Life of Francis Marion | Page 6

jun. on the east side of Santee, Mr. Lawson saw no more settlements of the whites. He visited the Santee Indians, who, from his description of the country, must have lived about Nelson's ferry and Scott's lake. In passing up the river, the Indian path led over a hill, where he saw, as he says, "the most amazing prospect I had seen since I had been in Carolina. We travelled by a swamp side, which swamp, I believe to be no less than twenty miles over; the other side being, as far as I could well discern; there appearing great ridges of mountains bearing from us W.N.W. One Alp, with a top like a sugar loaf, advanced its head above the rest very considerably; the day was very serene, which gave us the advantage of seeing a long way; these mountains were clothed all over with trees, which seemed to us to be very large timbers. At the sight of this fair prospect we stayed all night; our Indian going before half an hour, provided three fat turkeys e'er we got up to him." The prospect he describes is evidently the one seen from the Santee Hills; the old Indian path passed over a point of one of these at Captain Baker's plantation, from which the prospect extends more than twenty miles; and the Alp, which was so conspicuous, must have been Cook's Mount, opposite Stateburgh. -- Our traveller afterwards visited the Congaree, the Wateree, and Waxhaw Indians, in South Carolina, and divers tribes in North Carolina, as far as Roanoke; and it is melancholy to think, that all of these appear to be now extinct. They treated him with their best; such as bear meat and oil, venison, turkeys, maize, cow peas, chinquepins, hickory nuts and acorns. The Kings and Queens of the different tribes always took charge of him as their guest. --

-------------------
Life of Marion.
-------------------
Chapter I.
Birth of Gen. Marion. His Ancestry. First Destination of Going to Sea. Voyage to the West Indies and Shipwreck. His settlement in St. John's, Berkley. Expedition under Governor Lyttleton. A Sketch of the Attack on Fort Moultrie, 1776. And the Campaign of 1779.

FRANCIS MARION was born at Winyaw,* near Georgetown, South Carolina, in the year 1732; -- memorable for giving birth to many distinguished American patriots. Marion was of French extraction; his grandfather, Gabriel, left France soon after the revocation of the edict of Nantz, in 1685, on account of his being a protestant, and retired from persecution to this new world, then a wilderness; no doubt under many distresses and dangers, and with few of the facilities with which emigrants settle new, but rich countries, at the present day. His son, also called Gabriel, was the father of five sons, Isaac, Gabriel, Benjamin, Francis, and Job, and of two daughters, grandmothers of the families of the Mitchells, of Georgetown, and of the Dwights, formerly of the same place, but now of St. Stephen's parish.
-- * This is in error -- The Marion family moved to Winyaw when Francis was six or seven years old. Francis was probably born either at St. John's Parish, Berkeley, or St. James's Parish, Goose Creek; the respective homes of his father's and mother's families. 1732 is probably correct as the year of Francis's birth, but is not absolutely certain. Despite beginning with this error, the author's remoteness from this event is not continued with the events mentioned later in the book, to which he was a witness. Those remarks should be given their proper weight. -- A. L., 1997. --
Of the education of FRANCIS MARION, we have no account; but from the internal evidence afforded by his original letters, it appears to have been no more than a plain English one; for the Huguenots seem to have already so far assimilated themselves to the country as to have forgotten their French. It was indeed a rare thing, in this early state of our country, to receive any more than the rudiments of an English education; since men were too much employed in the clearing and tilth of barren lands, to attend much to science.
Such an education seemed to dispose Marion to be modest and reserved in conversation; to think, if not to read much; and, above all, not to be communicative. An early friend of his, the late Captain John Palmer, has stated, that his first inclination was for a seafaring life, and that at the age of sixteen he made a voyage to the West Indies. The vessel in which he embarked foundered at sea, and the crew, consisting of six persons, took to an open boat, without water or provisions: but, providentially, a dog swam to them from the ship, whose blood served them for drink, and his raw flesh for food, for six days;