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CHARLESTON
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St. Michael's Church
CHARLESTON
THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE
BY
MRS. ST. JULIEN RAVENEL
AUTHOR OF "LIFE AND LETTERS OF ELIZA PINCKNEY,1 "LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM LOWNDES "
WITH ILLUSTKATIONS BY VERNON HOWE BAILEY
Nefo gorfc THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
1906
All rights reserved
UBR*RY P* CONGRESS IwoOoote* Keceiwed
NOV 20 1906
CLASS /( AAd NO,
Copyright, 1906, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1906.
Nortooot) $tejss
J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
PREFACE
This book has not the slightest pretension to be the continuous history of the City of Charleston.
The writer has simply chosen from the story of its two hundred and fifty years such events as seem to her to have had most to do in shaping the fortunes of the men who made the town, or best to illustrate the character of their children who have lived in it.
What that fortune and character were, it is to be hoped the book may show. The writer has made no attempt to judge her people ; has only tried to draw them as they appeared to themselves and to their contemporaries.
With this view she has used, wherever possible, the accounts of the actors in the drama, or of those who knew them best, — the earliest histories and memoirs to be found, especially the publications of the Hon. William A. Courtenay, and of the Historical Society, of South Caro- lina, the " Shaftesbury Papers," and others.
She is under great obligations to friends who have assisted her with letters or information in their possession, — to Mrs. Julius Hey ward of Middleton Place; to Mrs. John Kinloch (daughter of the historian and novelist of Carolina, W. Gilmore Simms) ; to Miss Pringle, Miss Alston and Miss Conner; to the Hon. James Simons, Vice Presi- dent-General of the Cincinnati; to Captain Thomas and Captain C. C. Pinckney; to Dr. Henry Middleton Fisher; of Philadelphia; to D. Huger Bacot, Esq.; to Professor
VI PREFACE
Yates Snowden, University of South Carolina; and to Theodore D. Jervey, Esq. Also to Miss R. M. Pringle, Miss R. P. Ravenel, and others who have recalled to her the tales and legends of bygone days. These latter, when resting on tradition only, are introduced by " there was a story" or "the legend was."
It is hardly necessary to mention the extraordinary obligation which every student of the Annals of Carolina must be under to her chief historian, the late General Edward McCrady.
For the chapter entitled " Confederate Charleston," the authorities are the "Life of General Beauregard," by Alfred Roman, papers published in the " Year Books of Charleston," and the " Defence of Charleston Harbour," by John Johnson, engineer in charge, — now rector of St. Philip's.
For the reminiscent tone which has crept into the last chapters, the writer apologizes. She could not write otherwise.
HARRIOTT HORRY (RUTLEDGE) RAVENEL.
Charleston, South Carolina, June 20, 1906.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
His Most Sacred Majesty. The Lords Proprietors . 1
CHAPTER II The Founding of the City. The Coming of the Hugue- nots 13
CHAPTER III
The Murder of the Scots. Intolerance .... 26
CHAPTER IV Church Acts. The Country for the Queen ... 37
CHAPTER V
TUSCARORAS AND YeMASSEES 59
CHAPTER VI The Conquest of the Pirates 69
CHAPTER VII The King against the Lords. The Building of St.
Philip's 83
CHAPTER VIII General Oglethorpe and St. Augustine. The Reverend
George Whitfield 105
vii
Vlll CONTENTS
CHAPTER IX
PAGE
Governor Glenn's Picture of Carolina .... 117
CHAPTER X Attakullakulla. The Stamp Act 138
CHAPTER XI
Governor Lord Charles Montagu. Gathering of the
Storm 164
CHAPTER XII State Government Established. The First Shot Fired 202
CHAPTER XIII Battle of Fort Moultrie 230
CHAPTER XIV Prevost's Raid. Siege and Fall of Charleston . . 249
CHAPTER XV The Captured City. Marion's Men 275
CHAPTER XVI
Execution of Colonel Hayne. Deliverance . . . 314
CHAPTER XVII Restoration. Washington and La Fayette . . . 337
CHAPTER XVIII Characteristics. Structure of Society .... 378
CONTENTS IX
CHAPTER XIX
PAGE
War of 1812. Nullification 416
CHAPTER XX Social Topics. Mexican War 458
CHAPTER XXI Confederate Charleston. The End 486
INDEX 509
ILLUSTRATIONS
St. Michael's Church Frontispiece
PAGE
Old Town Plantation 3
Along Goose Creek 8
Ashley Hall Plantation 14
Glebe House 19
The Huguenot Church 21
Congregational Church, Dorchester 24
Avenue of Oaks at "The Oaks," Goose Creek opposite 38
Goose Creek Church "58
Mulberry Castle, "Broughton's Fort," Cooper River . 64
A Corner of the Battery Garden 79
Drayton Hall 88
Magnolia Gardens, on Ashley River . . . opposite 90
The Second St. Philip's Church 96
St. Michael's Church from Broad Street ... 98
St. Philip's from the Huguenot Churchyard . . . Ill Early Brick Houses on Tradd Street .... 115 Under the Portico, South Carolina Society Hall,
Meeting Street 118
A Bit of a Typical Charleston Garden . . . . 121 The Pr ingle House, King Street . . . opposite 128
Court House Square 135
xi
XU ILL USTBA TIONS
PAGE
The Old Building at Ashley Hall, where Indian
Treaty was Signed 142
St. Michael's from Meeting Street 157
The Rhett House, Hasel Street 167
The William Huger House, Meeting Street . . . 171
The Statue of Pitt opposite 172
St. Michael's Churchyard 174
St. Michael's Alley 181
The "Corner," Broad and Church Streets . . . 186
Entrance to Fort Moultrie 192
Relic of Tappy Wall 262
Old Powder Magazine, Cumberland Street . opposite 268
The Old Exchange, Foot of Broad Street . . . 272
The "Provost" 277
House at Corner of Tradd and Orange Streets, from
which it is said General Marion Fell . . . 285
Gadsden's Wharf 333
Charleston College 347
Typical House in Meeting Street 351
The Live-oaks at Otranto 353
The House where President Washington stayed, in
Church Street 361
Castle Pinckney at Present Time 374
General William Washington's House .... 407
Judge Grimke's House . . . . . . . 429
End of Drawing-room of the Pringle House . opposite 432
The Pringle House 436
Stoll's Alley 439
The Mansion House — "Eliza Lee's" 160
ILLUSTRATIONS xiii
PAGE
The Old Planters' Hotel 462
Old Wharves along the Harbour Front .... 465 The Simonton Gateway, Legare Street .... 470
The Sea Wall — East Battery 477
The East Battery opposite 480
The South Portal and Gates, St. Philip's Church . 483
St. Philip's Church opposite 484
Fort Sumter ' . "488
Old Warehouses near East Bay 493
Looking over the City toward the Cooper River opposite 496 Gateway, St. Michael's Churchyard 502
CHARLESTON
CHAPTER I
HIS MOST SACRED MAJESTY. THE LORDS PROPRIETORS
IN the year of our Lord 1679 the Lords Proprietors of the Province of Carolina on the Continent of North America ordered the Governor of their said province to remove his " Towne of Trade " (a small settlement on the west bank of the Ashley River) to the peninsula opposite, lying between what we call the Ashley and the Cooper rivers, but which were known to the Indians as the Kiawah and the Wando.
The Lords Proprietors were certain nobles and gentle- men to whom his Most Sacred Majesty King Charles II. had, in gratitude for services rendered to his father and himself, given all that territory " situate between the south- ernmost parts of Virginia, and the river San Mathias," the northern boundary of the Spanish dominions.
These gentlemen were : Lord Clarendon, the great his- torian ; the Duke of Albemarle, who, as General Monk, had brought back the King from exile to " enjoy his own again " ; the sagacious statesman, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord Ashley (afterward Earl of Shaftesbury) ; Lord Craven, the preux chevalier of the age, who, like a knight of old, had vowed life and fortune to the service of the beautiful Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia — and of Hearts ; Lord Berkeley ; Sir George Carteret ; Sir John Colleton; and Sir William Berkeley, — all gallant and loyal cavaliers.
All these had done and suffered much in the service of the two Charleses, and to allow them, at their own expense,
B 1
2 CHARLESTON
to secure and settle a province was an easy way to pay a debt of gratitude. Moreover, the King expressly stated in the charter, or patent, which he granted them, that he did so, finding that they " were incited by a laudable and pious design of propagating the Christian religion and the enlargement of the English empire and dominion," — matters which the Merry Monarch was suspected of not having deeply at heart.
The territory which he gave had not always been claimed by England ; indeed, its very name " Carolina " had been given a hundred years before, by a luckless band of French Huguenots sent by the great Admiral Coligny to find a refuge for "men of the religion" in the New World. They, led by the Sieur Jean Ribault, had landed at the " fair entrance " to which they gave the name of Port Royal. Delighted with the beauty and fertility of the country, they claimed and named it for their king, Charles IX. of France ; built a fort and raised the French flag. But misfortune overtaking them, they abandoned the place, only to be done to death by the Spaniards at St. Augustine, — dying for their faith and scorning to abjure.
In the reign of Charles II. a ruined fort, a broken column carved with the fleur-de-lys, and the names " Caro- lina " and " Port Royal " alone remained to tell the tale.
The country had, for nearly a century, "lain like a derelict" to be taken by the first comer, so England stepped in and claimed it for her own. There were many difficulties and delays, but the Proprietors sent exploring expeditions, on one of which a bold captain, Robert Sandford, coasting along from the Cape Fear to Port Royal, landed and " took seizin by turffe and twigge " of the territory in the name of the King and realm of England.
Three years later the first settlement was made by a
THE LORDS PROPRIETORS
3
colony sent from England via Barbadoes and Bermuda, commanded by Captain William Sayle. Sayle, after ex-
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Old Town Plantation
Site of the first Charleston. The present city lies across the Ashley River, in
the distance.
amining St. Helena Island and Port Royal, decided upon going northward to what the Spaniards called St. G'eorge's Bay, but which Sandford, in honour of the Proprietor
4 CHABLESTON
who had taken the chief interest in the matter, had named the "River Ashley."
Here they landed and built a little town and called it " Albemarle Point," afterwards " Charles Town," a small place of nine acres, with the river on one side, a creek on the other, and a little ditch and palisade between it and the boundless forest at the back, — the forest in which were terrible beasts and yet more terrible men — the men of the "shaven head and the painted face," who had laid St. Helen's waste only a year before. In this little com- pany of one hundred and sixty souls were several women. Surely the women of those days must have been heroic creatures ! What did they think and feel, those mothers of Carolina, as they looked from their low bluff upon the wilderness around ? Had they the prophetic vision of comfort and plenty and happy homes for their children, or did the trials and privations of the present fill their hearts? However they may have felt, no word of fear escaped them ; the letters tell of suffering, but never of despondency.
At Albemarle Point they endured all the first horrors of colonization. Want, hunger, sickness, danger from Indians, and so on. Their food was for a time reduced to one pint of " damnified peas " a day, and but for the help of the friendly Indians they might have starved. These were their neighbours, and their friendship was gained chiefly by the wisdom of one man, a " brave chirurgeon," Mr. Henry Woodward, who, having accompanied Sand- ford on his exploring expedition, had offered to remain for a whole year alone among the savages, to learn their language and interpret for his people when they should return. The nephew of the chief, " the Cassique of Kiawah," had taken his place on Sandford's ship in order to learn English, and had great influence in deciding the choice of Ashley River as the place of settlement.
THE LORDS PROPRIETORS 5
Woodward had gained the favour of his Indian hosts and was thus enabled to avert dangers which would have overwhelmed the little band.
For the government of their colony the Proprietors had prepared a singular code of laws. By their charter from the King, which granted them all the territory now comprised in the states of North and South Carolina and Georgia, with an indefinite extension westward "to the South Seas," they were enjoined to establish the. Church of England, and permitted to grant liberty of conscience. They might make laws, but only with the consent of the "greater part" of the people (a most unusual provision for those days) ; they were to estab- lish a nobility, but not to give the nobles English titles; and place and people were ever to remain " of His Majesty's allegiance."
The Province was to be created a County Palatine, and the Proprietors, the oldest of whom, for the time being, was to be the Palatine, were authorized to build forts, castles, towns, etc., to appoint governors and officers, to make laws, levy taxes and customs, establish the Church of England, wage war, pursue their enemies, put down rebellion, tumult, and sedition. All these powers they were "to have, use and enjoy in as ample a manner as any Bishop of Durham in our kingdom of England ever heretofore held, used, or enjoyed."
A " County Palatine " is a frontier province where, for the prompt action needful when enemies are close at hand, the King delegates the supreme power to a " Palatine," who can exercise for the time all regal func- tions. Such had been the English counties of Chester, Lancashire, and Durham, in the days when the Welsh threatened the west country, and the Cathedral of Dur- ham was " half Church of God, half tower against the Scot." Of the three, in the reign of Charles II., Durham
6 CHARLESTON
alone kept its ancient privilege ; and so the powers of that feudal potentate, the Lord Bishop, were cited as the model for those of the Proprietors of Carolina.
This charter was for a long time as dear to the people of Carolina as is Magna Carta to the English. In addition Lord Ashley (not yet Lord Shaftesbury), call- ing to his aid the great philosopher John Locke, pre- pared the "Fundamental Constitution," which enlarged and added to the statutes of His Majesty. Among other things it arranged for the proposed " nobility," " in order to avoid a too numerous democracy." This nobility was little more than a plutocracy, depending upon the amount of land owned by a man, which might be bought by him, without regard to birth or breeding, or service to the State. The titles passed by purchase as well as by descent.
As land was held at a penny an acre, it did not re- quire a large fortune to become a " baron " with twelve thousand acres, a cassique with twenty-four thousand, or even a landgrave (these were the titles chosen) with forty-eight thousand. The estates were called " baronies," and there were many which long kept the name, as the ";Wadboo," the " Broughton," the " Colleton," the "Fair- lawn Barony," but no one was addressed as "baron" or "cassique," and the landgraves, who were generally given the title to qualify them as governors (there were some exceptions), simply prefixed the title to their sur- names. No man was landgrave of Edisto or of Accabee, but Landgrave Morton or Landgrave Smith. Neither did any "lord of the manor " exercise manorial rights over white leetmen or negro slaves. Furnished with this con- stitution and with some more practical " Temporary Laws," the colony began its career.
A contemporaneous, facsimile copy of this constitution (commonly called " Locke's ") is among the treasures
THE LORDS PROPRIETORS 7
of the Charleston Library, and may be seen by the curious.
Governor Sayle had brought with him only one hun- dred and sixty persons, but the number of inhabitants was rapidly increased by subsequent immigration. Especially was this the case when Governor Sir John Yeamans came from Barbadoes, bringing with him ne- groes accustomed to the agriculture of the islands and to labour under tropical suns. By so doing he decided the institutions and conditions of Carolina for all future time.
Yeamans was the son of an alderman of Bristol who had suffered death for his fidelity to the crown. He himself had warmly supported the royal cause, in Bar- badoes, already a thriving colony. For so doing and for prospective services in colonization he, Sir Peter Colleton, and some other gentlemen of like principles, had been made baronets ; — the old people used to refer to them as " only-badian Baronets." He had provoked the colonists by not accompanying them on their voyage and they vainly protested against his appointment now. In many respects he made a bad Governor, oppressing the people by his exactions, and offending the Proprietors by demands for buildings and fortifications, which although needed they had no mind to give.
Still, he had the advantage of understanding the needs and resources of a new colony, putting the place into a tolerable state of defence, and pointing out the agricul- ture suited to the climate. He also showed the resources of the forests, cutting and sending to Lord Ashley twelve great logs of cedarwood, as the first-fruits of his new possession. From that time the demand for cedar was as constant and eager as was that of Solomon upon Hiram, King of Tyre.
A still more important service was, that by his advice
8
CHARLESTON
and influence many rich planters from Barbadoes and other West Indian Islands came to the Province, bringing their negroes with them. They settled themselves chiefly on a small affluent of the Cooper, called, from the fancied
Along Goose Creek
resemblance of its winding course to the curving neck of the goose, " Goose-creek. " Thence, they and their friends on the Ashley and Cooper were known as the " Goose- creek men."
They differed from the " plain people " — mostly dis- senters — who had come out with Sayle, in being generally
THE LORDS PROPRIETORS 9
of a higher class, wealthy, and members of the Church of England. Thus began — and not from the fanciful no- bility — that untitled class of landed gentry which, per- fectly well understood and accepted during the colonial period, survived the Revolution and formed a distinct and influential element of Charleston society down to 1865.
Long after Yeamans had been removed this movement continued, and gentlemen of wealth and position arrived from England and the Islands to the great benefit of the Province.
It was during Sir John's term of office that the question of removing the first town was mooted, and Mr. Dalton, secretary to the "Grand Council," wrote the following letter to Lord Ashley, who had proposed a new " Towne of Trade" in January, 1671.
" We cannot reasonably believe that the world is now asleep, or that the Spaniard has forgot his sullenness, therefore as it has been the practice of the most skilful settlers, soe it will become us, to erect townes of safety as well as of Trade, to which purpose there is a place — between Ashley and Wando rivers, about six hundred acres left vacant for a towne and Fort, by the direction of the old Governor Coll. Sayle, for that it commands both the Rivers. It is not a mile over between River and river, with a bold landing free from any marsh, soe as many shipps as can may ride before the Towne at once, and as many shipps as can come into the River under the protection of the fort, if one should be there.
" It is as it were a Key to open and shut this settlement into safety or danger ; Charles Towne [their first town] indeed can very well defend itself, and that's all ; but that like an iron gate shutts up all the Townes that are or may be in these rivers ; besides it has a full view of the sea, being but a league or a few miles from the mouth of the river and noe shipp can come upon the Coast but
10 CHABLESTON
may be seen from thence and may receive the benefit of a Pilott from that Towne."
" The settlements being thick about it, it cannot be surprised [he probably means by Indians] it is likewise the most convenient for building and launching of shipps as large as can come into this harbour. It must of neces- sity be very healthy, being free from any noxious vapors, and all the summer long being refreshed with continual cool breathings from the sea, which up in the country men are not soe fully sensible of."
No better description of the site of Charleston and of its harbour could be written to-day. Its inhabitants are still " all the summer long refreshed with cool breathings from the sea " ; and for its strength, the fleets of France and Spain, of England, and of the United States, have all tried to force the iron gate, — and failed.
In September of the same year Lord Ashley wrote to Sir John, " Above all things let me recommend to you the making of a Port Town upon the River Ashley," etc.
Sir John was evidently of the same mind as his old predecessor, and took the first steps by negotiating with the persons who had taken up the land between the two rivers. Accordingly in February, 1672, Mr. Henry Hughes and " John Coming and Affra his wife " appeared before the Grand Council and surrendered their land, " nere a place upon Ashley River known as Oyster Point to be imployed in and towards enlarging of a Towne and Common of Pasture there intended to be erected."
" Mr. John Coming and Affra his wife " are perhaps the most interesting people of that early time, because it is impossible not to suspect a romance concerning them.
For why should " Mistress Affra Harleston of Mollyns, daughter of John Harleston Gent., of a family long seated at South Ockenden Essex, and having estates in Ireland," come out to America as servant to Mr. Owens, but for a
THE LORDS PROPRIETORS 11
sentimental reason? Her father's house, as described in the inventory, contained " seller, parlour, kitchen, larder, great chamber, painted chamber, nurserie, butterie, gal- lerie to the garretts," etc. Why, having everything thus handsome about her, did she leave it all, if it were not to marry John Coming, first mate of the Carolina, and afterward captain of the good ships Edisto and Bless- ing? Coming was a hardy Devonshire sailor of the race of Drake and Raleigh and Kingsley's heroes. The family tradition says, that having lost a ship some time before he had been accused of cowardice, whereupon he had with his own hands built and rigged a longboat, in which he had crossed the Atlantic. He must have been a man of means, for on first arrival he settled a place on Ashley River and afterward one on the Cooper. His name lives in " Comings Point," the southern cape of Charleston Harbour, charted by him in 1671, and in the fine plantation " Coming-tee," now in possession of his collateral descendants, the Balls.
This may have been the first runaway match in South Carolina !
Mrs. Affra has kept the town waiting, but in fact it waited long. Sir John Yeamans fell into disgrace with the Proprietors, as before said, and was superseded before anything more was done. He withdrew to Barbadoes " with much estate but small esteem." His wife, " Dame Margaret," had been known in a right womanly way while in the Province. Two unfortunate men had been con- demned to death for desertion, but were pardoned " on account of the warmest solicitations of Margaret Lady Yeamans and the rest of the ladyes and gentlewomen of this Province." Her daughter married James Moore, afterward Governor, and has left numerous descendants in Carolina.
It was probably owing to this and other troubles that it
12 CHARLESTON
was not until '79 that Lord Ashley wrote authoritatively to Governor West, " We let you know that Oyster Point is the place we do appoint for the New Towne, of which you are to take notice and call it Charles Town."
West appointed a commission to carry out these orders, and in the course of the next year the move was made. The first settlement, gradually abandoned, and despoiled even of its name, became at length a plantation, still known as " Old Town Plantation," and the new Charles Town arose in its stead, the capital of the " Colony of Ashley River."
CHAPTER II
THE FOUNDING OF THE CITY. THE COMING OF THE HUGUENOTS
GOVERNOR WEST was a grave and sober-minded man, and can but have been amused at the magnifi- cent directions which Lord Ashley sent for the building of the chief town of a province which had at that time only twelve hundred inhabitants. It should, His Lordship said, have at least sixscore squares each of three hundred feet and " it is necessary that you lay out the great Port Town into regular streets, for be the buildings never soe meane and thin at first, yet as the town increases in riches and people, the voyde spaces will be filled up and the buildings will grow more beautyfull. Your great street cannot be less than one hundred or six score broad, your lesser streets none under 60, your alleys 8 or ten feet. APallisado round the Towne with a small ditch is a sufficient Fortification against the Indians. There is a necessity that you leave a Common round the Towne soe that noe Enclosure may come nearer than the 3rd part of a mile to the Pallisado," etc.
For the carrying out of these directions West had the assistance of his committee of Council. Surveyor-general Culpepper had already drawn a plan and Stephen Bull (afterward surveyor-general) took an active part. Stephen Bull was, next to West and Woodward, the most important of all the emigrants who came with Governor Sayle. He came bringing many servants, and at once took up a large body of land on Ashley River and named it " Ashley Hall." He was Lord Ashley's deputy, a member
13
14
CHARLESTON
of Council, master of ordnance, and held a dozen other important offices. Of most consequence to the colony was the fact that as an explorer among the Indians he be- came so friendly with them that they chose him for their Cassique, and he thus was enabled to make an advanta- geous treaty with them in 1696. A small one-story brick house built by him at Ashley Hall is still standing.
r
Ashley Hall Plantation Remains of the steps of Ashley Hall in the foreground.
— the oldest on the river. The estate remained in the possession of the family for over two hundred years, and in all those years there was hardly a time in which one of the name did not go out to take part in the government of South Carolina.
The committee does not seem to have attempted to exe- cute Lord Ashley's plan in full. Everything, however, is comparative, and the wide streets of that day are the narrow ones of this. Not even the most devoted Charles- tonian would now call Tradd, Elliott, and Church streets
THE FOUNDING OF THE CITY 15
" broad," but Mr. Thomas Ashe, clerk of the ship Rich- mond, writing in 1682 says, " The town is regularly laid out into broad and capacious streets"!
It really was a narrow parallelogram about four squares long by three wide. The first street fronted on the Cooper River, extending on the south from a creek (Vander Horst's), which ran where Water Street is now, to another on the north over which the City Market now stands. On the west the present Meeting Street was bounded by a wall in which was a half moon, with a gate and draw- bridge giving access to the country without. The wall also extended along the three sides of water front, and had bastions and small forts at the corners. Of course all this was not constructed at once, but it was as described in a very few years. From the river front projected wharves, and soon " sixteen merchant vessels sometimes rode at once in the harbour." There was a place reserved, Ashe says, for a church and a Town Hall and a parade ground for the militia. The streets running north and south were Bay Street, Church, and Meeting; east and west were Tradd, so named in honour of the first male white child born in the town, Elliott, Broad, and Dock, now Queen. The early maps show these only extending from the Bay to Meeting Street, but in 1700 they are said to reach from river to river. Some persons lived outside of the walls on little farms, and the Council ordered that the peninsula should be cleared of all trees and bushes that might conceal a lurking enemy. There was a court of guard, and watch was kept, both there and upon Sullivan's Island, for " Topsayle Vessels " and other suspicious craft.
In the years from 1679 to 1689 colonists were contin- ually arriving. The accession of James II. quickened the emigration from England. Five hundred dissenters, led by Morton and Axtell, who were made Landgraves for
16 CHARLESTON
their services, came out in a single month. Mr. Benjamin Blake was an important person in this connection.
The Barbadians continued to come, and gentlemen from the other West Indian Islands and from England also. Thomas Drayton, William and Arthur Middleton, and Rob- ert Daniel, all names of note in Carolina, came in 1679. Moore, Ladson, Grimball, Cantey, Boone, Thomas Smith, Schenking, and Izard appear soon after. All of these took up lands; many of the original grants still remain, and the Council Journals show the extent, as " Lands granted on Goose Creek to Edward Middleton, Gent., one of the honourable persons of this Province." This land became afterward the beautiful plantation " Crowfield," long con- sidered the handsomest landscape garden in the Province. Another grant of a thousand acres to the same person was the " Oaks," the stately avenue of which still re- mains.
Mr. Thomas Amy is to have twelve thousand acres (a barony) " In consideration of his great services " (in en- couraging emigration), and John Gibbs, Esq., kinsman of the Duke of Albemarle, is to " have every attention paid to him, and three thousand acres rent free.''' This last is a very rare order; the quit-rent, which made much trouble,, was generally to be paid. But although the chief resi- dences of these gentlemen were on their plantations, they were likewise important citizens; in fact the country for a radius of twenty miles around was but a greater Charles Town. Most of the chief planters in those early days were merchants as well ; the Indian trade was long the chief source of wealth. "Charles Town trades for 1000 miles into the continent," one old writer says. The Pro- prietors tried to restrict the fur trade to within one hun- dred miles of the town, reserving all beyond to themselves; but although they appointed Indian agents to enforce the law, it was continually eluded. In troublous times
THE FOUNDING OF THE CITY 17
some of these agents became persons of great importance. Besides the furs, they had for exports, as has been already said, the products of the forest, lumber of all sorts, tar, pitch, and turpentine. To these, in defiance of the objec- tions of the Proprietors, there was added salt-beef and bacon. What was a man whose estate numbered thou- sands of acres to do but to graze it ? The cattle throve and multiplied enormously in a climate where food was plentiful all the year, and a bracken bush could keep the cow in the severest weather. Wolves prevented the increase of sheep as worthless dogs do now, but most planters protected a small flock, to supply the family with mutton and with wool for the ever whirling wheels. Swine could take care of themselves; they fattened on the acorns of the oak groves, and soon became an impor- tant article of export, while as yet crops were small and inadequate.
These sources of prosperity had so increased the well- being of the little community that when Thomas Ashe, clerk of the ship Richmond, came out in 1680 with the first Huguenot colony, he declared in the "View of Carolina" which he published on his return to England, that there was no longer any suffering or want of food to be appre- hended ; that the settlers were well established, had all sorts of European grains and fruits and " twenty sorts of pulse not known in England, all of them good for food." It would be interesting to learn what they were. Most families kept an Indian, who for a mere trifle would sup- ply a household of twenty people with an ample quantity of game, venison, turkeys, ducks, etc. This custom lasted down to the Revolution, and in some cases still later.
In the town the work of building went on. It seems extraordinary that the colony should have been founded for fourteen years before any attempt was made to erect a church. The uncertainty of occupation of Albemarle
18 CHARLESTON
Point was probably the cause of this delay, or perhaps the small number of churchmen among the original settlers. Old Governor Sayle had indeed selected and laid out a graveyard, adjoining the old town, of eighty acres (surely a liberal provision), in which we may presume that he himself was interred, but not until 1682 was St. Philip's begun.
It was placed where St. Michael's now stands, at the corner of Broad and Meeting streets just opposite the half moon and drawbridge, and was built of the black cypress which Mr. Maurice Mathews, correspondent of Lord Shaftesbury, had strongly commended ten years before. "The black cypress is wonderful large and tall and smoothe, of a delicate graine, and smells. It will here- after be a good commodity to ye prying planter who looks abroad." Its value as a building material was now known. The foundation was of brick, and this mode of building, namely a cypress house on a brick foundation, was long esteemed and continued in the colony. For lime they burnt the old Indian heaps of oyster shells, which Sandford had described as piled thick along the river banks near the coast, where are many still to be seen. This lime makes the strongest possible mortar. Walls and whole buildings were often made of a concrete, called " tappy," or " pise," — composed of these shells mixed with the lime which becomes hard as stone. The only building now standing in Charleston known to have been erected in the seventeenth century, the old Powder Magazine in Cumberland Street, which was attached to the small fort at Carteret Bastion at the northwest corner of the old wall, is built of this " tappy."
St. Philip's was said to be " large and stately " and to have a neat palisade around it. It shows the good feeling between the sects that Mrs. Blake (sometimes, as the wife of a Landgrave and Proprietor, called " Lady Blake "),
THE FOUNDING OF THE CITY
19
who was the daughter of Landgrave Axtell, should have contributed liberally to the adornment and completion of
Glebe House
St. Philip's, although herself a Baptist. It was endowed by the piety of that true daughter of the Church, Mrs.
20 CHARLESTON
Affra Coming, who in 1698 " for love and duty " bestowed upon it seventeen acres of land just outside the walls. This land, now covered by the "Middle Western" part of the city, has, as Glebe land, been of great value. Glebe Street and Coming Street keep the memory of the gift and the donor. A large old-fashioned brick house on the east side of the former street was, until a comparatively recent period, the Rectory of St. Philip's, and was always known as the "Glebe House."
The other denominations soon housed themselves also. In Meeting Street, near the north wall, the Presbyterians or Independents built in 1685 their "White Meeting House," to which Governor Blake ten years later gave a thousand pounds sterling. This gave the name to Meeting Street.
The Huguenot emigrants, who only arrived in 1680 to 1686, began their "French Church" about 1687 in the upper part of Church Street on land conveyed by Ralph Izard and Mary his wife (a Miss Middleton) for that pur- pose. Isaac Mazyck, one of the earliest and wealthiest emigrants of their race, gave generously to its erection and support. At the other end of Church Street were the Baptists, on land given by William Elliott, and the Quak- ers had a " Friends' Meeting House " outside the walls, near to the present King Street.
Thus in ten years from the founding of Charles Town there was no lack of places of worship; it is remarkable that although no one of the original buildings remains churches still stand upon each of these sites, belong- ing to the same organizations and denominations. The " Friends' " is the only exception to this. The building was destroyed by fire, and there being no Quakers now in the city it was never rebuilt ; but the lot is kept sacred, and is still owned by the society.
So far the people of all these various denominations were, with the exception of a few Dutch, from Nova-Belgia,
THE FOUNDING OF THE CITY
21
natives of Great Britain, subjects of the King; but now from 1680 to 1688 came the French Huguenots, strangers and aliens, into this English community. So much im-
The Huguenot Church
portance has been attached to this people that it strikes us strangely to lind that they amounted, all told, only to about four hundred and fifty persons. A small number for which to claim the amount of influence often attributed
22 CHARLESTON
to them, until we remember that there were at that time but twenty-five hundred white people in the colony. Thus the arrival of a compact and very individual body of foreigners, one-sixth of their whole number, might easily create some uneasiness. At first nothing of this appeared. Some few, wisely fleeing the wrath to come, had left France before the severity of persecution began, carrying with them much of their property, as the Mazycks, St. Juliens, and others.
Those who remained until after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes were happy if they escaped with life and unbroken families.
The stories of the flight are pathetic, but do not prop- erly belong here. Well treated in England, highly com- mended by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and protected by the King, the colony who came in the Richmond sailed under royal patronage, sent by King Charles himself, to cultivate wine, oil, and silk; in all of which they abso- lutely failed. The Proprietors recommended them strongly to the Governor, and they were kindly received. The merchants and artisans, of whom there were many, both in this and succeeding migrations, settled generally in the town. The others took up land on the lower part of the Santee River, thence called " French Santee," and on the Cooper, in what was then known as " Orange Quarter," now the parishes of St. Denis and St. John's Berkeley. The greater number who came to Carolina were people of humble station, yet there were among them some of superior rank ; " Sieurs "; " Marchands oT outremer^ ; clergymen and physicians ; but all came for one cause, all had made the same sacrifice, all were bound in one brotherhood of kindliness.
Inspired by a faith as strong, a morality as pure, as the most rigid Puritanism could demand, they escaped its harsher and grimmer features, and dwelt more on the
THE FOUNDING OF THE CITY 23
mercy of the Father than on the vengeance of the Judge. This strikes one in the entries in the few family Bibles of