Part 12

Wilmington suffered much during the Revolution. For almost the whole of the year 1781 it was occupied by the British under the command of Major Craig, a cruel and implacable enemy, and was the centre of active enterprises, mostly carried on by means of the worst class of Tories, extending as far as Chatham and Orange, and marked by circumstances of rapine and atrocity. The brutal David Fanning, who captured Governor Burke and all his suite at Hillsboro in August of this year, was one of Craig’s favorite instruments. The most distinguished inhabitants, and even women and children, as in the case of Mrs. Hooper, were treated with inexcusable cruelty. Wilmington has few monuments, but the house still stands where Cornwallis had his headquarters when passing through towards Yorktown; and Cornelius Harnett’s house, the Harnett whom Josiah Quincy called the Samuel Adams of North Carolina, was standing near by the north boundary of the city only a few years ago.

[Illustration: HEADQUARTERS OF LORD CORNWALLIS, WILMINGTON.]

After those stormy and bitter days Wilmington saw many years of prosperity and peace. There had been a distinctly literary element here in Colonial days. The first American drama, _The Prince of Parthia_, by Thomas Godfrey, was written here in 1759, and was years afterwards produced on the stage by a company of local amateurs. Its author lies buried in St. James’s churchyard. When peace had brought again plenty and prosperity, and when commerce began to change the provincial town into a bustling mart of trade, social refinement and intellectual culture revived, and under changed conditions democratic institutions the Cape Fear section asserted again its old pre-eminence.

[Illustration: COMMISSION OF LOUIS DE ROSSET AS CAPTAIN, GIVEN BY WILLIAM AND MARY.]

During the war between the States, Wilmington was specially noted as the centre of the important intercourse between the Confederate States and foreign countries by means of the “blockade-runners.” A hundred steamers are said to have been engaged in this traffic between Wilmington and the West Indies, and for many miles north and south of the inlets into the Cape Fear, the beach is still marked by the wrecks of those run ashore to escape the blockading squadron. Some of them, however, ran almost with the regularity of mail-boats, and one steamer is said to have made over fifty successful trips. By these vessels supplies of all kinds and munitions of war were brought in, and large fortunes made by the owners and commanders of the successful steamers. The State of North Carolina owned one of the most fortunate and famous of these, the _Advance_, which eluded capture and continued year after year to bring in shoes, blankets and clothing for the North Carolina soldiers in the Confederate army, and cotton-cards for the women at home, until a few months before Lee’s surrender. Even on her last fatal voyage she had skilfully slipped between the blockading vessels under cover of the darkness, and before day dawned she was well below the horizon on her way to Nassau. But, unhappily, she had been obliged to take in at Wilmington a quantity of coal mined in Chatham County, and not suitable for her use, and a thick trail of smoke settling down over the quiet sea betrayed her. The blockading steamers gave chase and ran her down by her trail, the inferior quality of her coal making it impossible for her to attain her proper speed.

Wilmington is still the largest town and the most important port of entry in the State. Its population, like that of the State at large, has been but little diluted by foreign immigration. It retains its traditions of culture, of hospitality, of loyalty to the Anglo-Saxon heritage of freedom and independence, and is as ready now as ever it was in the past to resist the aggressions of power.

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CHARLESTON

BY YATES SNOWDEN

“In Pompeii, the tourist, looking from blank wall to dusty floor, wonders what there is to see in that little hall, but a native goes down upon his hands and knees; with a few brisk passes of his hand the sand is brushed away, and a Numidian lion glares forth from the tesselated pavement.”--VIRGINIUS DABNEY’S _Don Miff_.

Forty-five years before the English colonization of Virginia, fifty-two before the Dutch settlement of New York and fifty-eight before the Puritans landed at Massachusetts Bay, Captain Jean Ribaut, of Dieppe, commanding the first Huguenot emigration to North America, on the 1st of May, 1562, entered the beautiful harbor of Port Royal, South Carolina.

In his journal, as translated in one of Hakluyt’s black-letter tracts, he describes the country as “full of hauens Riuers and Ilands of such fruitfulness as cannot with tongue be expressed ... the fairest, fruitfullest, and pleasantest of al the world.”

Internal dissensions weakened the infant Huguenot colonies, and they were finally utterly destroyed by the Spanish bigot, Menendez. Though in after years the Huguenot was to be an important element in the peopling of the colony, the crafty Spaniard forever prevented the domination of the Fleur-de-Lis on the South Carolina coast, and made the way clear for the Lion of St. George.

In 1670, one hundred and eighteen years later, the first permanent settlement of the Province was made by the English under Governor William Sayle, at Albemarle Point, on the western bank of the Kiawah (Ashley) River, three miles from the present site of Charleston. This expedition had also headed for Port Royal, but the Cacique of Kiawah, a friendly Indian, advised that the land farther up the coast was better to plant, and the colonists acted more wisely than they knew, for a few years later, in 1686, the Spaniards utterly destroyed the Scotch colony established at Port Royal by Lord Cardross.

On August 17, 1669, the frigate _Carolina_, the _Port Royall_ and the sloop _Albermarle_ were at anchor in the Downs with ninety-three passengers all aboard and ready for sea. A few days later they sailed for Kinsale, Ireland, and thence for Barbadoes, which they reached in October. A West Indian gale wrecked the _Albermarle_ on the Barbadian coast and another vessel was procured, and on the voyage to Carolina, their objective point, the _Port Royall_ was wrecked on one of the Bahamas. The ship _Carolina_, badly battered, eventually reached Bermuda, where a sloop was engaged to assist the expedition to its destination. En route from Barbadoes they passed through dreadful hurricanes, and the Barbadian sloop did not reach Ashley River until a month after the arrival of the two other vessels. It will be seen that it was through storm and stress the English made the first settlement of Carolina, and that of the three ships that left England with the emigrants, the _Carolina_ was the only one to reach these shores.

Sir John Yeamans, who had taken charge of the expedition when it left Barbadoes, withdrew from its management when it reached Bermuda, and inserted the name of Colonel Wm. Sayle as Governor in the blank commission which he had from the Lords Proprietors. A contemporary writer describes this, the first Governor of South Carolina, as “of Bermuda, a Puritan and Non-Conformist, whose religious bigotry, advanced age and failing health promised badly for the discharge of the task before him.” Governor Sayle died within the year and the colonists selected Joseph West as his successor. When the news of Sayle’s death reached England, the Lords Proprietors again appointed Sir John Yeamans Governor, in which position he served most unsatisfactorily to the Proprietors until his death in 1674.

The settlers of Charles Town had not been two years on the western bank of the Ashley before they recognized the unfitness of its location, and settlements were soon made on the peninsula called Oyster Point, two miles away, and in sight of the sea. These settlements increased, and in 1680 the public offices were removed to the present site of Charleston.

In spite of religious dissensions between Churchmen and Dissenters and the opposition to law and order natural to the many adventurers and _enfans perdus_ who flocked to Carolina as to other colonies, and despite wars with the Indians in 1712 and 1715, commerce and population rapidly increased. In 1680, when the new town became the seat of government, there were as many as sixteen vessels discharging and loading cargo at one time.

[Illustration: PLAN OF CHARLESTON. FROM A SURVEY OF EDWARD CRISP IN 1704.

A--Granville bastion. B--Craven ” C--Carteret ” D--Colleton ” E--Ashley ” F--Blake’s ” G--Half Moon. H--Draw-bridge _in the line_. I--Johnsons _covered half moon_. K--Draw-bridge _in half moon_. L--Palisades. M--Lt.-Col. Rhetts bridge. N--Kea L. Smiths bridge. O--Ministers house. P--English Church. Q--French ” R--Independent Church. S--Ana-Baptist ” T--Quaker Meeting House. V--Court of Guard. W--First rice patch _in Carolina_. 1--Pasquero and Garrets house. 2--Landsacks house. 3--Jno. Crofskeys house. 4--Cheveliers house. 5--Geo. Logan house. 6--Poinsett house. 7--Elicott house. 8--Starling house. 9--M. Boone house. 10--Tradds house. 11--Nat. Law house. 12--Landgrave Smith house. 13--Col. Rhetts house. 14--Ben Skenking house. 15--Sindery house. ]

John Locke, who had written the _Fundamental Constitutions_ for the colony, was a Socinian, but doubtless by instruction from seven of the Lords Proprietors,--Lord Shaftesbury, the eighth, was a Deist,--the philosopher declared that the Church of England was “the only true and Orthodox and the national religion of the King’s Dominions.”

Not until 1680 are there any authentic records of any church in Charleston, but there appears to have been a rapid growth in grace as well as population, for in 1704 there were five places of public worship, St. Philip’s (Episcopal) Church, the Huguenot Church, the First Baptist Church, the White Meeting House (Presbyterian and Congregational), and the Quaker Meeting House.

General Edward McCrady, the State’s latest and ablest historian, writing of the period of 1715, says of the colony:

“In this small community of less than 6,000 there were Churchmen from England and Barbadoes, Independents from England, Old and New, Baptists from Maine, and Huguenots from France and Switzerland, all zealous of their peculiar religious tenets, and many, if not most, with tenacity of bigotry and fanaticism. Carolina was a Church of England Province under its charter, and the Fundamental Constitutions, while offering the greatest religious freedom, provided only that God was acknowledged and publicly and solemnly worshipped, still provided for the establishment and maintenance of that Church.”

[Illustration: ST. PHILIP’S CHURCH, CHARLESTON.]

In 1706, the Spaniards, who had always been a menace to the infant colony, made their first and last attack on Charleston, and, one hundred and ninety-three years later, when it was rumored that Cervera and his fleet would menace the South Carolina coast and storm Charleston, the old story of their futile effort was read with intense interest. It was in Havana that Monsieur Le Feboure, the captain of a French frigate, planned and organized the memorable attack. His fleet of four armed sloops stopped at St. Augustine for reinforcements and supplies, and on August 25th “five separate smokers appeared on Sullivan’s Island as a signal to the town that that number of ships was observed on the Coast.” Yellow fever was then raging in Charleston, but Lieutenant-Colonel Rhett, commanding the militia, ordered a general alarm by drum-beat, and sent messengers to Governor Sir Nathaniel Johnson, who was at his plantation, Silk Hope, on Cooper River, and to the militia companies in the neighboring parishes, calling them to the relief of the town.

On Tuesday morning the allied fleet crossed the bar, and the next day Le Feboure sent Governor Johnson a demand for the surrender of the town within an hour. The Governor replied that “it needed not a quarter of an hour or a minute’s time to give an answer to the demand ... that he valued not any force Le Feboure had; and bid him go about his business.” In addition to the fortifications ashore Governor Johnson relied for defence upon three ships, a brigantine, two sloops and a fire-ship, which he had manned and equipped with Colonel Rhett as vice-admiral. The Governor’s spirited reply to Le Feboure’s demand probably unnerved the Spaniards and French, who did not attempt to attack the town, but ravaged a part of the mainland and one of the islands of the landlocked harbor, where they met stout resistance from the militia. On Saturday, Rhett with his improvised fleet drove the four invading war-ships from the harbor to the open sea, and would have destroyed them, as he did the ships of Stede Bonnet, the pirate, twelve years later, but for a threatening storm.

Nothing more having been heard of the allied fleet, the country militia was discharged. Then the news came that a French war-ship, commanded by Captain Pacquereau, had appeared in Sewee Bay with two hundred men. He had come to join Le Feboure, but was unaware of his commander’s failure. On September 2d, Captain Fenwicke and his militiamen met the French landing party, killed fourteen and captured fifty prisoners. Colonel Rhett demanded and received the surrender of Pacquereau’s ship, with ninety men aboard. Charleston had two hundred and thirty French and Spanish prisoners, but whether or not they died of yellow fever, Hewatt, the only historian of the time, does not say, and unfortunately Charleston could not boast of a newspaper until twenty-six years later. The failure of this first of three attempts to take Charleston by naval force proved that “the sinews of war are the sinews of valiant men,” for its defenders were weakened by yellow fever and had neither full ranks nor strong fortifications. Doyle, the English historian, says:

“The settlers who held Charlestown against the allied forces of France and Spain were partners in the glory of Stanhope and Marlborough, heirs to the glory of Drake and Raleigh.”

[Illustration: A MODERN CHARLESTON RESIDENCE.]

Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts visited Charleston in 1773, with a view to sounding the leaders of public opinion and seeing if the colony was ripe for rebellion. He was surprised at the material prosperity, wealth and hospitality of the people. He says, in his published diary: “This town makes a beautiful appearance as you come up to it and in many respects a magnificent one. I can only say in general that in grandeur, splendor of buildings, decorations, equipages, numbers, commerce, shipping and indeed everything, it far surpasses all I ever saw, or ever expect to see in America.” He was entertained at the elegant residence of Miles Brewton and records a remarkable conversation which would seem to have forecasted the results of the war between the States eighty-eight years later. The same house stands to-day, the finest survival of colonial architecture to be found among the residences in the city.

He attended a concert of the St. Cecilia Society, where he saw upwards of two hundred and fifty ladies, and he notes, with evident wonder, that three members of the permanent band were employed at a salary of five hundred guineas a year, and another musician was occasionally employed at fifty guineas a month. His description of the St. Cecilia concert is brief, but the longest that has ever appeared in print.

This society, one hundred and thirty-five years old, the oldest “dancing club” on the continent, is in active operation to-day, though the musical feature has long since disappeared. Now, as in Quincy’s time, admission to one of its three annual entertainments cannot be bought for any sum, but gives a gentleman the open sesame to the most exclusive social circle in the United States. Some, even of those who are connected with it and others whose qualifications for membership are indisputable, regard this ancient society as an anachronism, but Charleston has many anachronisms. The South Carolina law which declares the marriage tie indissoluble for any cause is perhaps regarded as an anachronism, not only in Chicago, but in every city and State in the Union, and the unwritten law which prohibits and has, so far, prevented the publication of any report of a St. Cecilia ball in the public prints would doubtless excite derisive laughter from every “Society Reporter” in this country except those of Charleston. The invitation list of the St. Cecilia Society is the Almanach de Gotha of Charleston society. Once the name of a lady is entered upon it, that name is never taken off unless the lady dies or marries out of the charmed circle, or out of the city.

Isolated from other English colonies by a wide region of forest, the Charlestonians, with Spaniards to the south and Indians to the west of them, and with Cape Hatteras as a menace to commerce with the North Atlantic seaboard, were compelled from the first to think and act for themselves. In 1698, they made the first attempt to form a public library; in 1735, they organized the “Friendly Society,” their first insurance company; and as early as 1774 a Chamber of Commerce was established in Charleston. They made in 1764 the second attempt in the colonies to provide for the care of the insane.

At the opening of the war of the Revolution Charleston was one of the three leading seaports of the country. Apart from its strategic value and as a base of supplies, the British government doubtless desired especially to punish the rebels of one of the most favored colonies, which by bounties on indigo and otherwise had been most generously treated by the mother country. There were many Charlestonians who were loyal to the King and who fought for England during the Revolution, sundering family ties, and, some of them, self-exiled like Bull and Moultrie, eventually dying in London. The presence of these loyal adherents of the King only served to heighten the intensity of those who were anxious to unite the colonies, and, as a consequence, as far back as 1765, South Carolina took the first steps toward a continental union before the measure had been agreed upon by any colony south of New England. “Massachusetts,” says Bancroft, “sounded the trumpet, but to South Carolina is it owing that it was attended to. Had it not been for South Carolina, no congress would then have happened.” The first independent constitution in any of the colonies was that of South Carolina, formulated in Charleston in March, 1776, though the Colony had had a virtually independent government from the 6th of July, 1774.

[Illustration: DEFENCE OF FORT MOULTRIE.

FROM A PAINTING BY J. A. OERTEL.]

“On the 11th of January, 1775,” says Simms, “the first Revolutionary provincial Congress met and laid the foundation for the more regular meeting of the convention of March, 1776, by which the first constitution of South Carolina was formed.”

On June 28, 1776, Charleston was besieged by a British fleet under Sir Peter Parker, as well as by a land army, under Sir Henry Clinton, and the first great victory of the Revolution was won by the gallant General Moultrie. The military student will tell you that Sir Peter Parker could easily have run his great fleet past the palmetto fort on Sullivan’s Island, and that he met disaster and defeat by following a military rule of that day,--never to leave an enemy in a fortified post behind you. It is interesting to know that the twenty-four pounder, the largest ball in use at the battle of Fort Moultrie, was the smallest in use during the siege of Charleston in the war between the States.

[Illustration: THE ATTACK ON FORT MOULTRIE BY THE BRITISH FLEET, 1776.]

The devoted city was again besieged in 1779 by the British under General Augustine Provost, and was again successfully defended.

The third siege by the British was successful and the city was surrendered on the 12th of May, 1780, after a siege of four months and heavy bombardment. It was held by the British under military rule until evacuated by them December 14, 1782. General William Moultrie in his _Memoirs_ thus describes the reoccupation of the city by the American forces:

“I cannot forget that happy day when we marched into Charlestown with the American troops; it was a proud day to me, and I felt myself much elated at seeing the balconies, the doors and windows crowded with the patriotic fair, the aged citizens and others congratulating us on our return home, saying, ‘God bless you gentlemen! You are welcome home gentlemen!’ Both citizens and soldiers shed mutual tears of joy.”

The Duke La Rochefoucault-Liancourt, who visited the United States in 1796, after the Revolution, when the people had in great measure recovered from its effects, was as extravagant in his praise of the people of Charleston as Josiah Quincy had been. The enthusiastic Frenchman wrote:

“I cannot close this long article on South Carolina without mentioning with deserved praise the kind reception I experienced in Charleston. This is a duty which I owe to the inhabitants of all the parts of America which I have traversed, but especially to this place. In no town of the United States does a foreigner experience more benevolence or find more entertaining society than in Charleston.... They keep a greater number of servants than those of Philadelphia. From the hour of four in the afternoon, they rarely think of aught but pleasure and amusement.... Many of the inhabitants of South Carolina having been in Europe, have in consequence acquired a greater knowledge of our manners and a stronger partiality to them than the people of the Northern States. Consequently the European modes of life are here more prevalent. The women here are more lovely than in the North. They are interesting and agreeable but not quite so handsome as those of Philadelphia. They have a greater share in the commerce of society without retaining for this the loss of modesty and delicate propriety in their behavior.”

Time does not appear to have changed the character of the people or their social amenities, for, in 1836, an Englishman, the Honorable Charles Augustus Murray, writes:

“A gentleman must be very difficult to please if he does not find Charleston society agreeable; there is something warm, frank and courteous in the manner of a real Carolinian; he is not studiously, but naturally polite; and though his character may not be remarkable for that persevering industry and close attention to minutiæ in business which are so remarkable in the New England merchants, he is far from deficient in sagacity, courage or enterprise.”

One characteristic of the Charleston women which still abides with them is noted by Mr. Murray, who says:

“They are pretty, agreeable and intelligent, and in one respect have an advantage over most of their Northern sisters--(if the judge is to be a person accustomed to English society)--I mean as regards voice; they have not that particular intonation which I have remarked elsewhere, and which must have struck every stranger who has visited the other Atlantic cities.”

There was little of the Puritanical element in the thriving capital of South Carolina. Many of its citizens had frequented, in their college days, the pit of Drury Lane or Covent Garden, others who had come as adventurers had found the fortunes they sought, and an important element of the population was that strain of Huguenot blood from which Calvinism had not eradicated the _joie de vivre_ inherent in the Frenchman.

William Dunlap, the first and most painstaking of the historians of the American stage, states that the first dramatic performance ever given in America was in Williamsburg, Va., where a theatre was opened on September 5, 1752, and this date was generally accepted as correct, and the centennial of the introduction of the drama in America was celebrated with all the honors at Castle Garden, New York, a hundred years later.

Later investigators claim that New York was treated to a performance by professionals in September, 1732, and that Addison’s _Cato_ was rendered in Philadelphia by a regular company as early as 1749. The South Carolina _Gazette_ for January 18, 1734, has the following advertisement: