Document text
c (A.
Accemdianto.
\AI 11057
Date received
/-0'
Consignment no.
Shipped from
)61244 q/./e,g-el•
Label
Amount
o.ie
L4e\4
WPA L. C. PROJECT L.. UNIT
AWM-3
Title.
4"-eiZ,grz-e— Collection (or TYPO
8.1€4°4/
Place of origin 4,4 Date 0-0
Project worker 4/. ift
Project editor
Remarks
Project 41655
Me Ire Dixon
Winnsboro, S. C.
7:14-Z LA
,j/ pp. i-
FAIRFIELD COUNTY
JANE HUTCHINSON
(white)
82 YEARS OLD.
Jane Hutchinson lives in the village of Monticello, Fairfield County,
Se C. She owns her home and the three surrounding acres of land. She is much
venerated by the people in the oommunity and respected at home and abroad as
an authority on unpublished local history. She is still spry for her age, and
I found herehoe in hand, attending to her garden March 11, 1938.
*Well, what has fetched you over here? Is you the Wood Dixon that stretches
your blanket in the Fairfield News and Herald so often? Well, well, I'm happy
to see you and set you straight on some things that I know more about than you.
Why your mammy, Sallie Woodward, went to school right in this town, to old Mr.
Hazel Zealy, while the mar was going on.
"Haw old is I7 Last Sunday I VARA eighty-two years old and spry as a
cricket. Bet I can out run you to the door of my house yonder, and when we
git there this half -bull pup will be sitting on the top step waiting for the
door to open.
"Who are these men you got with you? Strangers ain't they? Well, glad
to see you all, and the first thing I wants to know is can you all stay and
take a bite of dinner with me? Not Well, I've showed my manners, anyway, by
inviting you to break bread with me.
uk father, Archibald Hutchinson, came from Ireland; my mother, Anne Jane
McCullough, came from County Antrim, Ireland. They came over first to New York
W11057
2.
and gradually made their way down to Monticello. They had only one other child,
my brother, Robert, two years older than me, who is dead. My father was a tai-
lor by trade, and* this neighborhood being thickly settled by rich land owners
and slaveholders, he moved here about 1848, so he said.
"NV people being plain working folks, I didn't take part in the great 'to
do's,' such as cotillion dances and all kinds of parties. My father made the
fashionable clothes for the men broadcloth coats* nankeen trousers, and showy
westooats and mother was kept busy making riding coats, polonaise dresses, and
riding skirts. You know ladies rode on horseback in those tines but noi straddle-
wisesor straddle-legged,as they do now; they had sidesaddles. It will always be
a mystery to me how the girls could sit sideways on spirited horses, race them*
and stay on and not tumble off; they could though. Well, we kept in our tailor
shop hoops and bustles, the style in those days for women folks. Ladies hats
have changed as much as any part of their dress. The larger the hat and the more
ostrich plumes on it, the more fashidnable a woman was regarded.
"I was a small child before the war. )b, mother* however, was always in-
vited to the quilting parties and, in a measure, was chief superintendent of the
work. Not far removed from African savagerOhe Negro slaves did not require,
much attention as to clothing. The older ones received some warm clothing in
winter and wooden -bottom shoes in winter. You can see from here (indicating)
where old Mr. Kelly had his tannery. When the Yankees came in their raids they
went to the tannery and with their bayonets punched holes in every hide and side
of leather Ni. Kelly had down there.
"You can see the Turkey Jim Davis house yonder (indioating),vitere Kilpat-
rick, in charge of the Yankee cavalry, made his headquarters. The house belongs
S.
to Mr. Sam Robinson now. Why was it called Turkey Jim Davis house? Well, you
see it was built by Dr. James Davis in slavery time. Dr. Davis' mother was
Rebecca Kincaid, daughter of old Capt. Kincaid who operated the first cotton
gin in the world, they say. He got the idea from the way he pulled the cockle
burs out of the wool he sheared from his sheep. But let me get beak to Dr.
Davis. He was the largest cotton planter of his time. The Sultan of Turkey
heard about him, from the United States Ambassador over there, and he offered
him a high salary, for six years, to come over to Turkey and show the Turks haw
to plant, cultivate, and produce cotton and git it into lint. The Turks are a
lazy set. Be found out he oouldn't get work out of them in the cotton fields
over there. He cussed and reared around among them and kicked up such a fuss
that the Sultan paid him the salary for the six years and let him come home.
The assistant took Dr. Davis' place in supervising the cotton raising. Dr.
Davis said he found a great difference in working Negro. slaves and in working
Turks.
"On his return, he brought with him a jackass, an &bian stallion, some
mares, cashmere goats, a peculiar *ow, called the bramah cow, and shanghai
chickens. Be was known as Dr. Turkey Jim Davis. The cowl were white. The one
I remember of the increase, years after, was called Snow Ball.' The milk was
sweeter than ordinary cow's milk, and children were very fond of it.
"Both my parents joined the Old Brick Church, back yonder on Little River.
Ras. C. E. McDonald, in a sketch of the old church printed in a book entitled,
'The Centennial History of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Charroh,' said:
'Mrs. Hutchinson, a member of the church, remembered hearing her mother and others
tell that, after the crops were laid by, their fathers and grandfathers would go
to the brickyard and tramp the mud into mortar with their bare feet, put it into
mould with their hands, carry it out into the sun to dry, and then burn the kilns
4.
by night and day, and that the church was completed in 1788.1 It stands today
as strong and as solid as at first, showing that men of ye olden times did their
work well. This is the ahurch building where the South Carolina /Synod of the
A. R. P. denomination met for the first time.
"The Yankees crossed at Freshley's Ferry and came on through to Monticello.
The officers were courteous gentlemen, the rank -and -file ruffians, bent on plunder
and every kind of mischief. A detail of soldiers were allowed to protect the
boarding school. It was located about where Mrs. Nan Mcifeeking lives now. When
the soldiers marched away and reached the Old Brick Church on the banks of Little
diver, they found that the Confederates had destroyed the bridge. They tore up
the flooring of the church building and used it, in part, to construct a bridge,
over which they marched.
"We didn't have round dances in our day and time, but, at the end of a
nuilting party, we danced the Virginia reel, steal partners, and the clog; and
played 'thimble' and %say heavy hangs over your head.' We had sewing bees often
during the war, to make clothing and socks for the soldiers. Yes, I remember the
candy pullings had by the young people. A boy and girl did the pulling, with
melted butter on their hands to keep the sweet stuff from sticking to them.
"During aniswhile after the war, coffee and sugar was scarce as hens'
teeth. A substitute for coffee was parched corn, and for sugar, sorgam or mo-
lasses. Well, as Imes a poor girl, I don't know much about the southern hos-
pitality and the visiting around of the blue -bloods; and, as I never married,
you'd better ask somebody that has been married and had a whole passel of chil-
dren about family life in them days.
"The first public school in Monticello after the war was taught by Capt.
5.
Hayne McMeekin, a graduate of the South Carolina College. Some said he was
tinctured with atheism that he took from old Prof. Cooper at the college. In
spite of it, though, he made a good teacher, was a good man, and late in life
joined the Baptist Church. When he quit teaching, he went to farming. He was
eleoted to the legislature and later became county treasurer. His memory is
treasured here now for the good that he did, while many of the names of the
blue -bloods and aristocrats are forgotten.
"NV people not being among the gentry, I know very little about slave
quarters or slave rations. I only know that every slave owner, being anxious
to increase the number of his slaves, caused the females to bear children too
early in life; but an owner had a doctor to look after the health of the slaves
as ftithfully as he did his own family.
"I remember old Governor John Hugh Means that introduced the Means grass
in this section. Some call it Egyptian graatoand some, Johnson grass. I've
heard that Gov. Johnson of Alabama got the seed from Egypt and sent some to
Governor Means when he (Means) was governor in 1852. The old governor was a
tall, red-faced, fiery man, hot for secession; but he did have the nobleness
to go to war, and he got killed at Bull Run, while nest of the other fiery
mouthed politicians stayed at home.
"You must go by and see Miss Nan (Mrs. McMeekin), and I'm sure she can
give you all the book learning and old newspaper accounts of the sayings and
doings in old-time Monticello."