USA > South Carolina > Orangeburg County > The history of Orangeburg County, South Carolina : from its first settlement to the close of the Revolutionary War > Part 4
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of things in this new country, he went to London in 1749, received Episcopal ordination, and returned in 1750 as a minister of the Episcopal church. His labors, both before and after this period, seem to have been assiduous, and his record of baptisms. marriages, and burials, yet preserved, shows that they extended over a wide track in the central portion of South Carolina. It is one among numerous other proofs of the absorb- ing nature of an ecclesiastical system established by law over a people the majority of whom are dissenters from it. Most of these settlers were probably Luther- ans, but a portion must have been brought up under the Helvetic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism. and in their own land professed the Reformed or Cal- vinistic faith."
On page 494, Dr. Howe further says: "We have ex- pressed our conviction on pp. 216, 217, that a portion of the original settlers of Orangeburg. those namely from certain cantons of Switzerland (and it may be true also of others), were of the Calvinistic or Reform- ed church, and Presbyterians. This is confirmed in part by the fact that 'there was a Presbyterian meet- ing house erected on Cattle's Creek. in 1778, and was called the Frederican church, after Andrew Frederick, who was its principal founder. Another of the same denomination was built at Turkey Hill'. 'There are,' say Drs. Jamieson and Shecut, writing 1808, two others of the same denomination in Lewisburgh'. 'The Pres- byterians have supplies only from the upper country and the North Carolina Presbytery. From the want of preachers of their own denomination, the descend- ants of the old stock are falling either with the Bap- tists or Methodists, according to the neighborhood in which they live' .- (Statistical acct. of Orangeburg .- Ramsay, Vol. II .. Appendix.)"
Dr. Howe is clearly in error on one point: The Rev.
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John Ulrick Giessendanner did not come over with the settlers of 1735 as Dr. Howe makes it appear, but came over in 1737 as is shown by his register, which Dr. Howe mentions. Dr. Howe does not State that these ministers, Rev. John U. Giessendanner and his nephew, Rev. John Giessendanner, were Lutheran ministers, but it was, nevertheless, the case. Dr. Frederick Dalcho, who wrote at a much earlier period than Dr. Howe, in his History of the Protestant Epis- copal Church in South Carolina, states, and upon good evidence, that these ministers and their congregations were Lutherans; and Rev. G. D. Bernheim, D. D., in his History of the German Settlements and the Lu- theran Church in North and South Carolina, proves conclusively that such is the case, and that, while Rev. John Giessendanner, the younger, received ordination and a license to preach from the Charleston Presby- tery, he continued to preach in Orangeburgh as a Lu- theran minister until the time when he left for Eng- land to be ordained as an Episcopal Clergyman. Dr. Bernheim's account of the settling of Orangeburgh is undoubtedly the most authentic that has ever been written, and will therefore be given herewith: (p. 99.)
"Section 10. The German and Swiss Colonists of Orangeburg. S. C., A. D. 1735.
"The story of the settling of Orangeburg, South Carolina is a page in the history of that State which has never been fully written. The cause of this omis- sion can scarcely be accounted for, as ample materials were within the reach of former historians. Certain outlines have been given, but nothing very satisfac- tory has been furnished.
"'The first white inhabitant who settled in this sec- tion of country was named Henry Sterling; his occu- pation. it is supposed, was that of a trader. He loca-
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ted himself on Lyon's Creek in the year 1704, and ob- tained a grant of a tract of land, at present in the pos- session of Colonel Russel P. McCord.' (Mills, p. 656.)
"'The next settlers were some three or four individ- uals, who located themselves at the Cowpens, north- westerly of the low country white settlements; these, and the Cherokee and Catawba Indians* were all the inhabitants who had preceded the Germans.' (Mills, p. 657.)
"The colonists of Orangeburg County and town were mostly German and Swiss, who came over from Europe in a large body, occupying several vessels, and even to the present day their descendants are easily recognized by their unmistakable German names, and are found to be the principal owners and occupants of the soil in this portion of South Carolina.
"The principal facts concerning the early history of these colonists are mainly derived from the Journals
*Lawson visited the Congaree section before any whites had settled there, and this is what he wrote: "The next morning Santee Jack told us we should reach the Indian (Congaree) settlement betimes that day. About noon we passed by several fair savannas, very rich and dry, seeing great copses of many acres that bore nothing but bushes about the bigness of box trees, which, in their season, afford great quantities of small black-berries, very pleasant fruit, and much like to our blue huckleberries that grow on heaths in England. Hard- by the savannas we found the town, where we halted. There was not above one man left with the women, the rest being gone a hunt- ing, for a feast. The women were very busily engaged in gaming. The names or grounds of it I could not learn, though I looked on above two hours. They kept count with a heap of Indian grains.
"When the play was ended the king's wife invited us into her cabin. The Indian kings always entertain travelers, either English or In- dian, taking it as a great affront if they pass by their cabins. The town consists of not above a dozen houses-they having other strag- gling plantations up and down the country, and are seated upon a small branch of Santee River. Their place hath curious, dry marshes, and savannas adjoining to it, and would prove an exceeding fine range for cattle and hogs, if the English were seated thereon.
"These Indians are a small people, having lost much of their former numbers by intestine broils; but most by the small-pox. We found
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of Council of the Province of South Carolina, as found in manuscript form in the office of the Secretary of State, as well as from the Church record-book, kept by their first pastors, the two Giessendanners, uncle and nephew, written in the German and English lan- guages, which is still extant, and has been thoroughly examined by the writer; and as these additional facts are now presented for the first time, it is hoped that they may open new avenues, which will afford future historians of the State additional sources of research and information.
"That the German element of the Orangeburg col- onists came partly from Switzerland, we learn from the records of the Giessendanners' church-book, as it was the custom of the younger Giessendanner to men- tion the place of nativity of all the deceased, in his records of each funeral of the early settlers; and as this emigration from that country to Orangeburg oc-
here good store of chinkapin-nuts, which they gather in winter, great quantities of, drying them, and keeping them in great baskets. Like- wise hickerie-nuts, which they beat betwixt two great stones, then sift to thicken their venison broth therewith; the small shells precipi- tating to the bottom of the pot whilst the kernels, in form of flour, mixes with the liquor.
"The Congarees are kind and affable to the English; the queen be- ing very kind-giving us what varieties her cabin afforded-loblolly made with Indian corn and dryed peaches. These Congarees have abundance of storks and cranes in their savannas. They take them before they can fly, and breed them as tame as dung-hill fowls. They had a tame crane at one of their cabins that was scarce less than six foot in height, his head being round with a shining crimson hue, which they all have.
"These are a very comely sort of Indians, there being a strange dif- ference in the proportion and beauty of these heathen. The women here being as handsome as most I have met withal, being several five- fingered brunettos amongst them. These lasses stick not upon hand long, for they marry when very young, as at twelve or fourteen years of age.
"We saw at the king's cabin the strangest spectacle of antiquity I ever knew-it being an old Indian squaw, that, had I been to have guessed her age by her aspect, old Parr's head, the Welch Methusa-
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curred only two or three years subsequent to the emi- gration of a former Swiss colony to Purysburg. S. C .. it certainly requires no great stretch of the imagina- tion to explain the causes which induced such a large number of emigrants from that country to locate themselves upon the fertile lands of South Carolina. which were described so glowingly by John Peter Purry and his associates.
"Let any one examine the pamphlets. as found in vol. ii of Carroll's Collections, which Mr. Purry pub- lished in reference to the Province of South Carolina. and which he freely distributed in his native country. in which the fertility of the soil, salubrity of the cli- mate, excellency of government, safety of the colo- nists, opportunities of becoming wealthy, &c., &., are so highly extolled, and corroborated by the testimony of so many witnesses, and he will easily comprehend what the Switzers must have fancied that province to be, viz .: the El Dorado of America,-the second Pal- estine of the world.
"Mr. Purry's account of the excellency of South Carolina for safe and remunerative settlement went round, from mouth to mouth. in many a hamlet and cottage of the little mountain-girt country, losing
lem, was a face in swadling clouts to hers. Her skin hung in reaves like a bag of tripe; by a fair computation, one might have justly thought it would have contained three such careasses as hers then was. From what I could gather she was considerably above one hundred years old, vet she smoked tobacco, and eat her vietuals, to all appearances, as heartily as one of eighteen. At night we were laid in the king's cabin, where the queen and the old squaw pigged in with us.
"In the morning we rose before day, having hired a guide the over night to conduet us on our way. The queen got us a good breakfast before we left her; she had a young child which was much afflicted with the colic, for which she infused a root in water, held in a gourd; this she took in her mouth, and spurted it into the mouth of the in- fant, which gave it ease. After we had eaten, we set out for the Wa- teree Indians."
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nothing by being told from one family to another; which, with the additional fact, that many had rela- tives and friends living in both the Carolinas, whom they possibly might meet again, soon fastened their affections upon that province, and induced them to leave the Fatherland, and make their future homes with some of their countrymen in America. Their little all of earthly goods or patrimony was soon dis- posed of; preparations for a long journey were quick- ly made, as advised by Mr. Purry in his pamphlet; the journey through North Germany towards some sea- port was then undertaken; and, with other Germans added to their number, who joined their fortunes with them whilst passing through their country, they were soon rocked upon the bosom of the ocean, heading to- wards America, with the compass pointing to their expected haven, Charleston, South Carolina.
"These German and Swiss settlers did not all arrive in Orangeburg at the same time; the first colony came during the year 1735; another company arrived a year later, and it was not until 1737 that their first pastor, Rev. John Ulrich Giessendanner, Senior, came among them with another reinforcement of settlers; whilst Mills informs us that emigrants from Germany arrived in Orangeburg District as late as 1769, only a few years before the Revolution .*
"Like most of the early German settlers of America, these colonists came to Carolina not as 'gentlemen or traders', but as tillers of the soil, with the honest in- tention 'to earn their bread by the sweat of the brow', and their lands soon gave evidence, of thrift and plenty, and they, by their industry and frugality, not only secured a competency and independence for
*This is probably true, as there are some German families that have long resided in Orangeburg, but' whose names do not appear on the Giessendanner Record.
.
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themselves and their children in this fertile portion of South Carolina, but many of them became blessed with abundance and wealth.
"From the records of Rev. Giessendanner we learn that there were also a considerable number of me- chanics, as well as planters and farmers, among these colonists; and the results of this German colonization were extremely favorable to Orangeburg District, in- asmuch as they remained there as permanent settlers. whilst many of their countrymen in other localities. such as Purysburg, &c., were compelled to leave their first-selected homes, on account of the want of health and of that great success which they had at first ex- pected, but the Orangeburg settlers became a well-es- tablished and successful colony.
"It has been asserted that the German congregation established in Orangeburg among these settlers was Reformed, which is evidently a mistake, as any one may perceive from the following facts. On the one hand, it must be admitted that the Switzers came from the land where John Calvin labored, and where the Reformed religion prevails, but where there are also many Lutheran churches established. It is also admitted that the Giessendanners were natives of Switzerland, but it would be unsafe to conclude from these facts that the German congregation at Orange- burg, with all, or nearly all, of its members, and with their pastors, were Swiss Reformed or Calvinistic in their faith. On the other hand, although nothing positive is mentioned in the Record-book of the Church, concerning their distinctive religious belief. yet the presumptive evidence. even from this source of information, is sufficiently strong to conclude that this first religious society in Orangeburg was a Luther- an Church. The facts from which our conclusions are drawn are:
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"Firstly .- Because a very strong element from Ger- many was mixed with their Swiss brethren in the early settling of this county, which, by still later ac- cession of German colonists, appears to have become the predominating population, who were mostly Lu- therans, and the presumption becomes strong that their church-organization was likewise Lutheran.
"Secondly .- It seems to have been a commonly ad- mitted fact and the prevailing general impression of that time, when their second paster had become an ordained minister of the Church of England.
"Thirdly .- In examining their church records one will discover, through its entire pages, a recognition of the festivals of the Lutheran Church, as were com- monly observed by the early Lutheran settlers.
"Fourthly .- In Dalcho's History of the Prot. Epis. Church in S. C., published in 1820, at the time when the son of the younger Giessendanner was still living (see Mills' Statistics, p. 657, published as late as 1826), it is most positively stated concerning his father, that 'he was a minister of the Lutheran Church.' (Dalcho, p. 333, footnote.) How could Dr. Dalcho have been mistaken when he had the records of the Episcopal Church in South Carolina before him; and in that de- nomination this was the prevailing impression, as was, doubtless, so created from Giessendanner's own state- ments in the bosom of which Church he passed the latter days of his life.
"Fifthly .- One of the churches which Giessendan- ner served before he became an Episcopal clergyman, located in Amelia Township, called St. Matthews, has never been any other than a Lutheran Church, and is still in connection with the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of South Carolina.
"Sixthly .- The Orangeburg colonists, after their paster departed from their faith, were served with Lu-
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theran pastors entirely, numbering in all about seven- teen ministers, and only for a short time a Reformed minister, Rev. Dr. Zübly, once labored there as a tem- porary supply.
"Seventhly .- In Dr. Hazelius' History of the Ameri- can- Lutheran Church, p. 64, we have the following testimony, gathered from the journal of the Ebenezer pastors, Bolzius and Gronau, found in Urlsperger's Nachrichten: 'Their journal of that time mentions among other things, that many Lutherans were set- tled in and about Orangeburg in South Carolina, and that their preacher resided in the village of Orange- burg.'
"It is to be hoped that all this testimony is satisfac- tory to every candid inquirer, that the first establish- ed Church of Orangeburg, S. C., which was likewise the first organized Lutheran Church in both the Caro- linas, was none other than a Lutheran Church; that those early settlers from Germany and Switzerland were mostly, if not all, of the same denomination, and that Dr. Dalcho has published no falsehood by assert- ing that 'their paster was a minister of the Lutheran Church.'
"The first colony of German and Swiss emigrants who settled in Orangeburg village and its vicinity in 1735, as well as those who selected their homes in Amelia Township along Four-hole swamp and creek. did not bring their pastor with them: the Rev. John Ulrich Giessendanner did not arrive until the year 1737; he was an ordained minister and a native of Switzerland. and was the first and at the time. the only minister of the gospel in the village and District of Orangeburg; we infer this from Mills' Statistics. p. 657, stating that there were but four or five English settlers residing in the District before the Germans arrived, and these few would not likely have an Eng-
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lish minister of their own to labor among them. We infer this, moreover, from the record of Giessendan- ner's marriages; the ceremony of one was performed in the English language during the first year of his ministry, with the following remark accompanying it: 'Major Motte having read the ceremony in the Eng- lish language,' from which we conclude that at the time, October 24th, 1737, Rev. Giessendanner was still unacquainted with the English language, and that on this account he solicited the aid of Major Motte in the performance of a clerical duty. That there could have been no other minister of the gospel within reach of the parties, who did not reside in the village, otherwise they would not have employed Rev. G. to perform a ceremony under such embarrassing circum- stances.
"Rev. J. U. Giessendanner came to this country with the third transportation of German and Swiss settlers for this fertile portion of South Carolina. In the same vessel also journeyed his future partner in life, who had resided at his home in Europe as house- keeper for twenty-six years, and to whom, on the 15th. of November, 1737, he was 'quietly married, in the presence of many witnesses, by Major Motte;' doubt- less by him, as no minister of the gospel was within their reach, to which record he piously adds: 'May Jesu's unite us closely in love, as well as all faithful married people, and cleanse and unite us with him- self. Amen.' By this union he had no children, since both himself and his partner were 'well stricken in years'.
"The elder Giessendanner did not labor long among this people. Death soon ended his ministrations in Orangeburg, and we infer that he must have died about the close of the year 1738, since the records of his ministerial acts extend to the summer of that
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year, whilst these of his nephew commence with the close of the year 1739. Allowing the congregation time to make the necessary arrangement with the nephew, and he to have time to seek and obtain ordi- nation, as we shall see hereafter, besides the inference drawn from the language of a certain petition, &c .. we learn that during the fall of 173S, the Rev. John Ulrich Giessendanner, Sr., was called to his rest, and thus closed his earthly career.
"The congregations in Orangeburg village and Dis- trict now looked about them for another servant of the Lord to labor among them in holy things, but the prospect of being soon supplied was not very encourag- ing. The Ebenezer pastors were the only Lutheran ministers in the South at that time, and they could not be spared from their arduous work in Georgia. and to expect a pastor to be sent them again from the Fatherland was attended with many difficulties. An- other plan presented itself to them. The nephew of their first pastor, who had prepared himself for the ministry, was induced to seek ordination at the hands of some Protestant denomination, and take upon him- self the charge of these vacant congregations in the place of his departed uncle.
"From the records of the Orangeburg Church we learn that their second pastor was also named John Ulrich Giessendanner, but he soon afterwards dropped his middle name, probably to distinguish him from his uncle, and so is he named in all the histories of South Carolina, which give any account of him .*
"Difficulties and sore trials soon attended Rev. John
*It appears from the German portion of the record book that he signed himself in some places "John Ulrick Giessendanner" and in others "Ulrick Giessendanner", and it was not until he returned from England that he invariably signed himself "John Giessendanner." See also Dalcho, p. 333.
·
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Giessendanner's ministry; the Urlsperger Reports state, in vol. iii, p. 1079, that the town of Orangeburg was then, A. D. 1741, in a worse condition than Purys- burg; that the people were leading very sinful lives, manifesting no traces of piety, and that between pas- tor and hearers there were constant misunderstand- ings. It is also stated that their lands were fertile, but, as they were far removed from Charleston, and had no communication with that city by water, they could not convert their produce into money, and on this account very little or no money was found among them. Dr. Hazelius likewise gives an unfavorable ac- count of the state of religion in that community. On p. 64, he remarks: 'From one circumstance mention- ed with particular reference to that congregation, we have to infer that the spiritual state of that church was by no means pleasing. A Mr. Kieffer, a Salzburg emigrant and member of the Ebenezer congregation, was living on the Carolina side of the Savannah River, whose mother-in-law resided at Orangeburg, whom he occasionally visited. On one occasion he remarked, after his return, to his minister, Pastor Bolzius, that the people at Orangeburg were manifesting no hunger and thirst after the word of God; he was therefore anxious that his mother-in-law should remove to his plantation, so that she might enjoy the opportunity of attending to the preaching of the word of God, which she greatly desired.' All this testimony, though in the main correct, needs, however, some explanation, and by referring to the Journals of Council for this province. in the office of the Secretary of State, we will soon discover the cause of such a state of things. The people had been but sparingly supplied with the preached word, the discipline of the Church had not been properly administered, and when the younger Giessendanner took charge of these congregations,
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and attempted to regulate matters a little, whilst the majority of the people sustained him in his efforts, a minority, who were rude and godless, became his bit- ter enemies, and were constantly at variance with him.
"This condition of Church affairs opened the way for the Zauberbühler difficulties, which are very min- utely described in the Journals of Council of the Province of South Carolina, vol. 10. page 395, et seq .: the main facts of this troublesome affair were the fol- lowing:
"During the year 1743, a Swiss minister of the gos- pel, formerly located along the Savannah River, at New Windsor, Purysburg, and other places. named Bartholomew Zauberbühler, very adroitly attempted to displace the Rev. John Giessendanner from his charge in Orangeburg, and make himself the pastor of those churches. He supposed that by becoming an ordained minister of the Episcopal Church, at that time the established church in the Province, he would have rights superior to the humble Lutheran pastor in charge at Orangeburg, and, as he supposed, have the law on his side in thus becoming the pastor him- self. The records of his evil designs, which have long slumbered in oblivion in manuscript form on the shelves of the Statehouse at Columbia, are now brought to view, and read as follows:
"'Nov. 9th, 1742. Read the petition of Rev. B. Zau- berbühler, showing that as there were a great many Germans at Orangeburg, Santee, and thereabouts. who are very desirous of having the word of God preached to them and their children, and who desire to be instructed in the true religion, humbly prays: That he may be sent to serve them and to be supported with a competent salary until he shall be able to take a voyage to England to be ordained by the Bishop of
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