BLACK OAK AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 19 



vacated and new elections made. The parish 

 unanimously elected him captain, and this at a 

 time when commissions were more highly estimated 

 than at present. 



The disastrous ten years which preceded the in- 

 troduction of cotton as a market crop involved 

 him, as it did others, in debt and distress. His 

 record book, kept with minute accuracy, states the 

 fact, that in one of those years the entire crop 

 saved from one of those freshets was a few bas- 

 kets of unmatured corn, which required drying in 

 the sun before it was fit for use. A family, and 

 upwards of one hundred slaves, had to be sustained 

 without money ; credit had to be obtained from 

 the more fortunate who planted on the Wateree or 

 Congaree. 



Capt. Gaillard purchased the Rocks in 1794, 

 without funds, looking for nothing more than to 

 make bread for his dependants. Cotton had not 

 been attempted as a crop, and indigo did not pay 

 for its cultivation. He settled the plantation in 

 1795, and made provisions. In the following year 

 he attempted cotton, I believe over one hundred 

 acres, with unlooked-for success. On my return 

 from school in Camden, late in December, 1796, 

 I called in to dine with his overseer, a friend 

 of mine, and saw, for the first time, the process of 

 ginning and specking cotton. A brilliant prospect 

 now opened to the eyes of the desponding planters, 



