40 REMINISCENCES OF 



and the mellowing Influence of the fading light. 

 But the thouorhts of that land of Goshen have 

 caused me to linger by the way and to lose sight of 

 the narrative I have promised. 



Such was the country ' that attracted the atten- 

 tion of so many of our Huguenot ancestors and in- 

 duced them to abandon their first homes in St. 

 James', Santee, and seek one so much more con- 

 genial to the indigo plant, at that time the staple 

 product of the State, and made more profitable by 

 the bounty granted by the mother country. One 

 after another of the planters moved up as oppor- 

 tunity offered for the purchase of land, and in a 

 very few years the population exceeded that of any 

 other portion of the State out of Charleston. At 

 the commencement of the revolution the militia 

 company of St. Stephen's numbered one hundred 

 and twenty-six men, rank and file, and the tax re- 

 turns showed that there were five thousand slaves 

 owned within the parish ; and this, too, when the 

 settlements were, with very few exceptions, north 

 of the river road, and about half a dozen planta- 

 tions on Fair Forest swamp. 



I. The plantation known as " Mexico," at the 

 western extremity of the parish, was the residence 

 of the late Major Samuel Porcher. This planta- 

 tion is made up of several small tracts of land, 

 many of which had been the homesteads of their 



' See Note A at the end. 



