CRAVEN COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA. I49 



Capt. Peter Gaillard was another of the founders 

 of the village. He was several years the junior of 

 Capt. Palmer, whose eldest daughter he married e7i 

 sccondes 7ioces. He possessed an ample patrimony, 

 but in common with other wealthy men, found that, 

 in consequence of the depressed state of the agri- 

 cultural interest, and the precarious nature of the 

 Santee Swamp, on which his estates lay, his wealth 

 was only a source of expense, and ruin appeared to 

 stare him in the face. The frequency of the freshets 

 in Santee Swamp making it almost impossible to 

 raise corn in it, he purchased, about the year 1 794, 

 a tract of land near Nelson's Ferry, in St. John's 

 Berkeley, for the purpose of cultivating provisions. 

 In that year Gen. Moultrie planted cotton on his 

 Northampton estate, in the same parish. The next 

 year Capt. Gaillard tried it on his new purchase, 

 the Rocks, and found that the soil was eminently 

 congenial. His success (Gen. Moultrie's experi- 

 ment appears to have been a failure) gave an impe- 

 tus to the new culture, and before the year 1800, 

 cotton was the staple culture of those two parishes. 

 It is about twenty years since Capt. Gaillard's death, 

 and perhaps thirty since he retired from the pur- 

 suit of agriculture ; but such was the strength of 

 his mind, the correctness of his observations, and 

 the soundness of his judgment, that it may be 

 doubted whether any material improvement has 

 been effected in the cotton culture since his time. 



