Class Book- Cojpght}}^_ COIOffJIGllT DEPOSXK IVOMEN OF COLONML AND REVOLUTIONARY TIMES ^ 'Wo/ for your own behoof alone, hut for your countrys^ wereyour children reared'* Cicero. WOMEN OF COLONIAL AND REyOLU'JIONARY TIMES ^^ ELIZA PINCKNEY BY HARRIOTT HORRY RAyENEL WITH FACSIMILE REPRODUCTION ^osf^ ^^ CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK MDCCCXCVI I (s^ Copyright^ rSgO, by Charles Scribner's Sons 1 ^7 Entljrrsttn P«sb: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER'S SISTER MISS ELIZA LUCAS RUTLEDGE BY WHOSE COURAGE AND PIETY THESE LETTERS WERE SA VED FROM THE FLAMES THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED PREFACE In preparing this life of Mrs. PincTcney^ I have^ as ivill he seen, kept as closely as possible to the very numerous letters which she has left us, and to a few others written by members of her family or friends. The task of selecting such of these, or such portions of these, as might best stiit the purpose proposed, — namely, the illustration of the social and domestic life of the time and place, — has been my chief duty. I have endeavored to show, as well as might be, the way of thought, the occu- pations, manners, and customs of the women of Carolina in the last century. When compelled to seek other sources of infor- mation, in order to complete the picture, I have consulted the most nearly contemporaneous au- thorities accessible, preferring to show the opiyi- ions and beliefs of the people of the day rather than to seek the judgment of posterity. For this end the authors consulted have been our native historians, Ramsay, Moultrie, Drayton, etc., all of whom were, for the Revolutionary j^eriod, a part of the story ivhich they tell. PREFACE For the accoimt of the earliest events men- tioned^ I must acknowledge my obligation to the very interesting papers published by the Hon. W. A. Courtenay, in many successive Year Books of the City of Charleston. I have been careful to distinguish between those statements for which there is written author- ity and those which rest on tradition only. WJien the Family Legend is quoted, a manuscript account of some events in the Pinckney family, hy Miss Maria Henrietta, eldest daughter of General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, born in 1774, is referred to. Too diffuse and intimate for publication, it yet gives many details such as could have been supplied by no one else. When ''tradition'' is giveyi, I mean the stories and accoimts Mrs. of Pinckney' s grayidchildren ; the old people to whose conversation I listened in childhood and youth, drinking in their endless tales of the old time and of the part which their relations and friends had borne in it. For these traditions I have been careful not to trust my own memory alone, and have written only such things as are corroborated by the recollections of the other survivi^ig members of the same generation. HARRIOTT HORRY [RUTLEDGE] RAVENEL. Charleston, February, 1896. CONTENTS PAGE I—FIRST YEARS IN CAROLINA, 1737- 1742 Cause of the Removal from Antigua to Carolina — Miss Lucas's Early Letters— Her Interest in Agri- culture — The Commercial Situation at this Time . i II—MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 1741- n43 Miss Lucas's Description of Life in Charleston and its Neighborhood — Social Affairs — A Famous Ecclesias- tical Trial — The Daily Business of the Plantations . 17 III—A COUNTRY NEIGHBORHOOD, 174^-1744 Miss Lucas's Pleasure in Rural Pursuits — Her Neigh- bors and their Ancestry — Drayton Hall — Social Gaye- ties in Country Houses— A Picture of an Old-time Dinner and Dance — Description of Crowfield ... 37 IV—MARRIAGE, 1742-1744 English Correspondence— War with the Spaniards — Oglethorpe's Expedition and its Result — Miss Lucas's Concern for her Brother George — Her Marriage to Charles Pinckney 58 ix — CONTENTS y—THE PINCKNEY FAMILY The First Emigrant of the Name — Charles Town in the Seventeenth Century — The Growth and Influence of the Family —Exposure of the Colony to French and Spanish Attacks — The Pirates 71 n—EARLY MARRIED LIFE, 1742-1747 Mrs. Pinckney's Affection and Esteem for her Hus- band — His Traits of Character — She Resents an Attack upon him — Letters to and from Governor Lucas — — Experiments in the Cultivation of Indigo 88 Belmont "^ yil—MOTHERHOOD, 1745-174S Birth of a Son — Mansion House, a Typical Colonial Town House — Its Interior Arrangement and its Fur- niture — Mrs. Pinckney's "Resolutions;" An Elabo- rate Code of Morals — Commercial and Industrial Affairs— Silk, Flax, and Hemp — Death of Governor Lucas »o8 yill—yiSIT TO ENGLAND. 175^-1758 Mr. Pinckney appointed Chief Justice of the Colony — Made Commissioner of the Colony in London — The Hurricane of 1752 — The Voyage to England — Small- pox — The Pinckneys Received by the Princess of Wales — A Lively Account of the Event — Social Life in England — Return to America 134 IX—DEATH OF CHIEF JUSTICE PINCK- NEY, 17^8-17^9 Effect upon Mrs. Pinckney — Her Letters to her Chil- dren and Intimate Friends— Her English Correspond- ence — Mr. Pinckney's Will. — His Character. 167 X—THE INDIAN WARS. 1759-J76J Mrs. Pinckney's Partial Recovery from her Grief Her Return to P.elmont and to Plantation Life — The Daily Routine of the Mistress — War with the Chero- kees — Peace at Last 187 X CONTENTS PACK XI—LETTERS TO ENGLISH FRIENDS, iy6o-iy62 Mrs. Pinckney's Letters to her Sons at School in Eng- land — A Letter from Miss King — Death of King ^ George IL — Loyalty of the American Colonies— High Quality of Mrs. Pinckney's English Friendships ... 207 XII—DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL DETAILS. iy62-iy6g Society in Charles Town — Interest in Literature — The "Dancing Assembly "— Miss Pinckney enters Society— Her Portrait — Her Girlish Letters — Her Marriage to Mr. Horry 226 XIII—BEGINNING OF THE RESOLUTION. 1773-^780 Sentiment in Carolina — Close Relations with Eng- land — Marriage of Mrs. Pinckney's Eldest Son — First Visible Signs of Resistance — Travelling in Olden Days — Progress of Hostilities — Capitulation of Charles Town 248 XIl^—END OF THE RESOLUTION. 1781-- 1782 Experiences of Colonel Pinckney— Charles Town dur- ing its Occupation by the British — Traditions of Marion and Tarleton — Sufferings of the Country People — Major Pinckney Wounded — Mrs. Motte's Patriotism — Evacuation of Charles Town 281 Xy~OLD AGE AND DEATH 1783-1793 Mrs. Pinckney's Devotion to her Grandchildren — She Receives General Washington in 1791 — Her Last Let- ter.— Her Departure for Philadelphia — Her Death — Her Descendants — The Lesson of her Life .... 306 Xi (n^ ftJt^djr^ k ffi4j mx^M tyw^ n^u) ^m cp^f\/V' h^-d ^o^ cj£^iluim^ 4' MRS. PINCKNEY, SENT FROM WAPPOO BY MESSENGER TO •' ' ' f p /'^ Wi^idi) ^w^ H^^ my cyfvM^ ""t^^i • ifi t^/^ ' /^ J'fhh'^J (^ ft^liO nrfiO kurVi. Ht^CX^ ^Ot> i4^ "^ /fid /^ ip^jiii^ U Mi^j% rn^it cjpvc^ HER HUSBAND RLES TOWN IN JUNE OR JULY, 1741 ELIZA PINCKNEY FIRST YEAKS IN CAROLINA 1737-1742 In the year 1737 or 1738 Lieutenant-Colonel George Lucas, an officer of the English army, stationed at the West Indian island of Antigua, came to the Province of South Carolina with his wife and daughters. They came in search of a climate which might suit the very delicate health of Mrs. Lucas, and they liked Carolina so well, that, with a view of remaining there, Colonel Lucas bought land and settled plan- tations. There was at the time a cessation of hostili- ties in the long war between England and Spain, and had the expected peace been concluded this plan might have been carried out. But negotiations were broken off, and Colonel Lucas was obliged to part with his family and hurry back to Antigua ; of which place he was soon after made Royal Governor. Mrs. Lucas 1 1 ELIZA PINCKNEY being in bad health, her husband left their eld- est daughter Eliza in charge of all his affairs in Carolina, and it is her life which we shall attempt to picture. It is offered as that of a woman of character and capacity, who in a private station, by her enterprise and perseverance, conferred a great benefit upon her adopted home ; and as that of a mother, who, left at an early age to fight the battle of life single handed, trained her sons from infancy to know and to do their duty to their God and their country. She might be presented as a typical southern ma- tron, a representative of her class ; but to the general reader her life is, perhaps, most in- teresting when viewed as an instance of that force of environment which did so much for the making of America. We hardly recognize now, how much the country moulded the people, and formed, not perhaps character (for charac- ter comes of race and faith, and is, at its "best, superior to circumstance), but feeling and opin- ion, — the opinion which makes action. It is unfortunate that we have absolutely no infor- mation about her ancestry beyond that already furnished. The destruction by the British of her plantation home, and a fire which occurred in 179(3, in which her house in what was then called Charles Town was destroyed, consumed 2 FIRST YEARS IN CAROLINA all the papers which might have thrown inter- esting light upon the families, in their English homes, of the mother and father of Miss Lucas. This lady, afterwards the proud mother of two " rebel " sons, was in her youth the most enthusiastically loyal of subjects, and Avas brought up so to be ; for her father was, to use Browning's phrase, '' the King's," and she had been educated in England, and in every way as an English girl.