Appendix A

COMMISSIONERS OF SECOND ST . PHILIP ’S CHURCH

In 1711, the Assembly appointed six commissioners to oversee building the new Anglican church: Commissary Gideon Johnston, Colonel William Rhett, Colonel Alexander Parris and Messieurs William Gibbon, John Bee and Jacob Satur. The unfinished building was destroyed by a hurricane in 1714, and the Yemassee War (1715–16) prevented building a replacement. In 1720, five commissioners were appointed to finish the job: Major Thomas Hepworth; Ralph Izard, Esq.; Major William Blakeway; Colonel Alexander Parris; and Mr. William Gibbon. (Commissary Gideon Johnston’s biography is covered in the body of this volume.)

John Bee

According to Walter Edgar, during the 1720s and 1730s, there were at least five individuals living in South Carolina named John Bee: John Bee, a trader, who died in 1729; John Bee, a carpenter; John Bee, a Charles Town merchant; John Bee Sr., a Colleton County planter; and Colonel John Bee Jr. With the lack of surviving information and the similarity of names among people who don’t seem to be related, it is difficult to identify which John Bee was the commissioner. The John Bee who attended St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, Charles Town, was married to Mary Fairchild, the widow of Edward Loughton. According to Joseph Rivers, the John Bee listed in the register of St. Philip’s Church, Charles Town, was buried on January 24, 1728/1729. ²⁶⁷

William Blakeway (d. 1727)

William Blakeway was a lawyer and Indian trader. He married Sarah Daniell, daughter of Martha Daniell and Landgrave Robert Daniell. With his powerful connections, Blakeway held numerous provincial offices, among them secretary of the Grand Council; surveyor general; judge of the Vice Admiralty Court; justice of the peace for Berkeley County; and member of a committee appointed to examine and compile the laws of the province. After the Yemassee War, he was factor for the Savannah Town trading post for a year before he returned to practicing law. He was a member of the Royal Assembly but resigned to be clerk of the House. He died in 1727 while still in office. ²⁶⁸

William Gibbon (Gibbons) (d. 1725)

William Gibbon was a merchant who settled in the colony in the late seventeenth century. He went into partnership with Andrew Allen; in addition to their commercial activities, they purchased a 3,000-acre plantation in Goose Creek. Gibbon received grants in his own name for 500 acres on the Black River, 200 acres on the Santee River and 640 acres on the Edisto River. He was active in politics and represented not only Berkeley and Craven Counties in the Tenth, Eleventh and Thirteenth Assemblies but also St. Philip Parish in the Sixteenth Assembly. Among offices he held were commissioner to approve the watch in Charles Town, commissioner of the Free School in Charles Town and commissioner to pay the public debt. He was elected the first mayor of Charles Town in 1722, but the act for establishing home rule was disallowed. He died in 1725. ²⁶⁹

Thomas Hepworth (d. 1728)

Thomas Hepworth was one of six practicing attorneys in Proprietary South Carolina. He became temporary clerk of the House when Thomas Rose became ill in 1701. Hepworth was elected clerk in his own right in the Eighth Assembly and continued in that capacity in the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Assemblies. In 1718, Hepworth was prosecutor at the trials of Stede Bonnet and his fellow pirates. He served as speaker in both the Seventeenth Assembly and the First Royal Assembly. He was appointed chief justice in 1724. While in that role, he committed Landgrave Thomas Smith to prison on a charge of treason against the government. This action led to mob violence; at some time during the unsettled conditions, he was replaced by Richard Allein. Hepworth was deputy secretary of the province, justice of the peace for Berkeley County, a major in the militia and served on numerous commissions. His holdings included more than three thousand acres; property in Willtown, Beaufort and Charles Town; and eight slaves. His library was extensive and covered history, theology, art and law. He was buried in St. Philip’s Churchyard in 1728. ²⁷⁰ His home is the oldest house in Beaufort and features musket slits in the phosphate-rock foundation that were installed as a protection against hostile Indians. During the Revolutionary War, a British cannonball struck the house. ²⁷¹

Ralph Izard (1688–1743)

Ralph Izard was born in South Carolina. He inherited the Elms, a 581-acre plantation on Goose Creek, and two plantations on Charles Town Neck. Like his father, Izard was active in politics and was elected to the Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Assemblies, where he supported the movement of South Carolina to a royal province. With the establishment of Royal government, Izard was appointed to the Royal Council, where he opposed the issuance of paper currency and later resigned over that issue. Izard was attorney general of South Carolina and a justice of the peace for Berkeley County; he also served on numerous commissions. He increased his considerable wealth with the addition of three plantations totaling 2,922 acres in St. George Dorchester Parish, 3,344 acres in St. James Goose Creek Parish, 1,780 acres in St. Philip Parish, Schenckingh’s Bluff and two unnamed plantations totaling 2,220 acres in St. James Santee Parish. At the time of his death at the Elms in 1743, he owned 171 slaves. ²⁷²

Alexander Parris (1661–1736)

Alexander Parris emigrated from Barbados upon receiving a warrant for 1,000 acres in 1695. He was one of the original setters in Beaufort in 1717 and received grants totaling 1,156 acres in Berkeley County and 552 in Craven County. He purchased Hoggs Island near the Cooper and Ashley Rivers, another island later called “Shute’s Folly” on the Cooper River, 1,000 acres on the Wando River, Islington plantation on Shem Creek in Christ Church Parish, Archer’s or Port Royal Island in St. Helena Parish (which eventually took his name) and a house in Charles Town. He owned fifty-four slaves.

Parris rose to the rank of colonel in the militia and served in the Seventh, Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Assemblies. Among offices he held were high sheriff of Berkeley County, justice of the peace for Berkeley County, public receiver and collector in St. Philip Parish, vestryman for St. Philip Parish and commissioner for St. Philip’s burial ground. His most influential position was the office of public treasurer, from 1712 to 1735. As treasurer, Colonel Parris, as he was generally called, was inefficient and made costly mistakes. He did not distinguish between public monies and personal income and combined them into one account from which he paid personal creditors using public funds. By 1731, he owed the colony £40,000. Although the treasury was then bankrupt, the Commons House allowed him to continue as treasurer and emitted public orders to cover his debts with the understanding that the debt would be gradually repaid. Colonel Parris died in 1736, and his heirs had to convey a substantial amount of his estate to secure the public indebtedness. ²⁷³ His obituary in the March 13, 1736 South Carolina Gazette read:

He had the Honor to be in all public Offices in this Government, Civil and Military, both of Honor and Profit, in all which he never had regard to his private Interest. He had very much at Heart the building and finishing the present Church in Charles-Town, and was not wanting either by Persuasion or Example to do all that in him lay to compleat the same: He always showed himself to be a humane and charitable Benefactor to the Poor, and of a generous and benevolent Disposition to all his Friends and Mankind in general. At his own request his Corps was interred on Friday Evening in a decent plain manner, attended by most of the Inhabitants of this Place . ²⁷⁴

William Rhett (1666–1723)

Born in London, William Rhett was baptized on the grounds of St. Albans Church because the parish church building had just burned in the Great Fire of London in 1666. He immigrated to the province in 1694 with his wife, Sarah Cooke. Rhett started out as a merchant/sea captain and acquired the reputation of not being particular about whom he traded with or how he obtained the merchandise that was sold by his wife in the retail end of their business. Rhett was a loyal churchman and contributed generously to the Anglican clergy and to St. Philip’s Church, including a silver tankard, chalice, paten and alms plate. Rhett acquired the Point plantation in 1712 and renamed it Rhettsbury. It consisted of twenty acres adjoining the north line of the Grand Modell and was where he built his home, now located at 54 Hassell Street, considered the oldest house in Charleston. ²⁷⁵

Rhett’s public career began when he was appointed commissioner of the watch in Charles Town. He was elected to the Eighth, Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Assemblies and was speaker of all but the Twelfth Assembly. He was a justice of the peace and served in numerous capacities, including commissioner to build a seawall at Charles Town, fire commissioner of Charles Town, commissioner of fortifications, commissioner to build a statehouse and commissioner to build a governor’s house.

In 1716, Governor Craven’s friends in the Fifteenth Assembly passed the Election Law, which made parishes the election districts and prohibited anyone holding an “office of profit” from sitting in the Commons House. This confined Rhett’s political base to Charles Town and made him ineligible for election to the Assembly. While surveyor general of customs after the “bloodless revolution” of 1719, Rhett tried to seize goods from a captured pirate vessel. In 1721, Royal Governor Sir Francis Nicholson and Rhett accused each other of smuggling. Nicholson called him a “haughty, proud, insolent fellow and a cheating scoundrel.” A jury found Rhett guilty of defaming the governor and fined him £400. In the midst of these intrigues, Rhett died of apoplexy (stroke). He was buried in an underground vault at St. Philip’s Churchyard. ²⁷⁶ (Rhett’s military successes are discussed in the body of this volume.)

Jacob Satur (d. 1732)

Originally from London, Jacob Satur was a Huguenot who came to Carolina after 1685, arriving in the colony a very poor man. He formed a mercantile partnership in Dorchester Parish with his brother, Thomas Satur, of St. George Parish and Eleazer Allen and William Rhett Jr. of Charles Town. In 1711, he was appointed a commissioner to build the brick St. Philip’s Church and qualified as a member of the Council appointed by Governor Robert Johnson in 1716. By 1722, he was reputed to have made his fortune from an import/export business that had dual offices in London and Charles Town. ²⁷⁷ His obituary in the Saturday, December 9, 1732 South Carolina Gazette noted: “Died suddenly of an Apoplexy, on Monday last, within sight of his Plantation at Goose-Creek, Mr. Jacob Satur, a wealthy Merchant of this Town.” ²⁷⁸