LIFE IN SOUTH CAROLINA IN THE 1700’S
Life for the pioneers was not easy. The first task for each family was to make a clearing of five or six acres by felling the great trees, a formidable task, and one that could not be accomplished until some sort of shelter had been improvised. The first shelters were probably like those at the King’s Tree, mere earthen cellars, made by setting up two perpendicular forked poles, which supported a horizontal ridge – pole against which other poles were leaned at an angle. The sloping sides were covered with a matted layer of pine straw, on which was laid a layer of earth. With earthen floors, and ventilated only by the door, such dwellings had the atmosphere of a cave, and were inhabited only until the permanent log cabin could be erected. Charles Woodmason had recorded that the first dwellings were built on the edge of the swamps, so that the planters could view their slaves at work in the rice fields. As a water supply was essential, the numerous springs and water – courses generally decided the location of the home site.
Most of the log cabins had but a single room, larger or smaller according to the size of the family, the energy of the builder and his available man – power, for even the simplest of these homes required vast labor. Each log meant the felling of a tree. Uniformity in size was essential, so some of the logs had to be cut at some distance away and rolled to the site. For the roof, bark or split logs were used. If shingles, each clipboard or shingle had to be riven with an axe from logs sawed by hand into the desired lengths.
The floors of the cabins were sometimes the bare earth, or packed smooth with hard clay, and some were made of hewn logs. Often there were no windows, and light came from the open door in the day and from a lightwood knot at night. Glassed windows were very rare. Chimneys were usually made on a framework of poles heavily plastered with clay. In the Hill Hills, however, coquina rock and field stone of humiliate were available. As the chimneys were immensely large and not very high, robbers could easily enter by way of them into a locked cabin, although probably very few cabins had other than a wooden latch opened by a knotted string, which could by drawn in at night. William Richardson of Bloom Hill has recorded that one of his slave women, locked in the cabin by the overseer for misconduct, escaped by climbing out through the chimney.
Regardless of the size of the cabin, it was usually the abode of a free hospitality, which turned away no traveler.
An improvement on the single – room log cabin was the double – room log house as a “two-pen house with a dog trot between”, which meant that it consisted of two rooms built as separate log – pens under one roof, with a hallway between, open at both ends, through which the dogs might trot at will. To this structure a lean –to right be added at the rear and a piazza at the front, but these last were rare. In 1768 the Rev. James Harrison, who had accepted as rector of St. Mark’s, said that the people of that parish more living in hovels of uneven logs, which seldom contained more than two rooms. Three years later Charles Woodmason wrote one of his longest letters from a “cold, open dark log cabin, in mist of noise and people”.
Frame buildings with sawed planks, as in Matthews Singleton’s house at Helroes, which is supposed to have been built in the 1760, were possible only after sawmills were installed on millponds. The many flowing springs and streams were easily damned for ponds, where wooden water – wheels were set up to turn the corn – mills and to supply power for sawmills. Although no record is available for dating the first sawmill east of the Wateree, there was one in Orangeburg on the other side of the river as early as 1743. Fortunately for the builders of pioneer days, cypress timber, soft and easily worked, was found in great abundance, and unless destroyed by fire, was a very permanent material for houses. The curb for an open well usually made from a hollow section of a pond cypress, and many of these curbs remained sound after fifty years of use.
Each pioneer family possessed common tools such as the axe, hatchet, saw as will as various hoes, which then were the chief farming implements, much more important than the crude plows. Every settlement had some blacksmith’s and shoemaker’s tools, and every woman possessed and knew how to use her spinning wheel and loom.
A tremendous labor for each family was the clearing of trees, underbrush and roots from the hard soil to make fields, for there were few if any abandoned fields of the Indians in this old hunting region. When necessary to save time, the settler often enlarged his first small fields by planting among the standing trees, which he killed by girling. This mode of clearing land continued to be practiced until after the war for Southern Independence. Log – rolling combined work and fun so happily that they continued until comparatively recent times.
A log – rolling of the 1850’s on the plantation of John Frierson has been thus described by a former slave:
In clearing up a new ground, the undergrowth was grubbed up and burned; the oaks, maples, dogwood, and hickories were cut down, split up, and hauled to the house for firewood; and the pines were belted or cut round, and left to die. After these pines had died and partially decayed, the winter’s storms, from year to year, would blow them down: hence the necessity for the annual log – rolling. These log – rollings usually took place in the spring of the year. They formed an important part of the preparations for the new crop.
On the appointed day, the hands came together at the yard, and all necessary arrangements were made, the most important of which was the pairing or matching of the men for the day’s work. In doing this, regard was had to the height and weight of the men. They were lift in pairs, therefore, it was necessary that they should be as nearly the same height and weight as possible. The logs have all been cut about twenty feet in length, and several good, strong hand sticks have been made… See them as they put six hand- sticks under a great big log. This means twelve men… one at each end of the hand – stick. It is going to be a mighty testing of manhood. Every man is ordered to his place. The captain gives the order, ‘Ready’, and every man bows to his burden, with one hand on the end of the hand – stick, and the other on the log to keep it from rolling. The next command given by the captain is, ‘Altogether’, and up comes the big log. As they walk and stagger toward the heap, they utter a whoop like what is known as the ‘Rebel yell’. If one fails to lift his part, he is said to have been ‘pulled down’, and thereafter becomes the butt of ridicule for the balance of the day. When the women folks learn of his misfortune, they forever scorn him as a weakling.
At 12 o’clock the horn blows for dinner, and they all knock off, and go, and enjoy a good dinner. After a rest, for possibly two hours, they go to the fields again, and finish up the work for the day. Such was the log – rollings in the ‘days before the War’.
At a subsequent day the women and children gather up the bark and limbs of these fallen trees and throw or pile them on heaps to burn. Then fifty or seventy-five log heaps would be fully ablaze in the deepening of he evening twilight, the glare reflected from the heavens made it appear that the world was on fire.
Recreation during the first hard years after settlement was a by – product of the struggle for existence, and men fished and hunted primarily for food rather than fun. But the necessity for hard work did not prevent social gatherings when a house was to be built, or a wedding celebrated; and for music to brighten these festive occasions, there were Jews harps and fiddles as listed on several old inventories.
The usual crops were corn, wheat, and other cereals for food and fodder, some rice in the lowlands, a few staple vegetables, flax for spinning, and a little tobacco for home use.
Indigo became a money crop quite early, for its small bulk made transportation to marker easy, and the English bounty kept the price attractive until the Revolution.
Some cash was had from the fat cattle when rounded up from the swamps and driven the weary miles to Charleston. It is said that the Neilsons of Neilson’s Ferry marked from 800 to 1000 calves every spring, so their herd must numbered more than 2000 head of cattle. A neighbor of the Neilsons, Richard Haynsworth, in his will drawn in 1756, six years before his death, bequeathed to his wife Elizabeth Hesse all his “mares and horse kind” with cattle and hogs; and be described with care his stock marks in specifying the animals for his children.
Only two meals a day were served. After the abundant wild game of the forest dwindled, the meat supply came from domestic animals, chiefly the hog. Charles Woodmason said in 1766, there was neither beef nor butter where he lived in St. Mark’s Parish or, if any beef, it was sun-dried in the Indian manner and as hard as a board. As late as1880 some rural families in Sumter County continued the old practice of drying beef. Mr. Woodmanson found the food monotonous and unpalatable; pork in winter, bacon in the summer, corn bread at all seasons, and no cider or anything better than water to drink.
Sweets other than honey and sweet potatoes were virtually unknown, for sugar cane and sorghum were not planted in S. C. until the nineteenth century, and sugar in early times was imported through Charleston.
Home furnishings at first were crude and scanty. Early wills and inventories indicate that pots, pothooks, potter dishes, feather beds, and bed coverings were among the most prized possessions. Bearskins served as blankets and as rugs, and as late as 1826 the inventory of Dr. T. C. Wright listed a boar skin and a buffalo skin.
The favorite garments of the pioneer men were homespun and buckskin shirts, and leather breeches. Little is known of what the women wore, except that their simple dresses were homespun, and they like caps and aprons. Of his congregation in 1788
Charles Woodmason wrote, “the females (many very pretty) come to Service in their shifts and a short petticoat only, bear-footed and barelegged-without Caps or Handkerchiefs—The men appear in Frocks or Shirts and Long Trousers- - - no shoes or stockings.
Bears and wolves were real dangers until after the close of the eighteenth century. To get rid of the wolves, the settler trapped them in baited pits, which were dug ten or twelve feet deep and lined with poles to prevent the animals from digging out. Above the pit, fresh meat was suspended over a balanced board, which dumped the wolf into the pit when he reached for the bait. A well-known wolf into the pit gave its name to a branch for Black River in what was later Claremont County; and James and Samuel Reynolds grants on Big Branch in the present Clarendon County were near a wolf pit that was long a landmark as Benbow’s Pit.
Although Woodmason said the people of St. Mark’s were illiterate, of the thirty-eight signatures to the petition for roads in 1758 from the settlers on the north (and east) side Black River, only five were made by mark. There were no schools or teachers during the first years after settlement, and the children were taught by their parents, or ran wild when not at work. Even in 1766, Charles Woodmason said there was not a school or a schoolmaster among them, and he took twenty poor children froe of charge to teach them writing, arithmetic, psalmody, and the principles of religion, for by this means he hoped to bring their parents into the church.
Source: From the History of Sumter County By Anne King Gregorie
MILITIA IN SOUTH CAROLINA IN THE YEAR 1769
Justices of the peace were not the sole evidence of government on the frontier, for, although the pioneers were exempt from the payment of taxes for the first ten years after acquiring land, they were subject to the old militia system of universal military service. As often as six times each year, every able white man between the ages of sixteen and sixty, could be summoned to the local muster field for drill with his company. Unless called for an emergency, the companies were summoned only once a year for a regimental muster.
Every freeman had to arm himself, and his white servants, if any. This meant that he had to keep in his house and take to their muster field for inspection, a serviceable gun, a cover for the lock, a cartridge box and at least four ounces of powder, a shot pouch with shot in proportion, a belt, a ball of wax sticking to the end of his cartridge box to defend his arms in rain, one worm and picker, four spare flints, a bayonet, sword or hatchet.
The governor or acting governor appointed and commissioned the colonels and other commissioned officers. The company commanders appointed the sergeants and corporals. Each captain had to give notice of a muster by beat of drum or some other quick method. The territory from which each company came was called a beat.
Source: From the History of Sumter County by Anne Gregorie
