CRAVEN COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA. I 53 



planters with their wants, and brought him wealth. 

 His deafness increased to such an extent that he 

 could hear only when the speaker's mouth was ap- 

 plied to his ear. And yet he could always converse 

 with ease with the members of his family. Mr. 

 Stevens was an interested observer of politics, and 

 on all stirring occasions took such an active part, by 

 means of his pen, that, with his acknowledged 

 abilities, he was regarded as one of the leading 

 minds of the late Union party. Thoroughly ex- 

 cluded, however, from familiar intercourse with 

 men, he lived very much in a world of his own crea- 

 tion, and his views of politics were better adapted 

 to a Utopia of his own imagination than to the 

 actual world. He was universally beloved as well 

 as esteemed. All his influence was directed to the 

 cultivation of the literary tastes of his neighbors. 

 He died in 1833. He married Susan, daughter of 

 Mr. Rene Ravenel, and his widow, a son, and three 

 daughters survived him. 



In 1 85 1, Major Samuel Porcher, the last surviv- 

 ing founder of Pineville, died, in the eighty-third 

 year of his age. Major Porcher was educated in 

 England,, and on returning home after the war, 

 commenced his career, as an agriculturist, on his 

 plantation, Mexico, in St. Stephen's Parish. In 

 common with all other planters, his life was a strug- 

 gle until the introduction of the cotton culture, 

 when he adopted it and cultivated it with great sue- 



