Midway and Newport Library Society," and continues its regular meetings .- (Mal- lard's Hist. of Midway Church, Savannah, 1841.)
* Benjamin Baker was born in Dorchester, S. C., in 1717. At the age of twenty-three he accompanied Gen. Oglethorpe in his expedition against St. Augustine. In 1776 Mr. Baker's house, furniture, and books, with the records lie had been making, were consumed by fire. He suffered much during the war of the Revolution, having espoused the Whiig cause. His house was rifled and he and his son Jolin imprisoned. He was more than twenty-seven years the clerk of Midway congregation. He died in 1785, leaving several volumes of manuscripts. It has commonly been supposed that the old records of the Dorchester congregation were in the possession of Mr. Baker, and were consumed in his dwelling.
270
STONEY CREEK.
[1750-1760.
Mr. Osgood must have returned to Carolina shortly for some temporary purpose. Mr. Simpson, in his diary, Lord's- day, May 5th, 1754, says : "I rode sixteen miles to Beech Hill and heard Mr. Osgood, the Independent minister, have a great day of the gospel." But the absence of the congrega- tion from Dorchester and its neighborhood was much felt in that community. A correspondent of the South Carolina Gazette, under date of March 12th, 1754, presents the following query :- " Whether some eligible method cannot be fallen upon to prevent the dispeopling of Beech Hill ; and to en- courage the better settling of poor DORCHESTER, Shemtown, Childsbury, Jacksonborough, and Radnor, and even some new towns at convenient places ?" Worship had been conducted alternately at Dorchester and Beech Hill; and the brick church, still standing and in use, had been built on a tract of ninety-five acres belonging to the church, in or about the year 1700. The house at Beech Hill was of wood, and stood on a like tract of ninety-five acres. Lot 13, on which a fort and magazine were built, and lots 33, 44, and 112, in the town of Dorchester, and one-twenty-sixth of undivided lands around Dorchester, was given in trust forever to said church .- (Peti- tion, in 1793, for Incorporation.) The Episcopal church in the town of Dorchester was first built in 1719-20. This was re- paired and enlarged in 1734. It is now all destroyed-except the tower, the most beautiful ruin in South Carolina, which was erected by the congregation and furnished with a ring of bells in 1751. Religious services seemed to have been still kept up to some extent in the church edifices vacated by the Independent congregation which had migrated to Georgia, as the frequent entries in Mr. Hutson's diary show.
The Independent church of Indian Land, now STONEY CREEK, in the neighborhood of Pocotaligo, flourished under the faithful labors of Rev. William Hutson until his removal to Charleston in the early part of 1756. A letter from him to a Mr. Forfitt is found in Gillies' Historical Collections, appen- dix, p. 506, speaking of the efforts made for the religious in- struction of the negroes by Hugh Bryan, by a minister in his own vicinity, and by a young man engaged for this purpose on two large estates, and of the circulation of books among them. Archibald Simpson, by permission of the presbytery, took charge of the church, June 16th, 1756. "My good friend, Jonathan Bryan," he writes, "who lives mostly in Georgia, has promised to live here if I will settle." He speaks of "the great change in the congregation since he was there three
271
1750-1760.] FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, CHARLESTON.
years before, so many dead or moved ;" alludes to the fatal dis- ease of a twelvemonths before, " so many empty seats, so many graves, and the people few." He represents the congregation as smaller than at Wiltown, where he had been engaged in preaching.
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