HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1969-06-12, Page 151
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THEBLUE THUMB
BY G. MacLEOD ROSS
The fascination of the
Carolinas is that here you may
still see the warp and woof, the A.
karma which went to the making
of ant -heaps, of an empire, and
$ of buildings which have passed
across the face of three
centuries.
As long ago as 1669, Lord
Ashley led his first contingent of.
Barbadians - English, Scottish
and Welsh -- to settle at Port
Royal, a location they instantly
rejected in favor of the fine
harbor which they ' named •
Charles Towne, on the Kiawah
river, later named the Ashley.
In 1680• Governor Ashley
made the contribution which
should stand as his finest
• memorial, for he ruled that
religious liberty should reign in
his domain of what became
South Carolina. '
In Europe the time was rips
for Dissenters from England,
Convenanters from Scotland,
• Huguenots ; from France,
Dutchmen, even Baptists from
Maine to . get out frorfi under.
Yet, in spite of the Church of
England being established there
in 1706, with parishes
demarcated, the Huguenots
e gradually modified their
evangelistic beliefs and helped
build most of ' the parish
churches. All this while the total'
population of the State was but
6000; all white, for no negroes
.arrived until 1719.
Rice had been found to grow
pion the low- lying' coastal belt as
early. as 1666, but in 1686 a
ship's captain brought seed from
Madagascar 'which Dr. Henry
Woodward planted and seeded,
so that by 1696 bumper crops
resulted. Rice and respectability
it grew together and for 200 years
this was the money crop. Its
• success originated the belief in
free trade. It accounted for the
taste of Madiera-wine.
Where. rice would not grow, in
the pine covered uplands; indigo
was found to thrive, so that
when the war with France cut
off supplies to England _from
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Pondicherry, Martinique and
IVlonserrat, the • English
government paid Carolina a
bounty for it.
These money -making crops
stimulated ingenuity. At
Georgetown in 1775, Johnstone
studied, the tide action which ran
higher than the "salt points" in
the rivers. In' 1790 Lucas, a
shipwrecked millwright, devised
a rte husking machine and made
a fortune. A. man could double
his capital in five years; a
veritable El Dorado! -
Promigeniture still held, but
younger sons were sent to
England for "education" and to
fall , prey to "windy Whig
liberalism," returning to the
Carolinas primed for mischief..
Patronage gave Provincial, office
to "placemen," who made a
quick fortune and ° returned to
England. Absentee landlords and
exhaustion . of the soil gave
poorer crops. The malarial
mosquito drove the planters to
the towns and uplands.
Supervision by overseers still
further reduced the crops.
Meanwhile the Northern States'
had 'raised the.- cry of
„Independence, which Carolina
supported, so that when an
English squadron was repulsed
off Sullivan's Island in, ,June
1776, the Americans were
Sufficiently heartened to declare
their Independence of England.
In 1779 an English naval force
nearly captured 'Charles Towne,
but retreated . with 4,000
negroes, pillaging as they went.
The following year an English
force landed on John's Island,.
captured Charles Towne and for
two years burnt, plundered Wand
pillaged the whole coastal area.
Partisans arose and virtual civil
war resulted while 25,000
negroes were lost to the planters.
The English bounty stopped and
South_ Carolina_was_no longer_a.
. moneymaking province, but just
one of the confederate states.
Charles Towne • was respelt
Charleston and lost its place as
the' de facto capital to - Columbia.
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A, tale of two cl
orches
. ST. JAMES CHURCH, GOOSE CREEK
Reproduced from the Sunday Sketch Book by Laura Peck. Charleston, S.0 News and Courier.
ST. JAMES GOOSE CREEK
It is against this . brief
historical background thatwe
turn back to the golden years; to
1711, when St. James at Goose
Creek was dedicated; the Oldest
church in the State. Here the
Bishop of London, as the prelate
of all colonial Sees, sent out -,a
missionary from the Society for
the Propagation of .the Gospel.
Today the small burnt brick
church bears the mark of West
Indian architecture, with its
jerkin -headed roof, its stucco
ornaments and its traditional,
pink coloring. ' Over the main
door is the emblem of the
"Pelican in her Piety," • the
device of the Society for the
Propagation of the • Gospel,
which sent out the. Rev. Francis
Le Jau D.D. as the first minister.
Under the pelican is a line, of
five flaming hearts,. while over
each • window is a cherubim.
Inside, the plaster reredos frames
the Royal Arms of England,
~_modeled in the round and in full
color. The reredos is fronted by t,
the pulpit, there being no altar.
The old box pews are still in
•
perfect order and would hold a
congregation of perlfaps .100.
Over the west ,end a slaves'
gallery has been cobbled in at a
later date, when negroes were
first imported. The walls are
adorned with marble plaques.
One to Ralph Izard, the wealthy
Barbadian parishoner, 'whose
armorial crest is displayed on a
diamond shaped board on ' the
front of- the gallery. .There -is
another plaque 'to the succession
of ministers and a special one to
Francis Le Jau.
A short 60 years after the
dedication of this church, with.
the population of this State now
grown to ,140,000 white and
109,000 negroes, .the colonists
enriched by their crops, declared
for Independence from England.
During the 1780 pillaging by
English troops St. James Goose
creek was spared because the
emblem of the Royal Arms was
displayed.
Today •St. James'
congregation has evaporated. A
service is held there once a year
in French, . on a day close to
Easter. Its red brick walls stand
hidden in a forest of southern
_pine, whilst the low brick wall
enclosing the small cemetery is
piled high with white Cherokee
rose 'bushes. The sexton,
discovered in an -adjoining house.
with a T.V. set entertaining 'a
considerable local audience,
appears with the original massive
key to unlock the door and let
us enter. But even this small
backwater, still flaunting its
loyalty to the Crown, is
threatened by a huge housing
project to accommodate a Navy
Weapons Center. Let us hope
that this little bit of England will
not falla prey to "progress," to
"development," to a raucous
supermarket, etc., for "such
milestones are scarce.
ST. JAMES
OF FRENCH SANTEE
GODERICH SUONgeS Aimirlitift$P rv.,.,,
But, as previously described,
rice in this coastal belt finally
met its Waterloo; a prey to
over -cropping, coastal t3tonns,
the mosquito and competition
from Louisialna, ATIptrisas. and
Texas as soon as irrigation
schemes were provided there. -By
1908. only five to seven
thousand acres were being
planted around Georgetown.
Architecturally this church 'is
more pretentious than that at
Goose Creek. It has a portico
supported on weatherbeaten red
brick columns, while the main
fabric is in the same brick. Here
too, are the original. cypress
wood box pews, arranged so that
the congregation faces west to a
raised table on which the
original silver communion
service is displayed. The pulpit is
at the north end and there is no
slave gallery. .
It happened that the church
had been opened for a' special
tour and we were greeted by a
parishoner, old Mr. Lucas, who
went to the greatest pains to see
we missed none of the church's
treasures. In a glass case lies a
huge Bible, _looted from this
church id 1780 by licentious
English soldiery during the
Revolutionary War. It had ben
moven to the church by the
plantation family of Rebecca
Motte and thus had her named
embossed on the cover. Two
hundred years later, a resident of
Winyah Bay found the Bible for
sale in a second-hand bookstores
in the Strand, •London.
Recognizing the name upon it, it
was purchased Jand restored to
St. James.
It is hereabouts that you look
out over the wide flats once
irrigated by tidal fresh water,
which produced the rice, which
in turn brought shipping to ports
like Charleston and Georgetown
until their productivity was
usurped by competition Today
many of the great houses are still
occupied; surrounded as they are
'with gorgeous live oaks, dripping
with moss like great beards; by
The second St, James dates
from 1768 and was built by
Huguenots who settled an area
known as French_ Santee, near
Wamliaw Creek . and close to
Winyah Bay's rice plantations.
Some such were the 12,000.
acres of Estherville,' granted to
Robert Daniell in 1711 by the
Lords Proprietor$. Annandale of
5,000 acres, where in 17-92 the
first tide -operated rice mill was
constructed. Here too are
Kinloch, Rice . Hope, Wicklow
Ha 11 and- - the Belleisle-
plantations. The last was the
home of Francis Marion the
Swamp Fox of Revolutionary
fame.
camellias and riots of axsleas
and lapped by lagoons in which
grow the stately cyp rens,° 8eyorld
lie acres and 'acres of low lying
marsh where . now poly exotic
grasses flourish; -a sad reminder
of thedays when Rice I'm King.
Sic Gloria Transit.
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