HISTORY 



OF 



Methodism in South Carolina, 



CHAPTER I. 



I hear the tread of pioneers, 



Of nations yet to be, 



The first low 'wash of waves where soon 



Shall roll a human sea. 



(Whittier.) 



EIGHTY -THEEE years before the settlement 

 was made at Jamestown, in Virginia (1607), and 

 ninety-six years before the landing of the Pilgrim Fa- 

 thers at Plymouth, in Massachusetts (1620), the first 

 attempt was made, under the auspices of Charles V., to 

 plant a colony within the present limits of South Caro- 

 lina. Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, having obtained from 

 the Spanish monarch, in 1524, the title of Adelantado, 

 or Governor, of Chicora (as Carolina was then called), 

 embarked with a band of emigrants from St. Domingo 

 in three vessels, under the command of Miruelo, to 

 conquer and occupy the country for the crown. After 

 various misfortunes by sea, the largest vessel was 

 stranded in the Combahee River (then called Jordan), 

 which they first entered; and the other two, sailing 

 round to a capacious bay at the entrance of a magnifi-* 

 cent river, affording one of the fairest and greatest 

 havens in the world (afterward called Port Royal), De 

 Ayllon resolved to found here the capital of Chicora, 

 and selected for a site the ground now occupied b>- 



(11) 



