Led on! Step by step, scenes from clerical, military, educational, and plantation life in the South, 1828-1898;

Front matter

BX 5995 .P67 A3 1898 ] Porter, Anthony Toomer, 182i

LED ON!

STEP BY STEP

Contents

I. — The Porter Pedigree

My pedigree — John Porter of Engla?id, a?id his desce?ida7its — My grandfather and his estate — Cottoti and potatoes, an incident of boyish travel — General Waddy TJtovipson — From Georgetown to New Have?i, Conn. — Yale st^idents — Return to Georgetown— A strange presentiment comes true — My sister Charlotte's fate — My mother asserts her authority — / suffer from bad teaching.

II. — Religious Beginnings

Chapter I

My pedigree — -John Porter of England, and his descendants — My grandfather and his estate — Cotton and potatoes, an incident of boyish travel — General Waddy Thompson — From Georgetown to New Haven, Conn. — Yale students — Return to Georgetow7i — A strange presentiment comes true — My sister Charlotte' s fate — My mother asserts her authority — / suffer from bad teaching,

IN compliance with the frequent suggestion of my friend, the late Rev. Charles Frederick Hofiman, D.D., LIv.D., D.C.L., of New York, I began, Oct. 5,1896, to write some reminiscences of my life. All of the older members of my family having died while I was very young, my knowledge of my progenitors I derived from my mother, and from an aged grand-aunt on my mother's side. The following is my family tree, as far as known : —

My grandfather, John Porter, was born in 1759, in Connecticut, and was descended from John Porter of England, the founder of the American family, who settled

2 Led O71 !

in Dorchester, Massachusetts, some time in the seventeenth century. To him is to be traced the ancestr>' of A. A. lyow, Bishop Huntington, of Western New York, and other men of note.

When quite a youth, fifteen or sixteen years old, my grandfather, with two brothers, took horse and travelled South. There is a tradition, for which I cannot vouch, that on their journey the three young men came across the persons who had begun the Dismal Swamp Canal. My grandfather, after watching the methods of the constructors, remarked that it could not be dug in that way. He was approached to know if he had a better plan to suggest. An agreement was entered into, and he undertook the work. He remained long enough to make twenty thousand dollars. He then resumed his journey South, and settled in Georgetown District, South Carolina. Be this as it may, he had sufficient money when he reached Georgetown to purcha.se a quantity of land, and began the cultivation of indigo. He continued at this until rice was introduced, and he then undertook the cultivation of rice. He purcha.sed two plantations on Sampit River and was successful, amassing what was a fortune in those days. He died in April, 1829, aged seventy, just six months after the death of my father. He left, by will, his estate to my brother, three sisters, and myself; my father having bequeathed his estate to my mother at the request of my grandfather, who had told my father that he would provide for his children. The estate consisted of rice plantations and negro slaves, some of whom he purchased from slave-ships, which were owned in Newport, Rhode Island. In 1849, I came into possession of five of the.se Africans, then very old. They had been, in fact, supported for many years on the plantation without earning a dollar. The five were tattooed, and I never could understand their language, and could only communicate with them through some of their race who had become familiar with their speech. They were all dead by the year 1851 The bill of sale of some of these people was in my possession, and was lost with other valuable papers at the burning of Columbia by General Sherman's army, in 1865. Some time in 1866, I told Mr. Peter Cooper of New York of these facts, and suggested that our Northern friends should not hold up their hands in holy horror on the slavery question. If we got the slaves those who owned the ships received the money and incurred by far the least trouble in the matter.

When I was a boy I often heard that my grandfather was a Tory, and this charge was a source of great annoyance to me. For those days were not so far from the Revolutionary War that the hatred of England had all passed away. As, however, grandfather was only seventeen years old in 1776, he could not have been a very dangerous Tory, though I remember one of the stories told about him was that he had set fire to Georgetown ; and a certain corner where a house belonging to one of the Alstons had been burned, was tauntingly pointed out to me as the house he had fired. I was too young then to put two and two together. It did not occur to me that as he was then only a boy there could have been no truth in these fables. Nevertheless, I had many a good cry over my grandfather's supposed iniquity. Many good deeds and charitable acts that the old gentleman did were kept in memory by the family. One of these deeds was the education of a deserving lad named Thomas House Taylor, who afterwards became the distinguished Reverend Doctor Taylor, Rector of Grace Church, New York, who was my godfather.

My father, John Porter, was born in 1795. He graduated with distinction from the South Carolina College and studied law. On the i6th of December, 1819, he married

Esther Ann Toomer, daughter of Anthony Toomer, and from them were born two sons and three daughters — Charlotte, who died February 15, 1835J John, who died September 9, 1841 ; Eliza Cheesborough, who married Dr. E. B. Brown, and afterwards Robert E. Fraser, and died in 1861 ; Hannah, who married Dr. John F. Lessesne ; and myself, whom God has spared to outlive them all. I was only nine months old when my father died. His death occurred on October 25, 1828, at the early age of thirty-three years. My father was a man of very marked character. He was elected a member of the Legislature of South Carolina, at the age of twenty-one, and served for several years. He was a member of the Episcopal Diocesan Convention at the time of his death.

Fourteen years after my father's death, while travelling to Columbia by the railroad, we came to the section of country where cotton is grown, and I mistook the cotton for fields of Irish potatoes. Being surprised at the extent of the planting, I observed that someone seemed to believe in potatoes. I was then a boy in my fifteenth year. A gentleman on the seat before me turned and said :

" My young friend, where were you brought up ? "

Perceiving my mistake, I replied, " Had you, sir, never seen a rice field, and mistook the first you ever saw for oats, I should correct your error. I see now that this is cotton, not Irish potatoes."

' ' May I ask your name ? ' '

" Certainly ; my name is Anthony Toomer Porter."

' ' And where is your home ? " he asked.

" Georgetown, South Carolina."

" Are you any relation to Col. John Porter, who died in 1828?"

" His son, sir," I replied.

Rising from his seat, and taking off his hat, he extended his hand, saying, " I am Gen. Waddy Thompson " [at one time Minister to Mexico] ' ' let me take the hand of the son of John Porter. To your father I am indebted more than to any other man ; we were in the South Carolina College together, 'and to his interposition and influence I owe all I have ever been."

He then told me much of my father's college life, and of the influence he exercised in college. He was the referee and umpire in every dispute and difl&culty, and the beloved of every student and professor.

This conversation and others like it, which I had with many persons, have had a great deal to do with the make-up of my life.

My ancestors on my mother's side came from Wales and from England. Like my paternalgrandfather, my mother's grandfather had come South, from New England ; his forefathers having settled in Massachusetts some time in the seventeenth century. My great-grandfather, Anthony Toomer, migrated with two brothers when quite young. One settled in North Carolina, and became a distinguished jurist. From him are descended some of the chief families of that State. Another branch went to Georgia, or Alabama. Of that branch I have no knowledge. In 1767, my great-grandfather married Ann Warham, who was a lineal descendant of William Warham, the brother of Archbishop Warham, of Canterbury. While serving as an officer in the Continental army of the Revolution, he was captured after the surrender of Charleston on the 12th of May, 1780, and with other prominent citizens was sent to St. Augustine. There, for some cause, he with others was imprisoned in one of the vessels, and after much suffering was sent to Philadelphia, and not exchanged or released until the war was over. A daughter was born to him on the day of his capture, but she was four years old before he ever saw her. From him are descended a number of families, residing principally in Charleston. My maternal grandfather married Charlotte Cheesborough, whose ancestor was a clergyman of the Church of England. They had several children, but my mother and Mrs. Mary Ford alone married and left children.

I was born on the 31st of January, 1828, in Georgetown, South Carolina, and was baptized by Rev. P. T. Keith, November 16, 1828. My mother had been educated in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and retained to her death a great attachment for the North and her Northern friends. I,eft a widow at the age of twenty-five, with five children, the oldest eight years, and the youngest nine months, with a handsome estate left to her by my father, she determined, four years after my father's death, to take her children to New Haven, Connecticut, where she believed she could educate them to greater advantage.

My mother was considered a strikingly handsome woman, and retained her beauty to over her seventieth year. She was highly educated, and of fascinating manners, with brilliant conversational powers. With these attractions, and the reputation of being a rich Southern widow, of course she had many suitors. But my father's last words to her were, " Train our children as you know I would have done," and she determined to live for them.

There were a number of Southern students at Yale College, and her home was their constant resort. Being very young, I remember very little of our sojourn there. But I recollect that several of the students kept riding horses, and would put a pillow in front and ride me about, a curly-headed imp. There was a young Frenchman who was very fond of me, but he often made use of language not fitted for a Sunday-school. One day I said to him, " If you don't stop using those bad words, do you know where you will go when you die ? ' '

" Where will I go ? " he said.

" To a place too bad for me to tell you," was my reply.

My childish rebuke had a wonderful efiect upon him, for he was never heard to utter an oath afterwards. I had another friend, Mr. Ligon. He was afterwards Governor of Maryland. This gentleman's name will appear later on in my story.

Eventually my mother returned South. I have a dim recollection of our voyage home in a sailing vessel, and our arrival in Georgetown. I remember how much alarmed I was at the appearance of the black people who came around us. I had a white nurse, an Irish woman, who had gone with us to New Haven and returned, and remained until I was nine years old. My father had left his town residence to my mother, with his plantation and some eighty slaves. After taking up her residence in Georgetown, my mother retained her wish that her children should be educated in the North, and in 1836 she sent my brother John to the Rev. Mr. Chester at Morristown, New Jersey, to school. He remained there some years, and there was a remarkable circumstance connected with his return. Mr. Chester wrote mother that her son would return on the steamer Home, to sail from New York. This was a pioneer steamer, being a North River boat which had been cut in two and lengthened. From a dream, or a presentiment, my mother became possessed with the idea that her son had better not come home in that boat, and she wrote at once to Mr. Chester. It required six or seven days then to get a letter to New Jersey, and John had been sent to New York. After he left, Mr. Chester received the peremptory letter. He hastened to New York, and arrived at the steamer after the planks had been drawn in, and just before the ropes had been thrown off. He managed to get to the captain, and told him to put John Porter on shore. It was with some difl&culty that he succeeded, but at last the trunk was put out, the passenger came on shore, and started home by land. The Home encountered a gale off Hatteras, and quickly went to pieces. If I remember rightly, only one passenger, a French milliner of Charleston, saved herself by floating ashore on a sofa. I remember the agony of my mother ; she was certain her son was on the steamer. She had not heard from Mr. Chester. The same storm had played havoc on land ; all communication by stage had been interrupted. The first information we had, was from brother John's arrival home on one of the stage horses. The stage had been wrecked, as well as the steamer, and the driver had cut his horses loose and mounted his passengers on them. It seems but as yesterday. I remember my brother's forlorn look as he rode up to the house, and my mother's rapturous joy as she recognized her son whom she had given up as lost.

I remember one other circumstance in those early years, which made a deep impression on me.

My oldest sister Charlotte, not quite fifteen years old, had always been a great sufferer from headaches. We were spending the summer of 1834 on North Island, our summer retreat on the Atlantic Ocean, at the mouth of Winyah Bay. My sister never went to school after our return from New Haven, but she was a great reader. The last book she read was The Last Days of Pompeii. As she finished the book, she remarked to my mother, ' ' I will be like that blind girl." Mother, to divert her, ordered the carriage for a ride on the beach. Only those two were in the carriage, and after riding some time, my sister asked mother if she had not better order the coachman to return, as it was getting dark. " Oh, no," mother said, " it is still quite early, the sun has not gone down yet." Then my sister said, " If it is not night, I am blind, for I see nothing." And she was blind ; she never saw again. She lived until February 15, 1835, then died. It was the first time I ever saw anyone die. But the peace, the joy, of that departing spirit, going, as she said, to see all the beauties of heaven, where there is no more pain ; the absolute rapture of the young saint, have never passed from my memory, I was then in my eighth year.

At that time the remaining children, save my brother John, were attending the school of a maiden lady, Miss Betsey Taylor, who was very frequently a visitor at our home. My mother was a most sensible woman who did all she could to let her children enjoy their young life. We had a room to play in, and in that room she provided every kind of game that she could procure — cards and puzzles, lotto and backgammon, checkers and chess, picture books, and dancing ropes, dominoes, and games too numerous to mention. Friday afternoon and evening, and Saturday, we had the privilege of having as many children friends as we wished, and a rollicking good time we had, joyous without being boisterous ; still it certainly was not a silent crowd.

One evening Miss Taylor was spending the time at our house, and being somewhat annoyed at the romping going on in the children's room, she left the sitting room for ours, and bringing her school-room discipline into exercise, very peremptorily ordered us to bed, saying she did not propose to be annoyed by the noise of children. My mother perceived the sudden cessation of laughter, and the solemn silence which followed, for we all stood in mortal dread of the spinster. She quickly followed Miss Taylor, and heard her giving us her orders. Mother was a woman of considerable positiveness herself, and having the sole control and rearing of her children, it was not safe to intrude upon her prerogatives. I remember the quiet dignity of her manner on that occasion. She was severely polite as she begged pardon of Miss Taylor, and told us to resume our play, and to go to bed when she gave the direction. Then turning to Miss Taylor, she said.

* ' In your school-room my children are under your direclo Led On!

tion ; in my house, they are under mine. Your action is a reflection upon the manners of my children. They are never allowed to disturb my guests, and had it been necessary I would have anticipated you, by stopping their hilarity ; but with their itmocent enjoyment in my own house, I permit no interference of any kind. ' '

It was many years ago, but I recall the rage into which the school mistress worked herself. She turned on mother, who was many years her junior, and seemed to think she was one of her pupils. Mother calmly stood it a little while, when, placing herself between the children and the open door, she pointed to it, and suggested it was about time for both of them to retire. Miss Taylor gathered up her bonnet and shawl, and it was a very long time before she crossed our threshold again.

This incident made a change in our school life. We were all withdrawn the next day, and sent to school to Dr. W. R. T. Prior. I was soon advanced in my studies, and began Latin. Being somewhat quick at my lessons, I was pushed on very rapidly, though very superficially, and found myself in Virgil in an incredibly short time, without the slightest comprehension of the language. To this day, I feel the evil effects of this injudicious method. A study which was not understood became the object of contempt. I long retained possession of my old Virgil, all spotted with tear drops, for many a hearty cry did I have over the book, with no one at home to help me, and when I went to recite, few explanations. So I hobbled along through those school-boy years, really knowing nothing.

Chapter II Religious Beginnings

I visit my father' s grave and vow to follow his good example — My life is saved by a negro — My brother's death — I seek comfort in the Bible for my mother' s absence — The good beginning of a life-long habit — I am catechised by Bishop Gadsden in my fourteenth year and am confirmed.

I VIVIDLY remember the 31st of January, 1838, my tenth birthday, and how it was observed by me. I celebrated the day by going to the graveyard where my father was buried, in the cemetery attached to the old church of" Prince George Winyah," Georgetown, South Carolina, a church built of bricks brought from lyondon. Climbing over the brick wall that encloses the graveyard, and going to the plot where my father's grave is, I knelt beside it, and putting my hands on the tombstone, thanked God for having given me such a father. In childish language I asked my Heavenly Father to spare my life so that I might grow up to be a man, and be able at my death to leave behind me a name as good as my father's. I asked that I might never do anything to bring a stain of dishonor upon that name. I was only a little boy, and no one told me to do it, but I seemed to be led to that hallowed spot, and to draw inspiration from it. The incident left an indelible impression on my mind. I believe that even a child's prayer is heard, and I can venture to hope that my father would not be ashamed of his son, could he know what has been the manner of my life. Who can say that he does not know ? If it would add anything to the joys of Paradise, why may not our Heavenly Father let our dear dead know of the life of those whom they surely have not forgotten, and in whom they would delight if they were still on earth ? The spiritual world is much nearer to us than we can possibly conceive.

Another incident in my early life seemed to give the colored people of the South a claim on my life service. My life indeed was actually saved by a negro who risked his own for my safety. I felt I had incurred a debt which I was bound, and afterwards endeavored, to repay. The facts are as follows :

During the summer of 1839 I was taken in a small sailboat, by a party of young men, to fish on the banks between North and South Islands. In a sudden squall, the boat was capsized, and I was to all appearances drowned. I remember the side of the boat I was sitting on, gradually sunk into the water, as the boat turned over, but remember no more, until I found myself in the arms of a colored man, being carried from the beach to our house. When I came to consciousness he told me it was all right, not to be scared, that I was safe. We learned some time after that all the occupants of the boat got on the bottom, except myself. When this colored man missed me, he exclaimed, "O my God, where Miss Porter child?" Where ? Under the deep water being swept out to sea. Just then one of my little hands was seen stretched above the water. The colored man swam off" from the boat, dived down, and came up with me in his arms, unconscious of course. I was held by him in his arms on the bottom of the boat until the party was rescued by some of the fishermen in other boats.

Religious Beginnings. 13

It was somewhere in the same year that my brother John returned from Morristown, of which I have already spoken. He went to Charleston, and entered the counting-house of Mr. George Y. Davis. He was then in his eighteenth year, and old enough to look into the aflfairs of my grandfather's estate. He found serious evidences of mismanagement, and in the fall of 1840 he left the counting-house and went to the two plantations to take charge of the interests of the estate. In August of 1841 there was a severe storm and heavy freshet, causing a large break in the river bank. The rice was at that stage that the broken bank had to be mended, or the crop would be lost. My brother, full of energy and resolve, took it in hand, and with all the force of slaves worked day and night, and succeeded in his efforts. His clothes were wet for many hours. When he had put the fields in order, he came down to North Island, at the mouth of Winyah Bay, to the family summer resort. But the deadly climate had done its work. Nine days after his wetting, he was taken with high bilious fever, or country fever, as it is known in this latitude, and on the fifth day he died, in his twentieth year. My mother was herself very sick at the same time and never saw him. I was standing by his bedside, and just before he died, he clasped his hands and said, ' ' Conduct us. Heavenly Father, to Thy throne, and there kneeling let us praise Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

We took his body, on the loth of September, to Georgetown, and laid him beside our father, and the sister who had died in 1835. There were then left only two daughters and myself.

In the spring of 1839, my mother, still appreciating her own school experience in Elizabeth City, New Jersey, and being very fond of the North, and of Northern people, had taken my sister Eliza to New York and placed her at school at Bordentown, New Jersey, under the charge of Madam Murat, the wife of Achille Murat, the son of Napoleon's Marshal. Madam Murat was a Miss Fraser, of Charleston. There were no steamers running between Southern ports and New York in those days. The fate of the Home, which had been lost in a storm, and of the Pulaski, which had been burnt at sea with almost a total loss of passengers and crew, had put a temporary setback on steam navigation, and mother and my sister had sailed from Georgetown in a large brig. It was the first time I had ever been separated from my mother. Only nine months old when my father died, and a delicate child, I had been brought up with great tenderness, and was indeed very near to my mother. I recall to-day the anguish with which I watched that receding vessel, and my desolation when I went back home with my other sister, and a maiden aunt who was left in charge. She did all she could to comfort me, but I went supperless and sobbing to bed. I was only eleven years old. The next day I thought I must do something that would make God have pity on us, and carry our mother and sister safe, and bring them back. Going by sea to New York then seemed an awful thing. It certainly took longer to get there than it does now to get from here to London, and there were no telegraphs, and only partial railroads, and it took a week to get a letter (postage twenty- five cents), so we knew it would be nearly a month before we could hear. To childish fancy it seemed an endless age. I had said my pra5'^ers, but it seemed I ought to do something more, and it occurred to me, although I knew the catechism, and had read some of the Bible, that I had never read it through, and I thought if I read it regularly, that God would know it, and somehow, it would have some influence on my mother's and sister's fate. So I shut myself up in my room and never came out of it all day until I had read

Religious Beginnings. 15

through the book of Genesis. Next day I read all of Exodus, next all of lyeviticus, next all of Numbers. But the last two days had been rather tough on an urchin, eleven years old. So, when the next day came, I thought the half of Deuteronomy would do, and the balance on the sixth day. When I started again the seventh day I thought I would remember more if I took a little less, and I resolved to cut down to a chapter in the morning and a chapter at night. This became interesting to me, and after I had finished my self-allotted portion I used to read on when I felt so inclined, until I was tired. This habit begun at eleven years has been continued through life, with this improvement : soon after it was known that I was reading the Bible regularly, someone, perhaps my old aunt, took the Prayer Book, showed me the calendar, and pointed out to me that by following the Prayer Book lectionary one would read through in a year, excepting a few chapters, the Old Testament, the four accounts of the Gospel, the Acts of the Holy Apostles twice, and the Epistles four times. I immediately adopted the plan, and through boyhood, youth, manhood, and old age have kept it up. How many times I have thus read the Bible through, and how imperceptibly it has colored my thoughts and swayed my life ! In my childish ignorance, I thought God needed to be propitiated by my act, but for the blessed overruling of His Divine Spirit how often I have thanked God, who thus led me to take His Word as a lantern to my feet and a light to my path. How good a thing it would be if all young people would begin in early youth thus regularly to read the Bible. It would make their youth cleaner, and purer, and sweeter, yes, and happier.

My mother and sister had a safe and pleasant passage to New York, and the former returned to us in the fall.

In the spring of the year 1841, the rector of the church in Georgetown, the Rev. Robt. T. Howard, called at our home and asked me to take a stroll with him. In the course of our walk he told me that Bishop Gadsden had sent him notice of his intended visitation of the parish, and that he, the rector, wished me to give in my name for confirmation. I was only a child, just thirteen years old, and it was the first time the subject had been proposed to me. I expressed some hesitation to the rector, but he told me that as I knew the catechism, it was now my duty to be confirmed. I told him that I would give in my name if my mother approved of it. With my mother's approval, accordingly, I sent in my name, and that was the only conversation he had with me, and that was all the clerical instruction I received for preparation for this solemn step. I confess I knew nothing of the origin, or history, or obligations imposed in the rite, but I remember that after the suggestion had been made, and my mother had consented, I became very desirous to be confirmed, though I knew very little as to what it meant. Bishop Gadsden arrived, and on Saturday he took tea at our house, the rector being there also. During the evening I was brought in and introduced to the bishop as one of the candidates. He said, " Is not this child rather young ? "