All Saints Church, Waccamaw Photo hy Ski1,11er ALL SAINTS' CHURCH, WACCAMAW THE PARISH: THE· PLACE: THE PEOPLE. ---•-•.o• ◄ 1739-1948 by HENRY DeSAUSSURE BULL Published by The Historical Act-ivities Committee of the South Carolina Sociefy o'f' Colonial Dames of America 1948 fl'IIINTED 8Y JOHN J. FURLONG a SONS CHARLESTON, 5, C, This volume is dedicated to the memo,-y of SARAH CONOVER HOLMES VON KOLNITZ in grateful appr.eciation of her keen interest in the history of our State. Mrs. Von Kolnit& held the following offices in the South Carolina Society of Colonial Dames of America : President 193S-1939 Honorary President 1939-1943 Chairman of Historic Activities Committte 1928-1935 In 1933 she had the honor of being appointed Chairman of Historic Activities Committee of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America ·which office she held with con­ spicuous ability until her death on April 6th 1943. CHURCH, W ACCAMA ALL SAINTS' • 'Ai 5 CHAPTER I - BEGINNING AND GROWTH All Saint's Parish includes the whole of vVaccamaw peninsula, that narrow tongue of land lying along the coast of South Caro~ lina, bounded on the east by the Atlantic and on the \Vest by the Waccamaw River which here flo\vs almost due south and empties into Winyah Bay. The length of the "N eek" from Fraser's Point to the Horry County line just north of Murrell's Inlet is about thirty miles and the width of the high land varies f rorii two to three miles. The :place takes its name from the \Vac~ camaws, a small Indian tribe of the locality who belonged ·to a loose conf ederacv... of the tribes on the coast between Charleston and the Cape Fear River and of whon1 the Catawbas were the acknowledged head. They are described as sen1i-nomadic river dwellers, living largely by hunting and occupying dome-shaped houses built of bark. The Waccama\vs were \varlike and trouble­ some. They must have been early driven out for the last reference to them as a tribe is in 1730. The Southern third of the peninsula from Clifton, just north of the present Lafayette Bridge, to the lower tip, ,vas known by the Indian nan1e of Hobca w and ,vas one of the ten Baronies consisting of 12,000 acres each laid out in 1711 and divided among the Lord's Proprietors by lot. Hobca,v Barony fell to John, Lord Carteret, Baron Carteret of I-Ia,vnes, after\vard Earl Carteret, to whon1 it \Vas fonnally granted Decen1ber .5, 1718. He held it about twelve years and then sold it to John R.oberts of Deans' Court, l\1iddlesex. Roberts had it surveyed in 1736 when the Barony ,vas found to contain 13,970 arres. The property ,vas shortly broken up into sn1aller tracts and sold to Sir William Baker, Nicolas Lin\voocl, and Brice Fisher, of London, \Vho appointed as their attorneys in Carolina Francis Stuart and Paul Trapier ,vith authority to sell the property. Stuart soon died leaving 1'rapier in full control. The latter ,vas a merchant in Georgetown. Beginning with 1766 large parcels ,vere sold to Benjan1in Huger, Benjamin Trapier, Peter Secare, Samuel CJ egg, J-!enry Jan1es Dauhuz, Thon1as l\fitchelI and Robert I-Ieriot. 1'hese 1nen ,vcre South Carolinians ,vho settled on the land and planted. i\bove the northern boundary of the Carteret barony ,vere the places of ..Anthony and George Pa,vley, James and John 6 BEGINNING AND GROWTH LaBruce, Samuel Masters, John Vanderhorst, and Ja1nes Gads­ den, while nearby were the lands of Jan1es Abercron1bie, attorney­ general of the province, William Balloon, William Arnold and Thomas Clark. Still further to the north vVillia1n Waties, who came originally from St. John's, Berkeley, held lands on both sides of the River totalling 4805 acres. Later nearly all of this .property came into the hands of the Allston fa1nily. The first Alls tons to move to W accan1a ,v, two brothers, John and William, came about 1730 from St. John's, Berkeley, and settled at "The Oaks" and "Turkey Ifill"; their descendants ultimately developed success£ ul rice planting on a large scale. This family has served the Church and State well. At scarcely any time since the incorporation of All Saints in 1767 to the present( 1948) has there ever been a year when there ,vere n~ Allstons on the vestry, and at least one of the family, the Rev. Benjamin Allston, served with distinction in the ministry. Most of the earlier grants of land north of Hobcaw seen1 to have been made about 1711 and later to Landgrave l{obert Daniell, Thomas Hepworth, Michael Brewton, Joseph and Percival Pawley, and others. It appears that in the eighteenth century Waccamaw was more thickly settled by ,vhite people living on small holdings in pioneer fashion than later ,vhen di­ vided into large plantations. All Saints Parish is the second of the n1any children of Prince George, Winyah, the mother of churches north of the Santee. The latter, formed by the Colonial Assembly March 10, 1721, was bounded by the Santee on the south, the Cape Fear l{iyer on the north, the Atlantic ocean on the east, and "to the W est,vard as far as 5t shall be inhabited by his majesty's subjects;" and from this expanse of parochial territory Prince Frederick's Parish first was carved to the west in 1734 and next All Saints Church, Waccamaw, in 1767. The early rectors of Prince George tried to minister to their widely scattered people as best they could, but probably no corner of the Parish was more inaccessible than Waccama\v. With no connection with the mainland on the south, east, and ,vest except by water, the Parish has up to recent years always been remote and inaccessible, sparsely settled, and a region apart f ron1 the rest of the county and state. The first rector of Prince George, the Rev. Thomas Morritt, 1723-1734, does not speak of ALL SAINTS' CHURCH, WACCAMAW ever having visited Waccama,\'; he says his widely scattered flock lived along the· banks of three. rivers which made it con­ venient for them to get to church though difficult to do pastoral visiting. He does not explain why the advantage does not work both .ways. Writing to the Bishop of London on February 3, 1735 · he says, "In ye Upper as well as lo,ver districts of this Parish there is a considerable increase of People this few Years, insomuch ye remotest parts are now become ye best settledt for \Vackama w Neek according to ye plan I sent yr Lordship think ymselves hardly dealt ,vith yt they are not provided for as a separate Parish but are an appendage still of Prince Georges, web I must own they labour under great hardships because they can attend divine service no other way yn come by watr wch sometimes is very hazardous in blowing weather." His successor, the Rev. John Fordyce who came in 1736 and died 1751, evidently began work on the Neck, and about this time a church building was erected on the site of the present edifice, the land having been given by Thomas George Pawley who was born December 16, 1699, and married Mary Allston in 1719. His name is perpetuated in Pawley's Island, the prin­ cipal summer resort on this coast. Writing February 1, 1739, Mr. Fordyce says, "I generally preach at the Chapel of Wacka­ n1aw once per annum, being a part of George Town parish at a Distance and inconvenient for Travelling vi here I had a Large Congregation of Religious people and about 15 Communicants, upon the first Day of Lent 1737-8 having given notice of my attendance upon that occasion." He also baptized some children there. This is· the earliest mention of a church building. Mou­ zon' s map of 1775 shows the "Cha1pel" on the present location of the parish church. Writing later, he says, "'"fhe 19th of July Last (1741). I preached at Wackamaw Chapel, a Distant part of Prince Georges Parish having given notice of my attendance and Design a Month before. I administered the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, at which time I had 20 Con1municants, Religious and Devout People, most of then, ,vere formerly Inhabitants of St. John's Parish." For fully thirty years the church on \Vaccama\v depended on the ministrations of the clergy fron1 Georgeto,vn, but services must have been few and far bet\veen. Often for years at a time 8 BEGINNING AND GROWTH Rrince George would be without a rector and even when one ,vas resident, he only visited the N eek at long intervals. But there are no records of the parish prior to 1819 and our knowledge of those early years is quite incomplete. The agitation for a separate parish bore fruit in 1767; in that year the Colonial Assembly passed an act creating two ne" parishes, All Saints in Craven county and St. Luke's in Gran­ ville county. The Act of 1767 recites that: WHEREAS, several inhabitants on the South-west part of the ,parish of St. Helena, and also several inhabitants on Wac­ camaw Neck, in the parish of Prince George, by their petitions to the General Assembly, have represented many inconveniences which they are under, for want of having the said parishes of St. Helena .and Prince George divided, and that part of the parish of St. Helena, known by the name of the Euhaws part of the said parish, and also that 1part of the parish of Prince George, known by the name of Waccamaw, established into separate parishes, and prayed that a law may be passed for that purpose: we therefor pray his most sacred Majesty that it may be enacted, I.