john allston, of st. john’s, berkeley, was born in england in 1666, and came to this country between 1685 and 1694. he was descended from the ancient family of allstone, through john allston, of saxham hall, newton, suffolk, which was the seat of the allstons for several hundred years. an allston was the saxon lord of stanford in norfolk before the conquest, and was dispossessed by the normans. the old saxon names of rath alstan, alstane, were but variants of the name which john of st. john’s spelled alstane, until the signature of his will (1718), when he wrote it allston. the motto was “immotus,”“az. ten stars, crest an estoile in a crescent argent.”
john allston, of st. john’s, berkeley, had a number of children, as self-respecting people of that date usually had, but we are concerned only with the descendants of his eldest son, john, who was the grandfather of benjamin allston, my father’s father, and those of his second son, william, who was the grandfather of charlotte ann allston, my father’s mother. so his parents were second cousins.
ben allston died when his second son, robert, was only eight years old. the boy was educated at mr. waldo’s school in georgetown until he was sixteen, when his widowed mother determined to send him to west point. he entered in 1817, graduating in june, 1821, this being the first class which made the four years’ course under colonel sylvanus thayer. he was appointed lieutenant in the 3d artillery, and assigned to duty on the coast survey under lieutenant-colonel kearney, of the topographical engineers. in this position he assisted in surveying the harbors of plymouth and provincetown, mass., and the entrance to mobile bay. while on duty here he got letters from his mother telling of her difficulties, which demanded his immediate presence at home. he asked for leave of absence, but being refused this by his commanding officer, he resigned his commission february, 1822, bought a horse and rode through northern alabama and georgia, then inhabited by indians, to charleston, and thence to georgetown, s. c.
his mother’s difficulties in managing her property of landed estate and negroes had been great,and added to this was the effort of the purchaser of a plantation adjoining chicora on the south to seize a tract of land (attempting to prove that this land belonged to his plantation), which when cleared became four of her best rice-fields. this had kept her in constant fiery correspondence, until my father felt it his duty to resign and come home and settle the matter.
he employed the lawyer of greatest repute at the moment, james l. petigru; the case was brought into court, and my grandmother’s title to the land established beyond question. she did not long survive to enjoy having her son at home to take the burden of the management of her affairs, for she died october 24, 1824, after a short illness of pleurisy, in her fifty-fourth year. this was a very great sorrow to my father, for he had for her an intense affection with a sense of protection. she was beautiful and very small, so that the servants always spoke of her as “little miss” in distinction to aunt blythe, who was “big miss.” according to the custom of the day, the land was all left to the sons, charged with legacies to the daughters, so my father’s patrimony consisted of large tracts of swamp land in georgetown and marion and seventeen negroes, subject{6} to a debt to his sisters which amounted to more than the value of the property. he entered upon its management with great energy, surveyed the land himself, cleared and drained the swamps and converted them into valuable rice-fields.
in this work his military education was of great service to him. in 1823 he was elected surveyor-general of the state, an office which he held for four years. in 1828 he was returned by the people of winyah to the lower house of the legislature, and in 1832 was returned to the senate. about this time he attained the rank of colonel of the militia, service of the state. he continued to be returned to the senate, and was president of that body from 1850 to 1856, when he was elected governor. but i must go back. during the lawsuit about the land my father was entertained by james l. petigru, came to know the lawyer’s sister, adèle petigru, and fell in love with her; and she finally yielded to his suit, and they were married in 1832 and went at once to his plantation, chicora wood, fourteen miles north of georgetown, on the great pee dee river.
i am always afraid of bursting out into praise of my father, for i adored him, and thought him the wisest and best man in the world, and{7} still do think he was a most unusual mixture of firmness and gentleness, with rare executive ability. but i have always found, in reading biographies and sketches, that the unstinted and reiterated praises of the adoring writers rouses one’s opposition, and i write this with the hope of bringing to his grandchildren the knowledge and appreciation of my father’s character. i will try to draw his portrait with a few firm strokes, and leave the respect and admiration to be aroused by it. now that slavery is a thing of the past, the younger generation in our southland really know nothing about the actual working of it, and they should know to understand and see the past in its true light. slavery was in many ways a terrible misfortune, but we know that in the ancient world it was universal, and no doubt the great ruler of the world, “that great first cause, least understood,” allowed it to exist for some reason of his own.
the colony of north and south carolina, then one, entreated the mother country to send no more slaves. “we want cattle, horses, sheep, swine, we don’t want africans.” but the africans continued to come. the northeastern states were the first to get rid of the objectionable human property when conscientious scruples arose as to{8} the owning of slaves—in some instances by freeing them, but in many more instances by selling them in the southern states. there is no doubt that in the colder climate slave labor was not profitable. when the civil war came, the southern planters were reduced from wealth to poverty by the seizure of their property which they held under the then existing laws of the country. it is a long and tangled story—and i do not pretend to judge of its rights and wrongs. i have no doubt that the great father’s time for allowing slavery was at an end. i myself am truly thankful that slavery is a thing of the past, and that i did not have to take up the burden of the ownership of the one hundred people my father left me in his will (all mentioned by name), with a pretty rice-plantation called exchange two miles north of chicora wood. i much prefer to have had to make my own living, as i have had to do, except for the short six years of my married life, than to have had to assume the care and responsibility of those hundred negroes, soul and body. i have had a happy life, in spite of great sorrow and continued work and strain, but i am quite sure that with my sensitive temperament and fierce huguenot conscience i never could have had a happy life under the burden of that ownership.{9}
it would have been a comfort, however, if we could have gathered up something from my father’s large property, but we did not. just before the war my mother’s brother, captain tom petigru, of the navy, died, leaving a childless widow. she lived in charleston, in her beautiful home with large yard and garden, at the corner of bull and rutledge streets, and was a rich woman, as riches were counted in those days—owning a large farm in abbeville county, where the giberts and petigrus had originally settled, and also a rice-plantation, “pipe down,” on sandy island on the waccamaw, not far from my father’s estates, also one hundred negroes. as soon as uncle tom died, aunt ann wrote to my father, asking him as a great favor to buy her plantation and negroes, as she felt quite unequal to the management and care of them. my father replied immediately that it was impossible for him to comply with her request, that he had his hands full managing his own property, and that he specially felt he had already more negroes than he desired. aunt ann continued her entreaties. then the negroes from pipe down began to send deputations over to beg my father to buy them. philip washington, a very tall, very black man, a splendid specimen of the negro race, after two generations of slavery, was their spokesman. my uncle had been devoted to philip, and considered him far above the average negro in every way, and in his will had given him his freedom, along with two or three others; he pleaded the cause of his friends with much eloquence, saying they had fixed on him as the one owner they desired. then my uncle, james l. petigru, entered the lists, and appealed to my father’s chivalry for his old and feeble sister-in-law, and to the intense feeling of the negroes, who had selected him for their future owner, and were perfectly miserable at his refusal—if it were a question of money, he argued, my father need not hesitate, as “sister ann” did not desire any cash payment; she greatly preferred a bond and mortgage, and the interest paid yearly, as that would be the best investment she could have. at last my father yielded, and made a small cash payment, giving his bond and a mortgage for the rest. the deed was done—the pipe down people were overjoyed, and the debt assumed. this debt it was which rendered my father’s estate insolvent at the end of the war, for he died in 1864. the slaves having been freed, the property was gone, but the debt remained in mortgages on his landed estates, which had all to be sold. the plantations were: chicora wood, 890 acres, ditchford, 350{11} acres, exchange, 600 acres, guendalos, 600 acres, nightingale hall, 400 acres, waterford, 250 acres, beside pipe down itself. also the two farms in anson county, north carolina, and our beautiful house in charleston. besides this, there were 6,000 acres of cypress timber at britton’s neck; 5,000 acres of cypress and pine land near carver’s bay; 300 acres at canaan seashore; house and 20 acres on pawley’s island. of all this principality, not one of the heirs got anything!
my mother’s dower was all that could be claimed. in south carolina the right of dower is one-third of the landed property, for life, or one-sixth, in fee simple. my mother preferred the last, and the board of appraisers found that the plantation chicora wood, where she had always lived, would represent a sixth value of the real estate, and that was awarded her as dower; but not an animal nor farm implement, no boats nor vehicles—just the land, with its dismantled dwelling-house. i tell this here, to explain how we came to face poverty at the end of the war.
