REMINISCENCES. 



To Prof. F. A. Porcher. 



My Dear Sir : — You request me, as the oldest 

 inhabitant left among us, to give you of the present 

 day as particular an account as I may have it in my 

 power, of the individuals who once peopled this 

 portion of our State, and as much of their habits, 

 occupations, and genealogy as I either knew and 

 remember, or have learnt from others. It is in com- 

 pliance with this request that I have made the 

 following sketch. I have often regretted that the 

 opportunities for something better and more satis- 

 factory had been so thoughtlessly neglected. 



About twenty years before the revolutionary 

 war, the belt of land bordering on the Santee 

 River, through the whole extent of the parish 

 of St. Stephen's, was the garden spot of South 

 Carolina. The lands were not liable to the high 

 and sudden freshets to which they have since been 

 subject. The upper country being then but par- 

 tially cleared and cultivated, the greater part of its 

 surface was covered with leaves, the limbs and 

 trunks of decaying trees, and various other Impedi- 

 ments to the quick discharge of the rains which 



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