The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1922-06-15

Lewis, with Al men, the Upper Black
River company. Captain James
Crockatt and Lieut.. Charles Wood
mason, of the Black River church
prince Frederick's) company report
ed without their men. Captain O'Neal
and McGrit were hosts on this oc-
casion.
1t takes but little imagination to
see these officers, proud red coated
princes of the realm, on their spirited
chargers dashing about that field,
marshalling their men, and breathing
defiance to the enemies of the King.
Did any of them look twenty years
into the future and see CORVALLIS
and his conquering cohorts moving
with burning and slaughter from
Lenud's Ferry to that very spot and
camping there that they might feast
and rejoice over the ruin they had
wrought? Did the Keels, divers,
McDonalds, Michaux, Lcsesnes, Gour-
dins, CANDLES, McGills, and others
witnessing this muster of 1857 see
the red coated men of 1780 destroying
their homes, laying vast. their fields,
and desecrating even the temple they
had dedicated to the glory of God and
to the salvation of their people?
Five years after CORVALLIS another
conqueror came to Murray's Ferry,
this one with Love in his heart and
Healing in his hands. By the church
es that line the way, one can trace
Bishop Asbury's zig-zag route from
where he entered South Carolina at
Cheraw in 1855, along through Ma
rion, to Rome, to Georgetown, to Sut-
tons, to Murray's Ferry, to Charles
ton, to Augusta, to Columbia, and
thence into North Carolina again.
Bishop Asbury made Methodicm beau
tifully militant in South Carolina.
Whether preaching in St. David's
Episcopal church at Cheraw, conduct
ing a camp meeting at Rome, hold
ing a Love Feast at Sutton's, or
picking seed from lint cotton about
the firesides of Brothers Keels and
Pendergrass at Murray's Ferry, he
always rendered unto Caesar the
things that were Caesars and unto
God the things that were Gods.
During his many visits for nearly
thirty years along this way, the Light
in him was always brightly burning.
No wonder Vestryman Charles Le-
sesne, of st. Marks Episcopal church
when he could not secure minister
of his own denomination, invited the
Rev. John R. Puckett, a Methodist
minister, one of the Asbury kind, to
serve them, and that later in 1885
st. Marks became a Methodist church.
Some of the cotton cleared of seed
by the hand of Bishop Asbury while
enjoying the hospitality Of Brothers
Keels and Pendergrass was spun and
woven into "homespun" at the "cot-
ton mandatory" in operation al
Murray's Ferry before Eli Whitney
invented the cotton gin in 1892. The
Scotch-Irish in Williamsburg remem-
bered how in Down and Antrim they
had beaten fax and spun and woven
it into linen, so it was an easy task
for David Witherspoon, weaver by
trade, to teach them how to trans.
form cotton into cloth. This "cottor
mandatory" at Murray's Ferry solo
its goods all over Williamsburg coun.
ty and the people used the tern
"homespun" to distinguish this prod
uct from the cotton cloth brought
from Charleston. Thus williamsburg
gave the word "homespun" to the
English speaking world.
AS a general rule, rivers are un.
mixed blessings to the lands through
which they flow. But not so the San.
tee. For two centuries it has sepa.
rated the Northern from the Southern
section Of South Carolina Stern
necessity alone drove men to cross
at Murray's Ferry. So, when the
railroad crossed the Santee in 1857
this ferry began to lose its powe,
and place. Year after year more and
more men chose the easier way to
the South until finally the last ferry
boat sank and the boatman's song
was hushed forever.
Travellers in the olden time dread
ed and feared the dangerous Santee
and its sickening swamps. When this
Murray's Ferry bridge shall have
been completed: uniting the highways
North and South, the wayfarer will
learn to anticipate this pleasant val
ley where he knows he will breathe
pine favored, Jessamine scented, ma