12 



with me, if 1 dwell long- on this subject, my excuse is thiit 

 1 know you are all interested and would like to get all in- 

 formalion concerning it. Of course, 1 am falling back on 

 works of early writers, as you cannot expect one of my age 

 to know all this. Mr. DuEose, speaking of short cotton, 

 says as early as 1748 we tind among the exports from 

 Charleston to Great Britain seven bags of cotton wool, val 

 ued at three jjounds, lis, Gd (near |18) per bag. Again 

 in 1754 a few bags were exported from South Carolina. In 

 1770 there was shipped to Liverpool three bags from NeAV 

 York, four from Virginia and Maryland and thre^ barrels 

 from North Carolina. In 1785, 14 bags ; 178G, six bags ; 1787, 

 101) bags; 1788, 380 bags; 1780, 842 bags; 1700, 81 bags. 



The export of cotton steadily increased until 1704, when 

 a great impetus was given to cotton culture by the inven- 

 tion of the saw gin by Eli Whitne}'. We can hardly realize 

 the vast increase from the beggardly seven bags in 1748 to 

 12,000,000 (twelve millions) bales in 190G. 



When the staple was first made in our jjarishes the great 

 difficulty was to separate the seed from the lint, this was 

 done in the early days by the field laborers, in addition to 

 their ordinary work, and about four pounds clean cotton 

 was required per w eek. It was pressed into bales by wooden 

 screw presses from top of scr-ew extended ''A^' shaped 

 arms, pulled around by mules, which served to drive and re- 

 verse the screws, and ropes were used to tie the bales. I 

 will say in passing that for domestic piu'poses in these prim- 

 itive days wool and cotton yarn were spun at home and sent 

 to the nearest weaver to be n^ade into cloth. There w^as 

 one of these establishments near Murray's Ferry, on the 

 Santee River, in AVilliamsburg District,' run by Irish set- 

 tlers, which supplied the country around. Thus we see the 

 beginning of manufacturing in South Carolina. Long- 

 staple sea island or black seed cotton, as an experiment, 

 was first grown in Georgia in 178G, and in 1788 the first 

 bag exported was groAvn on St. Simons Island. The earliest 

 attempt to raise a crop in South Carolina was made in 1788 

 by Mr. Kinsy Burden, of St. Paul's Parish, and in 1793 

 General Moultrie planted a crop of 150 acres on his North- 

 ampton plantation, St. John's, which proved a failure, ow- 



