USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina under the proprietary government, 1670-1719, V.2 > Part 24
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portunity of appreciating the qualities for which he was afterwards beloved, excepting that of his heroic conduct in regard to the pirates. The Moores, father and two sons. were all men of great force and ambition. Daniel and Gibbes were men of ability, and Craven was the wisest and best Governor of the colony.
But Trott and Rhett stand out upon the scene conspic- uously, as the two who most impressed themselves upon the affairs of the time. Rhett was of violent and domi- neering disposition, but his repeated and signal services to the colony demanded its gratitude and respect, and the people forgave his overbearing manner when recollecting his gallantry in their defence against invaders and pirates, and recognized his earnest zeal for the public welfare. despite the imperiousness of his conduct.1 Trott was an extraordinary man. His learning for the times was pro- found ; his ability great ; his industry indefatigable ; but his character corrupt, though a devoted churchman, and as learned in theology as in law. No one can read his charge to the grand jury upon witchcraft and doubt his sincere conviction upon the subject ; nor is it easy to believe that one so familiar with the Holy Scriptures as his charges, especially that in regard to witchcraft and that to poor Stede Bonnet, proved him to be could be alto- gether regardless of their teaching ; and yet he is more remembered to-day for his corruption than for the really great services he rendered, not only the province of his day, but the State which was to succeed it.
Trott may truly be said to have been the father of law and of the courts in South Carolina. He was not only the first judge, but the first lawyer of whose professional
1 Colonel Rhett died suddenly, in 1721. from apoplexy, as he was pre- paring for his departure for Barbadoes, of which, it is said, he had been appointed Governor. Johnson's Traditions, 282.
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career we have any knowledge. There is, indeed, no rec- ord of any lawyer in the colony before his arrival. The absurd provision of the Fundamental Constitutions. declar- ing it to be a base and vile thing to plead for money or reward. and prohibiting it, though never constitutionally of force, was not encouraging to the coming of any of the pro- fession. It is quite certain that none but Trott came until the attempt to impose those provisions was abandoned.
Upon the first settlement of the province, as we have seen, rough justice had been administered by the Grand Council. In 1682 the Proprietors presented a system of judicature. to consist of a County Court, of a Chief Judge or Sheriff, and four justices. who were to have jurisdiction of all civil causes and of all causes criminal for offences whereof the penalty was less than death; of an Assize Court, consisting of an itinerant justice together with the members of this County Court, and of a Governor and Council. who were to exercise general appellate jurisdic- tion of all causes from the County Court and Assizes and general original jurisdiction in chancery. 1 We find fre- quent allusions to these courts, but no record of their
proceedings. The Assize Court went upon no circuit ; no general court was held outside of Charles Town. The first person who was Sheriff or Chief Judge, of whom we know, was Robert Gibbes. Barnard Schinkingh suc- ceeded him. but when we do not know, except that he had been in office before 1691. when he was restored to it, having been removed by Sothell.2 It was one of the grievances of which the Commons complained, in 1692. that the office of High Sheriff and Chief Judge of Pleas was lodged in the same person, and another, that inferior
1 Administration of Justice in So. Ca. ( Henry A. M. Smith) ; Charles- ton Year Book. 18- Courtenay . BIT.
2 Coll. Hist. Soc. of So. C.n., vol. 1, 112.
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courts undertook to pass upon the validity of laws. In 1698 the Proprietors had sent out Mr. Bohun. a Justice of the Peace in England. - a layman, - to be Chief Justice ; but he had died after but a year of troubled service, and had been succeeded by James Moore, whom Governor Blake had temporarily appointed, -an appointment he was authorized to make upon the death or absence of Chief Justice Bohun.1 Moore was also a layman. and without either the literary ability or the limited legal ex- perience of Bohun. In 1702 Trott, the first professional lawyer to sit as a judge, was commissioned as Chief Jus- tice ; 2 but in 1700 he was made to give place to another layman, Robert Gibbes, who had before been Sheriff or Chief Judge. and of whom the Proprietors then wrote " a very ill character had been received "; the same Robert Gibbes who afterwards secured the election as Governor upon Colonel Tynte's death. Trott was again made Chief Justice in 1713. and continued such until the revo- lution of 1719. In 1694 an elaborate system of fees was established by an act entitled "An act for ascertaining Publique Officers Fees." in which table fees are prescribed for " The Judges of Pleas" and for " The officers belong- ing to the said Court." also for " the Attorneys Fees be- longing to the Court of Pleas." and for the Provost Marshal ; 3 which table was revised in 1698.+ These acts imply that there was, at their respective dates, an organ- ized Court of Pleas ; but beside an allusion by Archdale, writing several years after in his usnal loose style, that during his administration, to wit. 1695, he had continued in office all judges and militia officers, we know nothing of the courts prior to the coming of Chief Justice Bohun and Attorney General Trott in 1698.
1 Y'all. Hist. Soc. of So. Co., vol. II, 207. 2 phid., Appendix, 451. 3 Statutes of So. Ca., vol. II, 28. + Ibid., 143.
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From this time until the overthrow of the Proprietary Government. the system of judicature in the province was as follows : --
1. Justices of the Peace. for the arrest of offenders and the trial of small causes, civil and criminal, who were paid by fees.
2. A court of general jurisdiction, called the Court of Common Pleas, composed of a Chief Justice and four assistants, and one of general jurisdiction, called the Court of Sessions. composed of the same. The Chief Jus- tice received a salary of £60.
3. The Governor and Council. who constituted an Ap- pellate Court in civil and criminal cases, from the Chief Justice's Court. and who also had general original juris- diction in chancery. The Governor was paid a salary of £200. and in addition was entitled to receive certain fees.
4. An appeal lay from the Governor and Council to the Lords Proprietors in England.
5. A Court of Admiralty, having general admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, and jurisdiction in case of maritime crimes by special commission. The judge and officers of this court derived their commissions from the King, and an appeal lay to the Privy Council or Lords of the Admi- ralty in England. The Judge of the Court of Admiralty was paid by fees for the items of his services.
6. The Governor of the province exercised the duties and powers of an Ordinary.1
Trott remained in England during the Provisional Government under Sir Francis Nicholson, while the Pro- prietors were negotiating the terms of the surrender of their charter, busving himself with that negotiation,
1 Administration of Justice in So. C. (H. A. M. Smith) ; Year Book City of Charleston, 15-5, 818 ; A Letter from So. Ca., 1710 (second ed., 1782), 27.
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and in his effort to have his codification of the laws of South Carolina printed, and also another work, - his Explication of the Hebrew Text of the Old Testament, - intriguing the meanwhile to be restored to his office of Chief Justice.1 It was not until some years after (1736) that his codification was published ; but the Royal Government found the laws of the province collected and arranged to its hand by this learned, if eccentric, and corrupt judge. Upon the final establish- ment of the Royal Government Trott returned to Charles Town, but lived in retirement in his house in Cumberland Street, devoting himself to his work on the Explication. and it was said had finished one large volume in folio ready for the press when he died January 27, 1740. He was buried in St. Philip's churchyard, as was also Colonel Rhett. He had been made a Doctor of Laws and was then spoken of as Dr. Trott.2
The peculiar parish system brought over from Barba- does in 1716 remained. for the lower part of the State. until the overthrow of the government in the late war in 1865. This system, it must be observed, was purely an election system. The parish was made the election precinct and elections for members of the Assembly -- the only election of civil officers until after the Revolu- tion of 1776-were held at the parish church, and conducted by the churchwardens. But save legiti- mate ecclesiastical duties, such as that of caring for the poor, the vestries had none.3 To provide for the poor,
1 Coll. Hist. Soc. of So. Ca., vol. 1, 243-245.
2 South Carolina Gas-tre, February 2. 1740.
3 Subsequently, during the Royal Government, municipal duties wore performed by the vestry and wardens of St. Philip's Parish, Charlestown. and municipal boards elected at the church door on Easter Monday, to- gether with the wardens and vestrymen. Ser A Sketch of St. Philip's Church, Charleston. South Carolina, by Edward Medrady; Year Book City of Charleston (Smyth), 1-07.
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however. these church officers had power to assess and levy a tax. The only other elections held in the province were those for rectors, vestrymen, and wardens of the churches, who were chosen, as we have seen, by the inhabitants of the several parishes that were of the Church of England. The vestries in South Carolina did not, therefore. take the place of the township officers of other provinces. There was no local government. The province was not supposed to be too large for the administration of a single government by Governor and General Assembly.
It is difficult correctly to estimate the exact moral and religious character of the people of the province as a whole at this time. It was a period in the history of the world when, perhaps, religion was more a matter of politi- cal and religious faith than of moral personal conduct. The community was still new ; a generation had scarcely yet been born and passed away upon its soil.1 Advent- urers from all parts of the civilized world were coming and going, and some remaining. It was this feature. doubtless, which had so impressed Commissary Gideon Johnson on his first arrival, but the people generally were by no means of the character he. described. The simple piety of the French Huguenots cannot be doubted, nor
1 In the old " Circular Church, " that of the Independents or Congrega- tionalists, - " White Meeting, " - which was burned during the late war, there was a monumental tablet to Mr. Robert Tradd, which stated that he was the first male child born in Charles Town and that he died on the 30th of June, 1731, in the fifty-second year of his age. Ramsay's Hist. of So. C., vol. I. 2; Year Book City of Charleston (Courtenay), 1882. 392. Tradd must therefore have been born in 1679.
The author of The Olen Time of Caroling states that George Smith, the second son of Landgrave Thomas Smith, was born in old Charles Town, west of the Ashley, in 1972. Our Forefathers: Their Homes and. their Churches ( 1-60 . 49. But this is a mistake. The first Landgrave Smith did not arrive in the province probably before 1687.
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can the earnest zeal of the Puritan class of which Land- graves Smith, Morton, and Blake were the leaders and representatives. To the tyrannical and venal Trott, it is not probable that the church. the temple of the Lord. was more sacred than the court, the temple of justice, which he at once adorned with his learning and polluted with his corruption. Rhett's violent temper and hectoring disposition was little controlled by Christian grace, but he was as devoted to the service of his church as heroic in the defence of his people, and spent freely of his time and means in her support. He was the willing almoner of the bounty of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and upon the altar of St. Philip's Church there still stand the silver tankard. chalice, paten, and alins plate. with this engraved on them . The gift of Col. Win. Rhett to the Church of St. Philips Charles Town South Carolina." Sir Nathaniel Johnson was an earnest if over-zealous churchman. with the habits of a soldier, ready to support Granville in his high-handed measures, without pausing to consider the constitutionality of his methods.
We do not know, it is true, of the performance of a church service beyond the limits of Charles Town before 1700 ; nor is there record of any church out of the town before 1703. when the planters on Cooper River built. by private subscription and the liberal assistance of Sir Na- thaniel Johnson. a small church on Pompion Hill in that neighborhood. though Original Jackson and Meliscent. his wife. had given a lot for such a purpose. as is supposed. as early as 1681. It was a false and empty pretence - that declared in the first charter that the grantees were in- fluenced and excited in their application for it by "a laudable and pious zeal for the propagation of the Chris- tian faith." No effort was made by the first Proprietors. in fulfilment of their power, "to build and found churches
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chappels and oratories in convenient and fit places." Be- side announcing the somewhat inconsistent provisions of the Fundamental Constitutions, by which, on the one hand, they laid down a great scheme of religious freedom, and on the other, set up, as they were bound to do under their charter, the Church of England as the established church of the province, the Proprietors did little or noth- ing to promote and advance Christianity in the colony. A stock corporation intent only upon immediate pecun- iary profit, instead of exerting their great powers to con- vert the Indian savage. they gave " the privilege." to use their own language, of selling Indian captives as the cheapest means of "encouraging the soldiers of their in- fant colony." From the beginning. it is the colonists themselves who appeal to the Proprietors and to the Bishop of London for clergymen to be sent to minister to them. There were earnest Christian churchmen in the province before the end of the seventeenth century. ready to give of their substance for the establishment and sup- port of their church. Original Jackson and Meliscent, his wife, early as 1680-81. really and truly "excited with a pious zeal for the propagation of the Christian religion and the divine service according to the liturgy of the Church of England." gave land "with the improvements thereon " for the establishment of a church, presumably upon the Wando ; and Affra Coming, for " the love and duty" she had and owed to the churches as established in the kingdom of England, of which she professed her- self a dutiful daughter, in 1698 made the munificent grant of seventeen acres adjoining the town for the sup- port of its minister. Both Jonathan Amory and Martha, his wife, made small bequests for the same purpose. Nor were generous grants and bequests confined to the mem- bers of the Church of England. Isaac Mazyek, who ar-
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rived in 1686, contributed largely to the building of the Huguenot Church. gave liberally towards its support dur- ing his life, and by his will bequeathed £100 sterling for the support of its minister. Cezar Moze, in 1687. from his little store, bequeathed his mite to assist in building a house of worship in the neighborhood of his plantation on the eastern branch of the Cooper River ; 1 while Gov- ernor Blake, who, though a Puritan and a dissenter, possessing a liberal spirit towards all Christians, from his larger means. on June 20, 1695, gave £1000 sterling to the Independent or Congregationalist Church.2 Frances Simonds, a widow, gave, in 1704, the lot of land on which the old White Meeting House was built, and, in 1707. added another lot.3 In 1699 William Elliott gave the lot on which the Baptists erected their church,+ and Mrs. Blake. the wife of the Governor. contributed liberally to the adornment of St. Philip's, the English church.5
If it be conceded that the Church of England, estab- lished by the charter of the province, had not been suffi- ciently alive to her duties prior to the end of the century, it must be remembered that from the very nature of her government her people in the colony were in a great measure dependent upon the Proprietors and the church at home for the means of carrying on her services and work. No episcopal ordination was needed for the Bap- tists nor for the Congregationalists - ministers could be raised up and set apart from their own bodies in this country. None but a regularly ordained clergyman could fully officiate for the English church ; and for such, as
1 Howe's Hist. Presh. Ch., 108.
2 Tablet before referred to. See Year Book, 1882, 292.
3 Howe's Hist. Press. Ch .. 181, note, 147, note.
# Hist. First Baptist Un., 55; Year Book City of Charleston (Courte- nay), 1-81. 316.
5 Dalcho's Ch. Hist , 26.
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there was no bishop in America, the colonists were de- pendent upon the Proprietors and the Bishop of London. But the neglect of the Church of England, to whatever extent that may be legitimately charged, ended with the century. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was then organized in England. and South Carolina was its first field. With the aid of that society there were, as we have seen, in 1710, eight ministers of the Church of England and two French Protestant ministers who had conformed to the provisions of the act of 1706 in the use of the liturgy of the church and accepted support from the public treasury; one other French Protestant minis- ter, who adhered to the discipline of the French church ; five British Presbyterians or Independents : one Anabap- tist and a small body of Quakers. There had been some changes by arrivals, deaths, and removals in the nine suc- ceeding years : but the number of the clergy remained about the same. constituting a clerical force of one clergy- man to about 500 whites and 600 negroes, a number which would be held, even in these days, a fair proportion.
If the complaint of the dissenters that Episcopacy had waited till the colony had increased in wealth and num- bers, and then had come much in the spirit of proselytism and dictation, as the national and favored church, was not altogether without foundation, it must. on the other hand, be remembered that the founder of the Presbyte- rian Church in South Carolina was but providentially cast upon the shores of the province, his coming having been neither of his own will nor at the instance of the members of his church. So, too, the Baptist minister had come as an exile driven from New England. seeking the religious indulgence promised in the Royal charter to those who could not conform to the church thereby established. It
1 Howe's Hist. Presh. Ch., 172.
--
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remains, however, to the honor of the dissenters in the province, that, though themselves taxed to support the established church, they maintained their own churches by voluntary offerings in addition to the tax for religious purposes imposed by the government.
The high character of the clergy of the Church of England in the province was doubtless owing in a great measure to the care in their selection by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Nor did the society desert other missionaries whom it sent. When these with their flocks were driven before the tomahawk and scalping knife into the town, the society wrote at once to Colonel Rhett, their agent, to give to each, as a gratuity, half a year's salary, and to extend the same relief to their schoolmasters. Nor did the society restrict their benevo- lence to their own missionaries, but instructed their agent to present to each clergyman in the province who had suffered in the general calamity, though not in the service of the society, a sum not exceeding _30.1
If Ramsay's statement that the early settlers had no sooner provided shelter and the necessaries of life than they adopted measures for promoting the moral and lit- erary improvement of themselves, and particularly of the rising generation,2 is somewhat strained and overdrawn, it is nevertheless remarkable that, notwithstanding the constant political turmoil, the varied disasters which be- fell the colony, the continual apprehensions of war, and the actual repeated invasions of the province, so much
was conceived and attempted in these respects. But few of the very first settlers, as may well be supposed, brought with them wives or children. The necessity for schools. therefore, did not begin for some years after the founding
1 Dalcho's Ch. Hist., 97.
2 Ramsay's Hist. of So. Ca., vol. II, 353.
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of the colony. But before the seventeenth century had closed, the number of children born and brought here began to demand schools and religious instruction beyond the resources of the inhabitants. That many of the colo- nists were educated and accustomed to literary pursuits, there is abundant evidence.1 Indeed, as early as 1698, but thirty-five years after the first charter of the prov- ince, but twenty-eight years after the founding of the colony, and thirty two years before Franklin formed " The Junto," -- the debating society out of which grew the Philadelphia Library, which he claimed to be the mother of all American subscription libraries. - a free public library had been established in Charles Town. The first act upon the subject, i.e. that of 1700, it is true, has not been preserved. but its enactment, and the establishment of the library under it, is definitely ascertained by the recital of the Church act of 1712, as well as the existence of the library at that time. We find, also, in the journals of the Commons on the 17th of June, 1703, that Nicholas Trott informed the House that Dr. Bray had sent sundry books as a further addition to the " Public Library," " together with additional books for a layman's library," and the thanks of the House were ordered to be transmitted to Dr. Bray by Trott. On the following 7th of May the Public Treasurer was ordered to pay Edward Moseley for transcribing the catalogue of the library books the sum of £5 15%.2 This is believed to have been the first public library in America.
Lawson, who wrote in 1709, states that from the fact that the people lived in a town, they had drawn " ingen- ious people of most sciences whereby they had Tutors among them that educate their Youth a la mode." The
1 Hist. Sketches of So. Ca. ( Rivers), 231, quoting Journals. : Commons Journal.
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matter of education had, as we have seen, engaged the attention of the Assembly, and that by the act of 1710 commissioners had been appointed to receive legacies which had then been bequeathed for founding a free school. An appeal had also been made to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to assist in its establish- ment, as the best means of improving the spiritual as well as the temporal interests of the people. The society had answered this appeal, and in 1711 a school had been estab- lished, under the care of the Rev. William Guv. The school, it is true, was not altogether a free school. though it was so called; for only a limited number of scholars were educated without pay. But still it was an attempt in that direction. It was at this school that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel first assisted in the edu- cation of the children of the colonists. charging its teach- ers that they were to take special care of the manners of their scholars, both in and out of school, teaching them to abhor lving and falsehood. to avoid evil speaking, and to love truth and honesty. The Rev. Mr. Guy remained but a short time in charge of this school. as he was removed in the same year to the cure of St. Helena, Beaufort. He was succeeded as master of it by the Rev. Thomas Morritt, who remained in charge until 1728. when he became rector of Prince George's Parish. The free school in connection with St. Philip's continued until broken up by the Revolution of 1776.1
1 Professor McMaster, in his Hist. of the United States (vol. I, 27), has made the reckless statement that in the Southern States education was almost wholly neglected. but nowhere to such an extent as in South Caroline. " In that colony," he says, " prior to 1730 no such thing as a grammar school existed. Between ITBI and ITTC there were but five. During the Revolution there were none." The author of this work has elsewhere tally retuted this statement. See Coll. Hist. Soc. of So. Ca., vol. IV. " Education in South Carolina prior to and during the Revolu-
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