Waccamaw Neck - Thomas Smith, Junior

Topic: Early Versions - Waccamaw Neck
The first man to treat the Waccamaw Neck as a land speculator was Thomas Smith, son of the governor discussed in the post for 11 September 2022.  The younger Thomas Smith had been born in England before his father emigrated. [1]

The older Smith married the widow of Johan van Aerssen in 1688, and became a wealthy man when she died in 1689.  The younger Smith wed Anna Cornelia VanMyddagh the next year [2] when he was twenty-one years old.  She had been part of the group recruited by Aerssen. [3]

When the elder Smith died in 1694, his son inherited Medway plantation, but the landgrave title went to Joseph Blake.  David Wallace believed Smith elevated Blake, so the man could follow him as governor. [4]  Blake served until the Quaker proprietor, John Archdale, arrived in 1695. [5]

Archdale retained Blake as his deputy, and Blake resumed office in 1696 when Archdale returned to England. [6]  This is the first time Smith was elected to the Commons House of Assembly. [7]

Two years later, the proprietors rewarded Blake with the share in the colony that they had taken from John Berkeley, because he had not paid his quota. [8]  This is probably when Blake restored the landgrave title to the twenty-nine-year-old Smith, for this is when he begins to appear more often in the public record.  That year, he and his younger brother George, were granted wharves in Charles Town adjacent to the lot George [9] had inherited from their father. [10]

When Blake died in 1700, the English Civil War was reignited.  The differences in religion had subsided, while the political divisions between those who supported the proprietors and those who did not continued.  Smith Senior and Blake were part of the first group.  James Moore represented the second faction.  Moore replaced Blake as governor.  His primary interest was making money. [11]

Smith sold his ancestral plantation in 1701 to Edward Hyrne.  It then contained 2,550 acres, of which 200 had been cleared and fenced.  It showed signs of neglect because the fences needed repairing.  Medway apparently still produced dried meat, for Hyrne said he received “150 Head of Cattle, 4 horses,” and one young native slave. [12]

At some time, Smith bought the plantation amassed by John Yeaman’s widow from Moore, [13] who had married Yeaman’s step-daughter.  There’s no evidence it had begun growing rice, or was producing any other crop.  It’s primary attraction may have been its proximity to Charles Town.

Moore’s elected position as governor was supported by one proprietor, John Grenville, who died in 1701.  His son, also John, was described by Alexander Hewat “as an inflexible bigot for the High-church.” [14]  Anglicans in England had become disillusioned with William I because he tolerated Scotland’s Presbyterians. [15]  They wanted to eliminate an exemption in the Corporation Act of 1661 that allowed dissenters to hold office if they took communion in the Church of England once a year. [16]

They realized the ascension of Anne to the throne in 1702 was their last opportunity before the Hanovers arrived.  Charles II had removed Anne from her parents’ Roman Catholic home and had her raised by Anglicans.  She supported the Occasional Conformity in 1703, [17] which would bar Dissenters from holding office.  It passed the House of Commons, but was rejected by the Lords. [18]

That same year, 1703, the proprietors replaced Moore with Nathaniel Johnson.  Eugene Sirmans concluded that “from the time he took office he aimed at the establishment of the Church of England.” [19]  He immediately dissolved the Assembly.  Anglicans in Berkeley County dominated the election. [20]  Smith was not part of the Assembly again until 1706. [21]

In 1704, Johnson called an emergency meeting of the recessed Assembly, and before the Dissenters could arrive, the Anglicans present passed the Exclusion Act that disenfranchised them.  Then Johnson pushed though another law that established the Church of England, and proposed dividing the colony into seven parishes. [22]

Smith led protests against Johnson’s action, and was arrested. [23]  Many Dissenters considered leaving South Carolina for Pennsylvania, [24] and others agreed to send Joseph Boone to England to confront the proprietors.  Grenville had seniority, and overrode Archdale and Anthony Ashley Cooper’s grandson, Maurice Ashley. [25]

Boone then talked to the House of Lords, who agreed Johnson’s act was antithetical to current laws, and recommend Anne intervene, which she did. [26]  Johnson responded with a modified Establishment Act. [27]

Smith returned to the Assembly in 1707, where he was elected speaker. [28]  He made his brother, George, the colony’s treasurer. [29]  Grenville died in December, [30] and the more temperate William Craven became the senior Proprietor. [31]

Johnson retaliated by arresting the leader of the Dissenters, Thomas Nairne, and abolishing the Assembly again.  He forced through the division of the colony into parishes, with most of them in the Anglican Berkeley County. [32]

The reorganized proprietors removed Johnson, and appointed Edward Tynte as governor. [33]  He died in 1710, and was replaced by Robert Gibbes who secured his election with a bribe.  [34]  The South Carolina government ceased to function. [35]

In this unsettled period,  Robert Daniel claimed 24,000 acres as landgrave along the Waccamaw river on 18 June 1711. [36]  He had been a supporter of Moore [37]  and Johnson. [38]  Even so, he sold the entire claim to Smith the next day. [39]  Smith then sold 1,490 acres to Percival Pawley on 10 September 1711. [40]

One may wonder why men who opposed each other over the exclusion of non-Anglicans from power would work together.  The answer may be that religion was a proxy for other battles.  Sirmans wrote that around 1700, South Carolina had 2,000 dissenters, 1,800 Anglicans, and 400 Huguenots. [41]  While Dissenters cared about their faith, many of the Anglicans were indifferent and treated Sunday as a “day of rest and Pleasure.” [42]  Their opposition was to having religious observation forced on them, and later paying taxes to support the church. [43]

Nairne was a dissident Anglican [44] whose primary interest was regulating the slave trade. [45]  Moore, Daniel, and Smith wanted nothing to inhibit their pursuit of profit.

Soon after Smith purchased the swampy frontier lands on the Waccamaw, the local Indians sent men with John Barnwell against the Tuscaroras in North Carolina in December 1911.  They returned with captives to sell. [46]

Meanwhile in Britain, Parliament finally passed the Occasional Conformity Act in December 1711.  This kept Dissenters from holding public office in England, but allowed Presbyterians to serve in Scotland as required by the 1707 Act of Union. [47]  The Proprietors sent the brother of William Craven over as governor, [48] and Nairne persuaded his followers to accept what could not be changed. [49]

Smith remained unreconciled with the colony.  His wife had died in 1710, [50] and, in 1713, he married Hyne’s daughter. [51]  The couple moved to his new land grant on the Cape Fear river just north of the border of South Carolina with North Carolina [52] where he defied the colony’s rules on trade with Native Americans. [53]

End Notes
1.  John Britton Boney, David Parker, and Michelle Brooks.  “Thomas Smith II (abt. 1664 - 1738).”  Wiki Tree website, 7 February 2010, last updated 11 September 2022.

2.  Boney, Smith.

3.  John Britton Boney, Mary Carpenter, and Michelle Brooks.  “Anna Cornelia (VanMyddagh) Smith (abt. 1670 - abt. 1710).”  Wiki Tree website, 21 March 2011, last updated 4 October 2022.  Nothing more has been uncovered about her.  Andrew Johnson and Carolyn Arena discovered Aerssen was not a religious refugee, but from a well connected family that planned to invest in Suriname. [54]  Aert Theuniszen Middagh of Utrecht was a founder of Brooklyn in New Amsterdam in 1660. [55]

4.  David Duncan Wallace.  The History of South Carolina.  New York: American Historical Society, 1934.  1:129.

5.  Archdale had purchased William Berkeley’s share from his widow. [56]

6.  “Governors of South Carolina 1670–2021.”  South Carolina State House website; original work by A. S. Salley, Jr.

7.  Boney, Smith.

8.  Edward McCrady.  The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, 1670-1719.  New York: The Macmillan Company, 1897.  269.

9.  George had gone to Scotland to study medicine, but had returned.  He was elected to the Assembly for the first time in 1668. [57]

10.  A. S. Salley, Jr.  “The Introduction of Rice Culture into South Carolina.”  Bulletin of the Historical Commission of South Carolina.  Columbia, South Carolina: State Company, 1919.  Bulletin 6.  22.

11.  M. Eugene Sirmans.  Colonial South Carolina: A Political History 1663–1764.  Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1966.  82.

12.  Edward Hyrne.  Letter to his brother-in-law, 1701.  Quoted by Michael J. Heitzler.  Goose Creek.  Volume One: Planters, Politicians and Patriots.  Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press, 2005.  239.  His source was Virginia Christian Beach.  Medway.  Charleston, South Carolina: Wyrick and Company, 1996.  10.

13.  Heitzler. 160.  While a great-granddaughter believed the transfer occurred around 1693, [58] her knowledge of this period was much embroidered by tradition.  Henry Smith found a possible document that suggests Smith owned the land by 1704, and left it that the transfer occurred sometime between 1693 and 1704. [60]

14.  Alexander Hewatt.  An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia.  London: A. Donaldson, 1779.  Volume 1, chapter 3, section “Lord Granville palatine.”  The senior Grenville was made Earl of Bath by Charles II after the earl during the English Civil War died without leaving an heir. [62]  The younger was Lord Granville.

15.  Hewatt.  Volume 1, chapter 3, section “Lord Granville palatine.”
16.  “Occasional Conformity Act 1711.”  Wikipedia website, accessed 25 October 2022.
17.  “Anne, Queen of Great Britain.”  Wikipedia website.
18.  Wikipedia, Conformity.
19.  Sirmans.  87.
20.  Sirmans.  87.
21.  Boney, Smith.
22.  Sirmans.  87.
23.  Wallace.  182.

24.  Hewatt.  Volume 1, chapter 3, section “The petition of Dissenters to the House of Lords.”

25.  Sirmans.  88.  Anthony Ashley Cooper included religious toleration in the constitution for the colony in wrote with his secretary, John Locke. [63]

26.  Sirmans.  88-89.
27.  Sirmans.  89.
28.  Wallace.  186.

29.  Ryan Matthew McRae.  “Dr. George Smith.”  Geni website, last updated 30 April 2022.

30.  J. D. Lewis.  “John Grenville, 1st Baron Granville of Potheridge.”  Carolana website, accessed 29 October 2022.

31.  Sirmans.  93.
32.  Sirmans.  93.
33.  Sirmans.  95.
34.  Wallace.  188.
35.  Sirmans.  96.

36.  Henry A. M. Smith.  “The Baronies of South Carolina: VI. Winyah Barony.”  The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 13(1):3-20:January 1912.  5.

37.  Smith, Winyah.  4.
38.  Smith, Winyah.  5.
39.  Smith, Winyah.  5.

40.  Rowena Nyland.  “Historical Analysis of the Willbrook, Oatland, and Turkey Hill Plantations.”  14-60 in Archaeological and Historical Examinations of Three Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Rice Plantations on the Waccamaw Neck, edited by Michael Trinkley.  Columbia, South Carolina: Chicora Foundation, May 1993.  26.

41.  Sirmans.  77.

42.  Missionary for the Anglican’s Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.  Quoted by Sirmans.  77.

43.  Sirmans.  93.
44.  Sirmans.  81.
45.  Sirmans.  89-90.

46.  George C. Rogers.  The History of Georgetown County, South Carolina.  Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1970; reprinted by Georgetown County Historical Society, 2002.  10.

47.  Wikipedia, Conformity.
48.  Governors.
49.  Sirmans.  93.
50.  Boney, VanMyddagh.

51.  Mabel L. Webber.  “Hyrne Family.”  The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 22(4):101-118:October 1921.  105.

52.  J. D. Lewis.  “A History of Brunswick Town, North Carolina.”  Carolana website, accessed 31 October 2022.  All of Hyrne’s children were born in Brunswick County, North Carolina, according to entries posted to the Wiki Tree website.

53.  Alan Gallay.  The Indian Slave Trade.  New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2002.  322-323.

54.  D. Andrew Johnson and Carolyn Arena.  “Building Dutch Suriname in English Carolina: Aristocratic Networks, Native Enslavement, and Plantation Provisioning in the Seventeenth-Century Americas.”  Journal of Southern History 86:(1):37-74:February 2020.

55.  “Aert Theuniszen Middagh.”  Geni website, 26 April 2022.
56.  McCrady.  270.
57.  McRae.

58.  Elizabeth Anne Poyas as the Octogenarian Lady, of Charleston, S. C.  The Olden Time of Carolina.  Charleston, South Carolina: Courtenay and Company, 1855.  19.  She was descended from Smith’s son Henry by his second wife, and was buried at Yeaman’s Hall. [59]

59.  Find a Grave entries for Elizabeth Ann Scott Poyas, her mother Harriett Smith Scott, her grandfather Henry Smith, and her great-grandfather.
 
60.  Henry A. M. Smith.  “Charleston and Charleston Neck: The Original Grantees and the Settlements along the Ashley and Cooper Rivers.”  The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 19:(1):3-76:January 1918.  69-70.  On the Smith side, he is descended from Robert Smith, who migrated as an Anglican minister in 1757. [61]

61.  Find a Grave entries for “Henry Augustus Middleton Smith” < “John Julius Pringle Smith” < “Robert Smith Jr.” < “Rev Robert Smith.”

62.  “Earl of Bath.”  Wikipedia website, accessed 29 October 2022.
63.  Sirmans.  14.