Hezekiah Maham’s Rice Plantation

Topic: Gullah History - Early Legends
Joseph Johnson, mentioned in the post for 13 November 2022, said all that was known about Hezekiah Maham before the American Revolution was that he was the son of Nicholas and had worked as a “respectable overseer to Mrs. Sinkler, of St. John’s Parish.” [1]

Mrs. Sinkler most likely was Jane Guérard, the widow of the immigrant James Sinkler.  Sinkler, born Sinclair in Caithness, Scotland, died in 1752. [2]  Her grandson, Samuel DuBose, remembers she purchased Lifeland from the widow Mary Jameson.  Her husband died in 1766. [3]  Lifeland was located two plantations east of John Palmer’s Richmond. [4]

Maham was well enough established to be granted land in 1771. [5]  By then, he was 32 years old with two daughters, Nancy [6] and Mary. [7]  DuBose, mentioned in the post for 13 November 2022, remembered Maham’s land was south of Richmond. [8]

We have more precise information about Maham’s land because his sister’s grandson erected a nearly indestructible monument to him. [9]  The cemetery is a landmark on the U. S. Geological Survey map for Pineville. [10]  It may not have been considered prime land at the time, because it was too far removed from the river.  A 1793 advertisement claimed it had had “about 500 acres of high land, with about 40 acres of very rich rice swamp.” [11]  The height saved it from inundation when the river was dammed to produce electricity for the area north of Charleston in 1942. [12]  The monument now is 50' above sea level.

Richard Porcher was able to examine a 1929 plat of the land [13] and also was able to visit.  He saw a swamp that had been enclosed by banks to serve as a reservoir for a rice field. [14]  While Porcher could not swear Maham grew rice, Maham’s ledgers indicate he did grow “rice and indigo as well as corn, peas and oats.” [15]

When war was in the air, Maham was elected to the first Provincial Congress in 1875, where he was elected a captain in Isaac Huger’s first regiment of riflemen in 1776. [16]  While Huger was active in repelling the first British attack on Charleston that year, Maham’s name does not appear as an active combatant. [17]

The next major battle occurred in the fall of 1779 when the British took Savannah.  Maham was there under Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. [18]  Walter Edgar indicates that little more occurred after planters accepted parole as the price of maintaining their lands. [19]  The number of men active in military units fell from 2,400 in 1777 to less than 800 in 1780. [20]

Maham was next away from his farm in the winter of 1780 when he was providing information on British movements. [21]  Charles Town surrendered in August of 1780, and many in Saint Stephen’s Parish accepted parole to save their estates. [22]

The area became treacherous as men responded to fears of British reprisal.  Peter Sinkler saw his property destroyed because a brother-in-law betrayed him.  He was taken to Charleston where he died in prison from typhoid fever. [23]  John Palmer was taken prisoner, [24] while Thomas Cordes only survived being hung when his brother-in-law intervened.  The British general was using his in-law’s plantation as headquarters. [25]

Maham became active with Francis Marion in the spring of 1781. [26]  Then, he was constantly in battles.  His wife may have been able to keep the fields productive with the aid of their slaves. [27]  He remained unmolested until March 1782 when a runaway slave betrayed his presence. [28]

While Maham ended the war in better condition that his neighbors, he still was deeply in debt. [29]  Crops had been bad in 1783. [30]  His wife died in January of 1784, [31] and his daughter Nancy married in February. [32]  Floods inundated the area, destroying crops in summer. [33]  In September, 1784, a deputy sheriff in South Carolina attempted to serve him with a writ.  He not only refused the papers, but forced the man to eat the document. [34]

His indebtedness did not concern his fellow citizens.  Saint Stephen’s sent him to the state convention that ratified the constitution in 1785.  He voted for it, along with Samuel DuBose, John Palmer, and John Peyre.  Thomas Cooper and Thomas Palmer voted no. [35]

His stand against debt collectors was treated with ridicule by William Gilmore Simms in an 1854 novel.  In Woodcraft, Maham is changed into Porgy, an insouciant scion who has mortgaged his property “which had been transmitted to him through three or more careful generations” to support a life of alcoholic leisure.  He is saved from the consequences of his rash actions by  Charles Cotesworth Pickney. [36]

Simms’ background was not that much different from that of Maham.  His father had migrated from County Antrim in Ireland, [37] and settled in Charleston.  After his wife died, he went west.  The infant Simms was raised by his maternal grandmother, who told him stories about the Revolution. [38]  Jane Singleton’s grandfather had been among those leaders who were sent to Saint Augustine by the British in 1780, [39] but her father’s exploits may have been exaggerated.

Patrick O’Kelley, a participant in war re-enactments, [40] only mentions Captain John Singleton once.  In July 1781, Thomas Sumter [41] left him behind with the artillery when he advanced on the British at Quinby Bridge.  Maham’s dragoons “charged through the fatigue party and into the howitzer, driving [the British] artillery men from the gun.” [42]

Simms makes Porgy so fat he can’t dismount his horse, and worries his trousers will split in company.  The horse Maham was riding at Quinby Bridge was shot from under him. [43]  Soon after, Singleton and his men killed ten marauders in an ambush. [44]

Simms made his first attempt at fame in 1825 when he wrote a poem commemorating the death of Pinckney, which drew little attention. [45]  During the crisis of 1832, he did not support succession, [46] but by the eve of the Civil War he had change his views.  Woodsmoke was seen by some as an answer to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. [47]

Legends had outpaced history by then.  Pinckney’s grandfather Thomas [48] had been on that same pirate ship, mentioned in the post for 13 November 2022, that brought the ancestor of Maham’s wife to South Carolina.  Later, Edward McCrady, whose father was raised by Johnson’s father, [49] went to great lengths to prove the ship could not have been illegal. [50]  The legendary origins of South Carolina lay in the aristocracy of Barbados and England, not with men like Maham who, to quote Johnson, rose through their own “good conduct from this station to distinction and honor in the history of his native State.” [51]

End Notes
1.  Joseph Johnson. Traditions and Reminiscences, Chiefly of the American Revolution in the South.  Charleston, South Carolina: Walker and James, 1851.  286.

2.  “James Sinkler.”  Ancestry website.  She probably was descended from one of the first Huguenot settlers, Jacques Guérard.  However, her names does not appear in Guérard genealogies. [52]

3.  Mary Cantrey married William Jameson.  After he died in 1766, she married Thomas Sumter. [53]

4.  Samuel DuBose.  “Reminiscences of St. Stephen's Parish, Craven County and Notices of Her Old Homesteads.”  35–85 in A Contribution to the History of the Huguenots of South Carolina.  Edited by T. Gaillard Thomas.  New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1887.  45.  DuBose and Palmer/Pamor are introduced in the post for 13 November 2022.  Palmer was married to the daughter of Maham’s great-aunt Ann Maham Cahusac.

5.  “Maham Plantation – – Berkeley County.”  South Carolina Plantations website.

6.  I found little information about her other than the notice of her marriage mentioned in note 32 below.

7.  John J. Simons III.  “The Early Families of the South Carolina Low County.”  Roots Web website; may no longer be available.  He indicates Mary was born in 1768.

8.  Dubose, Reminiscences.  44–45.
9.  Johnson.  292–293.

10.  United States Geological Survey.  “Pineville Quadrangle South Carolina.  7.5 Minute Series.”  2014.

11.  Advertisement in Charleston City Gazette, 21 February 1793.  Cited by Richard Dwight Porcher, Jr., and William Robert Judd.  The Market Preparation of Carolina Rice.  Columbia, South Carolina: The University of South Carolina Press, 2014.  21.

12.  Sharron Haley.  “Legacy of the lake.”  Central SC website, 11 July 2004.

13.  J. P. Gailland.  “Map of Richmond, the Farm, Hampstead, Johns Run, Tower Hill and part of Bluford Plantation, owned by the Est. of Robert Marion.”  Reproduced by Porcher.  22.

14.  Porcher.  21–22.  What cannot be known is if the banks and canals were used by Maham or were created by a later owner.

15.  H. Maham, Ledger, 1765-1794.  Cited by Thomas R. Wheaton, Amy Friedlander, and Patrick H. Garrow.  “Yaughan and Curriboo Plantations: Studies in Afro-American Archaeology.”  Report for National Park Service, Southeast Regional Office, April 1983.  302.

16.  Johnson.  286.

17.  Patrick O’Kelley.  Nothing but Blood and Slaughter: The Revolutionary War in the Carolinas.  Volume 1, 1771-1779.  Blue House Tavern Press, 2004.

18.  Kelley.  1:313.

19.  Walter Edgar.  South Carolina.  Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998.  231–232.  This is discussed in the post for post for 6 November 2022.

20.  David Ramsay.  The History of South-Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: David Longworth, 1809.  Reprinted as Ramsay’s History of South Carolina.  Newberry, South Carolina: W. J. Duffie, 1858.  2:182.

21.  Patrick O’Kelley.  Nothing but Blood and Slaughter: The Revolutionary War in the Carolinas.  Volume 2, 1780.  Blue House Tavern Press, 2004.  2:29, 35.

22.  Dubose, Reminiscences.  66.

23.  DuBose, Reminiscences.  7–8, 46–47.  Peter was the grandson of the immigrant Sinker, and the uncle of DuBose.

24.  DuBose, Reminiscences.  59.
25.  DuBose, Reminiscences.  51.  Cordes is mentioned in the post for 13 November 2022.

26.  Patrick O’Kelley.  Nothing but Blood and Slaughter: The Revolutionary War in the Carolinas.  Volume 3, 1781.  Blue House Tavern Press, 2005.

Patrick O’Kelley.  Nothing but Blood and Slaughter: The Revolutionary War in the Carolinas.  Volume 4, 1780.  Blue House Tavern Press, 2005.

27.  George Haig.  Will, 4 January 1790.  Charleston County Public Library.  Vivian Kessler placed a copy on SC Gen Web website on 26 March 2006.  He left his wife, the former Mary Maham, the “use during her natural Life of all the Negroes I got from Col. Hezekiah Maham.”  They married sometime between the death of his first wife 1778 and the birth of Mary’s son, Maham Haig, in 1786. [54]

28.  Johnson.  287–288.

29.  A great deal has been written by historians about the credit crises that followed the end of the American Revolution when British merchants wanted immediate payment on notes issued during the war.  DuBose says: “when peace was restored every planter was in debt; no market crops had been made for years; and where the river swamp was their sole dependence, even provisions had not been made.  It was not a season therefore merely of embarrassment; ruin stared many in the face.” [55]

30.  Edgar said there were three bad harvests in a row from 1783 to 1785. [56]

31.  Mabel L. Webber.  “Marriage and Death Notices from the South Carolina Weekly Gazette (Continued from April).”  The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 8(3):143–148:July 1917.  146.  She spelled the name Mayham.

32.  Nancy married John Waties of Georgetown in 1784. [57]  He was with the Williamsburg Township Militia in 1780, [58] and Marion’s Brigade of Partisans in 1781. [59]

33.  John Palmer said the freshets began in 1784 and lasted until 1796. [60]  DuBose said they began after the war and lasted ten years. [61]

34.  Chuck Leddy.  “Will America Please Come to Order?”  Christian Science Monitor website, 23 October 2007.  Maham may still have been in debt when he died in 1789.  As mentioned above, his land was offered for sale in 1891, and his one son-in-law bought slaves from the estate. [62]

35.  Debates which Arose in the House of Representatives of South-Carolina on the Constitutions Farmed for the United States.  Charleston, South Carolina: A. E. Miller, 1831.  83.  This Samuel DuBose was the father of the chronicler.  John Palmer, mentioned above, died in January of 1785, so this may have been his son, John Gendron Palmer Jr. [63]

36.  William Gilmore Simms.  Woodcraft, 1854, republished by Norton in  1961 with an introduction by Richmond Croom Beatty.

37.  kwmtex.  “William Gilmore Simms.”  Find a Grave website, 7 January 2021.  This is the entry for Simms’s father of the same name.

38.  “William Gilmore Simms.”  Wikipedia website.
39.  Ramsay 1:212.
40.  The cover biography says hs retired from the U. S. Army Special Forces.
41.  This is the same Sumter who married Mary Cantrey Jameson.
42.  O’Kelley.  3:291–296.  Quotation from 3:296.
43.  O’Kelley.  3:296.

44.  O’Kelley.  3:299.  His source was Lyman Draper.  Thomas Sumter Papers, Draper Manuscript Colletion, State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Draper lists Singleton as a Major.  O’Kelley says Singleton killed 10 men alone, but that seems unlikely, given the weapons of the time.  He does mention the group.

45.  William Peterfield Trent.  William Gilmore Simms.  Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1896.  Reprinted by BiblioLife of Charleston, South Carolina in 2009.  144.

46.  Mary Ann Wimsatt.  “William Gilmore Simms, 1806-1870.”  Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris.  Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

47.  Wikipedia.  Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in 1852 by John P. Jewell in Boston.

48.  Names in the Pinckney family are confusing because they were reused.  Thomas, the immigrant, married Mary Cotesworth.  One of their sons, Charles, married Elizabeth Lucas.  They had two sons, Charles Cotesworth, who died in 1825, and Thomas, who married Rebecca Mott.  Josephine Pinckney was the great-granddaughter of this Thomas.  Lucas is mentioned in the post for 13 January 2019  as the person who introduced indigo.  Mott is mentioned in the post for 16 January 2019 as an individual who sold her indigo lands and bought new land for flood irrigation of rice.  Josephine is mentioned in the post 204 as a member of the Society for the Preservation of Spirituals.  Samuel DuBose, Jr., is mentioned in the post for 16 January 2019, as the great-grandfather of DuBose Heyward, who also was a member of the society.

49.  “Major Edward McCrady, Jr.”  Antietam AOTW website.

50.  Edward McCrady.  The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, 1670-1719.  New York: The Macmillan Company, 1897.  260–261.

51.  Johnson.  286.

52.  William Francis Guerard.  “A History and Genealogy of the  Guerard Family and Related Pope and Woodward Families of South Carolina from 1679-1980.”  Square Space website, 1873.

53.  “Mary Jameson or Gemstone / Sumter.”  Geni website, 28 April 2022.

54.  Peter Beauclerk Dewar.  Burke’s Landed Gentry of Great Britain.  Volume 1.  The Kingdom in Scotland.  Stokesley, UK: Burke’s Peerage and Gentry, 2001.  582.

55.  DuBose, Reminiscences.  66–67.
56.  Edgar.  246.
57.  Webber.  147.
58.  O’Kelley.  2:350, 2:384.
59.  O’Kelley.  3:58, 3:115, 3:177.

60.  John Palmer.  “A Statistical Account of St. Stephens’ District.”  2:291–295 in Ramsay.  2:293.

61.  Samuel DuBose.  Address to Black Oak Agricultural Society, 27 April 1858. 3–33 in Thomas.  10.  “For the period of ten years no income was realized on account of freshets” after the war.

62.  George Haig, Will.  He left his wife the use of the slaves he received from Maham’s “Estate since his Death.”  When he died, Haig owned land in Saint Paul Parish, Lexington County, Spartanburg County, and in Georgia.

63.  John Britton Boney.  “John (Pamor) Palmer Sr. (1715 - 1785).”  Wiki Tree website, 20 July 2018; last updated 27 July 2022.