Life of Francis Marion | Page 6

our useful and
honourable citizens, and many have highly distinguished themselves in
the state, both in civil and military affairs: but in the latter character,
the subject of these memoirs, General FRANCIS MARION, stands

forth the most prominent and illustrious example.*5*
-- *1* Huger, who lived in the fork between South Santee and
Wambaw Creek. *2* Gendron. *3* Gaillard's. *4* Near this place the
French laid out a town, and called it Jamestown; whence the name St.
James', Santee. *5* After leaving the house of Bartholomew Gaillard,
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. --

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Life of Marion.

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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