Early Settlers of Calhoun County, cont.

Anne Lovell evidently took after her grandmother, Mary Russell, and was a notable woman. When Major Lovell left her the first time she obtained from the legislature the right of "femme sole," a necessary legality to put a woman's affairs in her own hands. That was why the Major left her the second time. She conducted her affairs well and capably. She acquired by inheritance from her father, from her husband William Reid and their son, Edmund, and by inheritance and purchase from the estate of her brother Andrew, the lands which marched together, where she lived. These formed the tracts called Goshen and Lang Syne, left by her to Langdon Cheves, who had married her niece Mary Elizabeth Dulles. It is said that when the first railway in South Carolina was being laid out Mrs. Lovell objected to the plans, as the lines were to run through her plantations and her little Negros would be frightened and in danger. She erected the family monument, still in existence, on the road from Creston to Elloree. Mrs. Lovell died in October, 1834, on her plantation (18).

The church of St. Matthew's Parish, built in 1765 of wood, was 30 x 40 feet. It stood down by Halfway Swamp near the Santee; and the highway from Ox Creek (now Lyons), gave easy access from Mrs. Russell's neighborhood to her son's home, Heatly Hall, and its community of friends and relatives. Its first pastor was the Rev. Paul Turquand, of a Huguenot family refugeed to London about 1685. Old papers, still extant with the London descendants, say that among his ancestors was Jean Baptiste Morin, scientist and King's Astrologer, mentioned by Voltaire as having been present in Queen Anne's bedchamber at the birth of Louis XIV that the infant's horoscope might be cast at one. (19)

Paul Turquand was born in London, educated at Winchester College, and came to America about 1753 and taught school at Georgetown, where he married Sarah Bond (20). He went back to England in 1766 and was ordained by the Bishop of London. While there he married his second wife, Mary Esom, who became the mother of three daughters: Martha who married Joseph McCord; Hannah who married Russell McCord; and Catherine who did not marry (21). The surviving manuscript sermons of the Rev. Paul Turquand are variously dated -- St. Matthews, Amelia, Orangeburg Chapel -- the location of the last being uncertain. The chapel was opened and the first sermond preached there on the 21st of April, 1767. Mr. Turquand also preached in St. Mark's Parish across Santee, as well as in many places in the low country. He seems, however, to have lived near Mrs. Russell, his grant showing his holding of some 750 acres in her immediate vicinity. About 1774 he married his third wife, Elizabeth Heatly (22).

Turquand was an ardent supporter of the Whig cause, and preached the opening sermon for the Provincial Congress in 1775. He was one of the committee for St. Matthew's Parish appointed by Congress, January 14, 1775, for "Effectually Carrying into Execution the Continental Association." In fact, his feelings were so well known that, when in 1777-1778 the British bad fair to occupy the state, it seemed wise that he remove himself before trouble came. This was especially the case as, being a clergyman of the Church of England, he could be rated as a crown officer and therefore doubly a traitor. So, with Colonel Tacitus Gailliard, known as "the Contumacious," and others, he left St. Matthew's and made his way to the Ohio River, thence down the Mississippi, to New Orleans. There they were allowed to remain provided they conducted no Protestant services, even in their own homes. Mr. Turquand acquiesced; but Colonel Gaillard, tradition says, true to his name, died in prison because he would not agree. Mr. Turquand stayed until it was safe for him to make the return trip across Alabama and Georgia in 1785, with only his Negro servant for company. The manuscript journal of this trip was in the possession of his grandson David J. McCord, of Columbia, but was, unfortunately, lost many years ago, probably about 1865. (23) Paul Turquand died in 1786 (24). The site of his grave is unknown.

The church near Halfway Swamp was moved in 1825, reduced in size, and re-erected where it now stands near Lang Syne plantation. The land was given by Andrew Heatly, who also gave a handsome Bible and Book of Common Prayer. Anne Heatly Lovell gave the communion silver which is still in use. John McCord of Armagh, Ireland, first appears in the records on August 19, 1746, when with George Haig he witnessed a note of Thomas Brown in Charlestown. Haig and Brown were traders with the Catawba Indians. McCord is thought to have come down from eastern Pennsylvania; but this is conjecture. In 1748 he is mentioned as a Catawba trader, and in 1749 as having five slaves. Later he seems also to have traded with the Cherokees. (25) He settled in Craven County, in the angle between the Congaree and the Wateree, abutting land belonging to Charles Russell. In 1751 he married Russell's sister, Sophianisba. By 1765 he owned upwards of 1,000 acres in this fork, including the site of McCord's Ferry. He was inquirer and collector of taxes for Saxe-Gotha, for the forks between the Congaree and Wateree, and adjacent places. (26)

In 1766, by act of Assembly, a public road was opened which ran across what was commonly known as McCord's Ferry, McCord having vested rights in the ferry for fourteen years. He and John Russell were two of the commissioners in charge of maintaining the road from the ferry to Fishing Creek on the Catawba. He was also required to maintain a "good and sufficient ferry-boat and canoe with two ore more servants or negroes fit and necessary to carry all passengers, their servants, carriages, cattle and effects." The scale of fees included foot-passengers, single horse, man and horse, cattle, sheep and hogs. In time of alarm, or to persons going across to church, the ferry was free. (27)

McCord was a captain in the rangers. He died in 1768. The family had the ferry rights until near 1800, by which time those crossing included four-wheeled carriages and horses, chair or cart with horse, and rolled hogsheads of tobacco. (28)

The widow McCord apparently shared in the quality of her mother, Mary Russell, and was a woman of ability and action. She and her son, Captain John McCord of the militia and Lee's Legion, were ardent Whigs, and the ferry in 1780-1781 became known as a place where British officers and troops met trouble. The ferry-boat was always on the other side or out of commission; and if the British were obliged to spend the night, their horses always "strayed." Feeling being exceedingly bitter at that time between Whig and Tory neighbour against neighbour, in 1781 Mrs. McCord's house was burned with all it contained. Russel Paul McCord, her grandson, writing to the historian Draper, says that the British locked his uncle, William, then a slim lad, into the pantry, before they set fire to the house, but that he managed to make his way out of a window they had thought impossible small. William's brother, Russell, a boy of ten, took refuge in the cane-brake, and there lived in a hollow tree for some time after the burning. Mrs. McCord had previously been insulted by a local Tory, one Levi Smith. There was evidently provocation on both sides. (29)

John McCord was undoubtedly one of those who, having been paroled, refused to accept service under the British, and joined Sumter. His brohters, David, Joseph and Russell, apparently did also, though the latter two were mere children. Mary McCord, who married Richard Brown, is spoken of as a very courageous woman, who assisted many Americans to escape from the British. The McCords and their ferry were thorns in the flesh of the occupying army. (30)

There is much more that could be said, but time does not permit. Of these old people few descendants remain in the male line, the old names are no longer current in the old places; but their blood flows through many still in South Carolina and beyond. They have no cause to hang their heads because of their forebears - indeed much the reverse.


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