GIG TRANSPORTATION IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 



into the mass of these overland immigrants, who were an enterprising 

 and progressive people, prepared, by several generations of frontier life 

 to conquer success under difficult conditions, and accustomed to depend 

 wliolly upon themselves in all the exigencies of their surroundings. 

 They knew neither the benefits nor the burdens of government, nor, if 

 they had known, were they of the temper to assume the burdens for the 

 sake of the benefits. Afterwards, their descendants, acquiring property, 

 took a short cut towards government through the " Regulation." 



Between the upper Carolinians and the colonists of the low country, 

 the patient subjects of the Lords Proprietors, and afterwards of the King, 

 there were no ties of consanguinity, no identity of history, traditions or 

 experience, no religious affinities, no personal acquaintance, no com- 

 mercial relations. It is natural to suppose that the upper Carolinians 

 maintained some intercourse with their own people, both those at their 

 old homes in Pennsylvania and Virginia, and their kinsfolk and ac- 

 quaintances settled in Ohio, Tennessee and North Carolina, and this in- 

 tercourse would naturally take the form of trade as soon as the new 

 settlers had any surplus produce to exchange for the articles of consump- 

 tion which they had been accustomed to obtain from Philadelphia, 

 Baltimore and Richmond. As these immigrants had come with wagons 

 and teams, there must have been practicable routes for a wagon trade ; 

 indeed, for a part of the way, they . would have the same roads that 

 served other offshoots from the Pennsylvania and Virginia stock, and, no 

 doubt, some families were scattered all along the route from the Alle- 

 ghanies to the southern slopes of the Saluda mountains. It was not 

 only more natural for them to maintain intercourse with the northern 

 S3ttlem3nts than with those on the coast, but was less difficult, for the 

 whole middle country of South Carolina was a wilderness in 1750, and 

 there were no roads through it practicable for wagons. There were, as 

 yet, few ferries, except very near the coast, the rivers were not fordable, 

 and approach to tliem was obstructed by swamps, which are more for- 

 midable even than rivers to highland people with wagons. 



There were, as has been said, four points in the middle country enjo}'- 

 ing water communication with Charleston, but they do not appear to 

 have been attractive or even practicable as markets for the upper country, 

 and it is probable that they had little or no trade, besides that with the 

 Indians, until after the Revolution. 



In the absence of definite information on the subject, I am strongly of 

 opinion that, until the Revolution had knit them together, the upper and 

 lower Carolinians had very little intercourse with each other, and that, 

 on the other hand, a constant overland trade was maintained by the 

 former with the northern settlements. In corroboration of this opinion. 



