The Witherspoons: a First Family of Williamsburg County

Eighty-one years ago today, The State newspaper published a story by Laura Cromer Hemingway about the erection of a monument in the Williamsburg Cemetery in honor of John Witherspoon. In the article, she discussed several of the stories associated with the man.

The marker honoring the memory of John Witherspoon as it looks today.

Here is her article: "Within the historic cemetery of the Williamsburg Presbyterian Church a monument has been erected to John Witherspoon, from whom have descended, perhaps, more men and women of distinction in the United States than from any of the colonial patriarchs.

"The memorial is a large shaft of gray granite having a bronze plate inset bearing this inscription:

John Witherspoon

Born near Glasgow, Scotland in 1670, removed to Ireland because of religious persecution and settled in County Down in 1695. In 1734 he, with his kindred and friends, came to America and settled near Kings Tree in Williamsburg township. He was the leading spirit in the erection of the first Williamsburg meeting house in 1736. He died in the fall of 1737 and was the first person buried in this graveyard. Of Covenanter blood, a descendant of John Knox, he was a zealous adherent to the principles of the Presbyterian Reformed Church of Scotland. A man of deep piety, strong moral courage, and a leader in the affairs of the community. This marker is erected by grateful descendants who unite in honoring and perpetuating his memory. Erected September, 1938.

"The marker is placed at perhaps the most advantageous place for effect. It faces, from across the cemetery, the large double gates that mark the entrance to the grounds.

"About 100 yards away is a small pile of crumbling old hand made brick that many of the oldest citizens who are native of Williamsburg have looked upon as marking the place where the dust of John Witherspoon rests. This tradition has been handed down by word of mouth through succeeding generations from the days of the colonization of 'The King's Tree.'

"Other factors that point to the authenticity of this is the statement that John Witherspoon was 'buried across the road from the meeting house.' The old stage coach line from Cheraw to Georgetown ran in front of the meeting house and this may have been 'the road.'

Looking from the Witherspoon marker toward the cemetery gates.

Perhaps this road is what remains of the old stagecoach road.

"The brick apparently were fashioned originally into a low vault over the grave. They are so old that they are ready to disintegrate almost at a touch of a hand.

"Lovers of history, fearful that the possible grave of John Witherspoon, the recognized 'Father of the Williamsburg Presbyterian Church,' which  is the most historic in the southeastern section of the United States, may be lost to coming generations after the present generation shall have passed on, are now hoping that this spot, too, may receive a simple marker.

"Kingstree is proud to claim the distinction of having repose within her boundaries the dust of the man from whom so many illustrious sons of America have descended.

"John Witherspoon was the father of four sons, David, James, Robert, and Gavin, and of three daughters, Janet, the wife of John Fleming; Elizabeth, the wife of William James; and Mary, the wife of David Wilson. From these have descended many eminent jurists, educators, ministers, physicians, soldiers.

"The jurists include Chancellor William Dobein James, Chief Justice Eugene B. Gary, Circuit Judges Ernest Gary and Frank B. Gary, Circuit Judge L.D. Witherspoon, and John Witherspoon, county judge of Williamsburg district, all of South Carolina; Chief Justice Tim Ervin Cooper of Mississippi, Chancellor William Stuart Fleming of Tennessee, Circuit Judge William T. Gary of Augusta, GA, United States Senator William Bennett Fleming, who was also circuit judge in Georgia.

"Among the educators was Dr. John Witherspoon, president of Princeton. (Note: We now know that this John Witherspoon, who was also a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was a first cousin, rather than a descendant, of the John Witherspoon of Williamsburg County.)

John Witherspoon, President of Princeton.

"The list of ministers descended from this 'Father of the Williamsburg Presbyterian Church,' which has been called 'The Cradle of Presbyterianism in the South,' is long and distinguished. It includes: The Rev. John Leighton Wilson of nationwide renown, who was the first American missionary to Africa and later secretary of the foreign missions for the Presbyterian Church in the United States; the Rev. James Henley Thornwell, Jr., D.D.; the Rev. James McDowell Richards, D.D., president of Columbia seminary at Decatur, GA; the Rev. Robert Wilson James, the Rev. Thomas Sydenham Witherspoon, the Rev. Jeremiah Witherspoon, D.D., the Rev. Andrew J. Witherspoon, D.D., the Rev. Thomas Dwight Witherspoon, D.D., the Rev. Samuel Reese Frierson, the Rev. Wilson James McKay, D.D., and others.

The Reverend John Leighton Wilson

"Among the many notable physicians in this and other states who trace their lineage directly back to John Witherspoon was Dr. James Ramsey Witherspoon, the son of Robert Witherspoon, a grandson of John, whose genealogy of this illustrious family is held invaluable by historians.

"In the making of American history and the winning of American freedom the descendants of this sturdy Scot have taken active parts. There was the Revolutionary hero, Maj. John James, a grandson who organized Marion's brigade, and his son, William Dobein James, who served under Gen. Francis Marion with distinction, though only a boy at the time. There was Maj. Gen. Martin Witherspoon Gary of Edgefield, whose record during the Confederate war is enviable and who, during the days or Reconstruction, labored to make the Hampton campaign the success that it was in 1876.

The tombstone of Maj. John James in the churchyard of Indiantown Presbyterian.

"There were others in number, for records show that Marion's brigade was composed largely of men from the Williamsburg Presbyterian Church who were, for the greater part, descended either directly or collaterally from John Witherspoon.

"Among the counties in this state that claim direct descendants from John Witherspoon are: Richland, Charleston, Sumter, Laurens, York, Darlington, Florence, Marion, Lancaster, and Williamsburg.

"Wardlaw's Genealogy of the Witherspoon Family and the diary kept by Robert Witherspoon hold for lovers of history much that would have been lost to succeeding generations in a new country beset by trials of war and dissension. These pages also project into this modern age of luxury a picture of the hardships encountered by those who made these luxuries possible.

"Among the original band of settlers at 'The King's Tree' on Black River in 1732, were three of John Witherspoon's children. These were Gavin, his youngest son; Elizabeth, the wife of William James, and Mary, the wife of David Wilson. Two years later, John Witherspoon, and his wife, Janet, who was his first cousin, two other sons, David and James, and his third daughter, Janet, the wife of John Fleming, with their families and a band of additional colonists, joined the original settlers on Black River. John Witherspoon's remaining son, Robert, with his wife and children, joined the colonists in Williamsburg in 1736, thus making the family complete in this new country, except for Janet, the wife of John Witherspoon, who died two days out from Ireland and was buried at sea, and Sarah, the young daughter of James, who died in Charleston, shortly after the arrival of James and his family there in 1734, and was the first person buried in 'The Scotch Meeting House Yard' there.

"Against a background of religious dissension in Scotland and religious persecution under the Stuarts, when papist fervor made life unendurable for those who preferred field meetings to the cathedral, this story of John Witherspoon's exodus is set.

"He and his wife Janet were forced to move to Ireland shortly after their marriage in order to find any degree of peace. There 'they lived in comfortable circumstances and good credit until the year 1734.' John Witherspoon moved his family to South Carolina.

"They made the trip across the Atlantic on the ship, The Good Intent, which they boarded September 14. They were forced to wait at Belfast 14 days for a favorable wind. The trip across was filled with exciting events. Following the death of John Witherspoon's wife Janet and her burial at sea, the ship was sorely tossed by storms, during which it sprang a leak necessitating the constant working of pumps and the ingenuity of the mariners to save the boat.

"The deeply instilled piety of mind in members of the Witherspoon family prompted the grandson (Robert, son of James) to write in his diary, 'It pleased God to bring us safe to land, except my grandmother, about the first of December.'

 Facsimile copies of Robert Witherspoon's Diary, called The Witherspoon Family Chronicle,

are available for sale at the Williamsburgh Museum on Hampton Avenue in Kingstree.

"Robert Witherspoon recorded further: 'We landed in Charleston three weeks before Christmas in 1734. We found the inhabitants very kind. We remained in that place until after Christmas and were put on board an open boat with tools, one year's provisions and one steel mill for each family.'

"The party traveled up Black River as far as Potato Ferry where they disembarked, and the women and children took refuge in Samuel Commander's barn while the men went in search of building sites farther up the river.

"February 1 they came to a point called The Bluff about six miles from the settlement at Kingstree, and they made their home there on Black River. The women were distressed at the first site of the crude dirt houses their men had thrown together as quickly as possible for temporary shelter until logs could be felled for permanent homes. They were frightened at the loneliness and isolation of the woods, almost tropical in growth, and at the wild animals and the Indians who came down periodically to hunt.

"But they set their faces toward the sun that was rising upon this strange new land in which they had chosen to live and worship as they pleased. The men comforted them by telling them that as soon as trees were felled, they would be able to see from house to house.

"John Witherspoon, with the blood of Robert Bruce and John Knox in his veins, had come with no other intention than that of staying in this new land and building a home and community. Although he lived only three years after coming here, he had labored so vigorously and so zealously that he could see his ambitions taking shape. The work he had started was carried on by his sons and daughters and by their sons and daughters and on and on through succeeding generations. It is still in progress through his descendants now scattered far and wide throughout the United States."

Reese Witherspoon, actress/producer, is a descendant of John Witherspoon.

There are still Witherspoon descendants scattered throughout the United States, including actress/producer Reese Witherspoon. The Williamsburgh Museum frequently receives requests for genealogical information from members of the extended Witherspoon family.