10 



in upper part of Parish, and was so successful that he went 

 by name of "Tui-pentine John." It continued to be worlvcd 

 by some of his family nearly unto our day, for just be- 

 fore the Civil War his great-grandson, Col. Sam Palmer, 

 was engaged in it near Lenud's Ferry. With this exception, 

 1 never heard of any one in the lower part of l*arish manu- 

 facturing naval stores until Mr. Boswell Skij)per came in 

 1858 from North Carolina and settled where Mr. L. P. Mc- 

 Clellan now lives and opened up the business in our vicin 

 ity which has grown to large proportions and is now only 

 languishing for the lack of trees. Kice was introduced in 

 South Carolina before 1700 by Gov. Smith, it Avas planted 

 in our Parish and St. Stephen's princi]>ally at first for home 

 consumption, but as indigo declined the acreage was in- 

 creased 3'ear by year until it became not only one of the 

 chief products of the i)arishes, but of the lower part of the 

 State. When first cultivated high land and little spots of 

 low ground were used for the purpose, but when experience 

 I)rovod that the plant would grow better in these dam]) 

 spots large fields of inland swamps along the various 

 swamps and creeks were cleared and used for the making of 

 this grain, and springs and artificially nmde ''reserves" were 

 used for flowing the land when necessary. These lands be- 

 came so grassy in time that they finally had to be aban- 

 doned, and the industry moved lower down the river to the 

 tidewater region, which was beter adapted to the needs of 

 the i)lant as regards irrigation. All who have seen these in 

 land rice-fields which extend from coasts all through u]»])er 

 T»art of our Parish, and also St. Stephen's, and for the most 

 l)art now abandoned, will be surprised to learn, as ]Mr Du- 

 P>ose stated in 18.58. "that a century ago this body of land 

 grew for ex])ortation 50,000 ba.rrels of rice," and at the tinx* 

 he snoke was utterly abandoned as useless. I need not soeak 

 the tidewater rice i)lanting. most of you know of it, of the 

 vast anif)unt of rice made on these i)lantations, of the Avealth 

 accumulated bv those engaged in it up to our war. of the 

 decline and fall, and finallv of the total abandonment as 

 a cror». When rice was first planted those cultivatina- it 

 were much hampered by the slow process in preDarincr it 

 for market. Tt was thrashed by hand, then pounded with 



