148 HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SKETCH OF 



name of Capt. John Palmer, the father and founder 

 of the village. By the maternal line he was the 

 great-grandson of Philip Gendron, the Huguenot 

 emigrant, Avho has been more than once named in 

 this essay. His father, Mr. John Palmer, of Gravel 

 Hill, was so distinguised for enterprise and success 

 in the making of turpentine, that he is known by 

 tradition, even now, after the lapse of more than 

 seventy years, as Turpentine John Palmer. Capt. 

 Palmer was an active partisan during the war of the 

 revolution, and secured the esteem of Marion, who 

 made him one of his aids. He was a fine model of 

 a patriarch. Benevolent, his hand was as open as 

 day to melting charity, but no autocrat could be 

 more arbitrary. No one dared dispute with him, 

 for his arguments were all ad hominem ; but, by 

 appearing to yield, the weakest would gain their 

 point with him. He had never been indoctrinated 

 in the arts of logic or rhetoric, but his letters, many 

 of which we have seen, are excellent specimens of 

 clear good sense and pure idiomatic English. It is 

 remarkable that this quality of style is by no means 

 as common now as then, when the means of educa- 

 tion were not so easily procurable. After struggling 

 manfully and successfully through the gloomy and 

 disastrous period from the commencement of the war 

 to the introduction of cotton, he died in 181 7, aged 

 sixty-eight years, leaving a large number of descend- 

 ants by four children, three of whom survived him. 



