Married at 15, Dead by 30: The Fate of the Average Female Settler

On February 21, 1937, The News & Courier carried a lengthy article by Nell Flinn Gilland about the conditions the early women settlers in Williamsburg District faced. The headline called it a brief, hard life, and the sub-head noted: "Marrying at Fifteen, Bearing Numbers of Children, Dying Wearily at 30 was Average." Here is the article:

Thorntree was the home of Elizabeth McQuoid Witherspoon.

Her son, James Witherspoon, holds the record for most marriages in

colonial Williamsburg District. He was married five times.

"The part played by pioneer women in American settlements must be gleaned largely from tradition; from euglogistic epitaphs on gravestones, when such exist; from family records and letters; and from fragmentary comments of historians.

"When Williamsburg County was settled more than two centuries ago, women's names were not even recorded on church rolls. They lived solely for their husbands and families, spending their lives in devoted service in their circumscribed sphere. But their contribution was incalculably important. Most Williamsburg County women married at an average age of 15, bore about 10 children, buried half of them in infancy, and themselves sank wearily into their narrow graves at some 30 years of age. They were succeeded by a second, often a third, young wife, whose days were patterned on the lines of her predecessors and ended at approximately the same age. 

"Typical of the feelings which their husbands entertained for them is the remark by John Ramsey Witherspoon, who was born in Williamsburg in 1774, and who continued the Witherspoon genealogy begun by Robert Witherspoon, who came to Kingstree with his parents in 1734.

"Says John Ramsey, 'I married first Jane Harrison of Charleston, S.C., and second Mary Green Todd, of Kentucky, who died without issue. It may be said of these estimable women, as of Mary, Queen of Scots, that youth, beauty, innocence, virtue, all combined to render them lovely.... I married the third time Sophie Graham of Lincoln County, N.C. ..., an estimable woman.'

Inscription on the gravestone of Jane Harrison McCalla Witherspoon 

at Old Wappetaw Independent Congregational Church, Awendaw, SC.

She died February 23, 1808, at age 27 years, four months.

"Estimable, innocent, virtuous! Doubtless most pioneer women were all of that, but under their meek exterior, they carried a spirit of endurance impossible to overestimate. It is probable that their husbands depended on the 'weaker sex' more than they themselves realized.

"Bearing out this belief is an incident recorded of an old Scottish minister, John Witherspoon, ancestor of a number of the first settlers around the King's Tree. The Reverend John was being hunted as a dissenter by a party of the King's soldiers and was seen by them to enter his house, which was quickly surrounded.

"'Bettie dear,' said the godly old man to his spouse, 'They have me noo.'

"'Trust in God,' replied the devout helpmeet. No doubt poor John had hoped the adroit Bettie would have up her sleeve something more canny than a mere platitude.

"'But Bettie dear, they're at the door,' he told her desperately.

"'Trust in God, John,' she repeated. At the same time, she proved that trust in God implied faith in the Almighty's power to use the means at hand, and as she spoke, she pushed her mate down before her spinning wheel and threw over him her voluminous cloak, pulling the hood over his head. Thus did the 'gude' man turn out his first crop of spinning as the soldiers burst into the house and inquired of Dame Bettie the whereabouts of her husband. With a beautiful regard for the truth, she replied, "He has been both out and in today, and if you think he is in the house, search it.'

"While the search went forward, the guileful soul went about her homely tasks, the hooded old 'woman' spinning frantically, with what success is not recorded.

"Giving up their fruitless search at last, the soldiers said to Mrs. Witherspoon, 'Well, the man is a witch, for we saw him come in. He is not in the house now, and we have guarded the place.'

"From such resourceful, loyal women were Williamsburg's first homemakers descended.

"Elizabeth Witherspoon, a descendant of the said John and Bettie, was among the women in the first colony who came to the King's Tree in 1732. She was the wife of William James, and they brought with them four children: Mary, Janet, John, and William. Elizabeth survived the rigors of pioneer life 18 years and died in 1757 at the age of 47, the mother of 11.

"Mary Witherspoon was the wife of David Wilson and brought with her two children, William and John. She lived until 1756 and died at age 58. A fine sense of humor Mary Wilson must have had.

"In recounting to her children in later years tales of the journey across the Atlantic in a small boat, the landing finally up Black River at Brown's Landing, and the trek through some 40 miles of forest, it was not the horrors nor the frightening silence of the strange land her children remembered most, but the homely incident of how the older folk and the little ones clinging to their mothers' skirts would fall behind the stronger walkers, sometimes losing sight of them in the tangle of swamps.

"Then some woman, perhaps Mary herself, would call out to cheer up the stragglers, 'YOO-O-O–HOO-O-O! Where are you?' and back would come the tones of some heartening Irish voice, 'Follow the bleezes!" And so the marks of the axe blazed that first trail.

"Two years later John and Janet Witherspoon set sail from Belfast to join their children who had already settled in Williamsburg. But sadness was cast over that voyage because Janet died two days after the vessel left Ireland. Robert Witherspoon records of his grandmother's passing:

"'She was buried in the boisterous ocean.'

"We may imagine the grief of her daughters, Mary Wilson and Elizabeth James, who must have been waiting eagerly to welcome their mother to the new land. At the time of her death, Janet was 54. Her namesake daughter was with her when she died and came on to Williamsburg with her husband John Fleming and their seven children. Janet Fleming lived until 1761 and died aged 66.

"Other women known to have been in the second colony were Ann Pressley, the wife of David Witherspoon, and Elizabeth McQuoid, wife of James Witherspoon. The latter couple brought with them four children, one of whom, Sarah, died after their boat landed in Charleston and was the first person buried at the Scotch Meeting House there.

"Doggedly the little colony set themselves to making homes in the wilderness. The women worked as hard and as uncomplainingly as the men. They never left home without their husbands, who only occasionally took them to church or to visit their mothers.

"These wives were literally helpmeets. The men planted and harvested corn; the women shucked and shelled and ground it into meal from which they baked bread for their families. The men killed and dressed cattle or a forest deer; the women cured and cooked the meat, made the hide into breeches for their husbands, moccasins for their children, or aprons for themselves. The men sheared the sheep; the women cleaned the wool, carded, spun, wove and made clothing for their families.

"It was a hard life, made infinitely harder by frequent childbearing and the grinding agony of burying little forms under alien earth. It has been estimated that the man of that day who lived to 75 years was the father of 15 living and 15 dead children, having buried three or more wives. James Witherspoon [son of James and Elizabeth McQuoid Witherspoon] was married five times, holding the record in Williamsburg.

"But there were women, too, who held to life with hard tenacity. Such was Mary Frierson, who was born in Ireland in 1701 and came to Williamsburg in 1735, the wife of Thomas Frierson, whom she had married when very young. She outlived Thomas and married John Scott. Her youngest child, named for her, was born when she was over 50, and Mary lived to be 56.

"There was also Mary Heathly, who survived her third husband. She married first William Bradley, by whom she had seven children; second Thomas Witherspoon, by whom she also had seven children; and third Thomas McCrea for whom she bore three children, making a brood of 17 in all. One glories in her strength!

"Besides their endless household duties and the bearing, rearing and burying of children, those pioneer women had sole charge of the education of their offspring. Before the Revolution, teachers in South Carolina were required to be members of the Church of England, licensed by the Lord Bishop of England. No such pernicious influence was permitted in Presbyterian Williamsburg, hence children were taught at home. The thoroughness of their schooling is attested by the fact that out of the first hundred wills and transfers of property made in the district, only one man had to make his mark for a signature, and the women's signatures, releasing their dowers, were clear and beautiful. Of the 300 Williamsburg men in Marion's Brigade, only six had to make their mark. The ancient manuscripts of the day were penned with sharpened goose quills dipped in ink made from red oak balls, but the penmanship is said to have been exquisite.

"There were no slaves in early Williamsburg to lighten the Herculean labors of pioneer housewives. A few were introduced in the 1740s, but it was not until the planting of indigo began in 1749, and the people of the community became wealthy that slaves were owned in any number. Though the harvesting of indigo added another task for women, it must have been balm to their beauty-loving souls to dip their hand-woven materials into the vivid dye. How they must have reveled in fashioning those blue garments for their growing daughters! How they must have yearned over those simple trousseaus, dreading for their tender girls the treadmill of the pioneer mother's life!

"Yet, there must have been an almost inconceivable intensity of devotion for their mates among those women, who knew the reality of companionship which the modern woman cannot conceive. For the arduous tasks of the household there must have been recompense a hundred-fold when the man of the family came home from his fields or hunt at sunset and took his wife in his arms with reverent gratitude for the homely beauty she was creating for him in the midst of solitude and strangeness.

"And how those first women must have treasured the little possessions added gradually to their stores. In the keeping of Mrs. James Haselden of Cades is a small sugar dish brought over by her ancestor, Elizabeth Witherspoon James, in 1732–a delicate china container which doubtless recalled to Elizabeth the comfortable home she had left in Ireland. It was tenderly washed and dried with handwoven cloths and handed down from one generation to another.

"'Grandmother's sugar dish from the auld counthree!' Proud must have been the bride into whose home was brought this heirloom. 

"Pioneer life was not quite all hardship and drabness. There were holidays and feasting, too. Even those stern Calvinists of Williamsburg were not averse to relaxing on occasion their rigorous Puritanism. Every two months the militia companies met, and twice a year the militia battalions assembled with appropriate festivities.

"One does not suppose that the women into into the festivities and drinking on those occasions with the abandon of their lords and masters. But they could not be left alone at home with the danger of savages and wild beasts threatening them. We may picture them gathering happily at the home of their friends, their children around them. After they had busily prepared the feasts and served the men, we may envision them hungrily listening to women-talk: swapping recipes, exchanging quilt patterns, recounting anecdotes of the children. Once a year the Craven County Regiment of Militia gathered with much pomp and ceremony in Williamsburg District.

"There were, besides, mid-winter and mid-summer racing seasons when doubtless much courtship was carried on, and lonely women rejoiced in social intercourse. Possibly the women were patient when their menfolk, good churchmen though they were, relaxed from their stern daily programs and imbibed too freely of the apple brandy and 'old rosy corn whiskey' furnished them by North Carolina distillers. The women, as well as the men, were deeply interested in the racing. Much of their lives were of necessity spent in the saddle, and they prided themselves on the horses they raised and trained themselves.

"In 1749, occurred the great drought which continued from June until January of the following year. Thought the Scotch minister blew a great blast on his ministerial horn, and the good people assembled themselves in the log church to pray, first for hours at a stretch, and again from sunrise till sunset, not a drop of moisture fell to cool the parched earth. Dependent on their crops for bread, starvation threatened the colony. Reluctantly, a band of emissaries went to Charleston to ask for help, fearful that the Colonial Council would supply bread only on condition that Williamsburgers give up their cherished religion and conform to the established church. The journey, requiring over a week, was fruitless.

"There was not sufficient corn and wheat in Charleston to be spared. Council promised to send to England for supplies, but three months must elapse before help from overseas could be expected. Three months, and their children dying for want of food!

"Doggedly the men, tearing themselves from the arms of desperate, frightened women, set forth for North Carolina, a trip which required more time than a voyage to England. They were gone so long that those left at home believed them dead. Many of the homes they left behind were darkened during their absence by the shadow of death. What has gone down in the history of the county as 'The Great Mortality' followed the relentless drought. It has been estimated that 80 out of every 100 in the colony succumbed. Thin, wasted mothers sat dry-eyed and watched their children die like flies. Helpless babes were left motherless.

Mary Erwin Scott is credited with harvesting cattails like these,

drying their roots, grinding them to flour and making bread to save

the community during the "Great Mortality of 1749."

"One resourceful woman, tortured by the cries of her children for bread to eat with their diet of fish and meat, called the little ones to her, flung a sack over her back, grabbed up her man's heavy hoe and set forth into the swamp near her home. There she dug up cattail roots, disregarding blistered  hands and aching muscles until she had filled her sack. She dried the roots out in her oven and with her own hands beat them into meal from which she baked bread that her children ate greedily. News of her discovery spread over the community, and the people of Williamsburg were saved from possible extinction by the ingenuity and spirit of Mary Erwin Scott, second wife of William Scott. Her home lay just across Broad Swamp from Kingstree, and until his death not many years ago was the property of her descendant William Scott. 

"It was a spirit like Mary Scott's which characterized Williamsburg women when their men went into the swamps during the Revolution to follow their beloved Marion. Long suppressed, those ladies rose to assume the duties of their husbands as well as their accustomed activities.

"They managed plantations, controlled slaves, grew crops, and raised cattle. At their hearth fires, they melted their beloved pewter cups and spoons to make bullets for Marion's poorly-equipped troops. With their own strong fingers, they filed swords out of handsaws for their men.

"They spun and wove and sewed clothing for the soldiers of Liberty. They killed the fruits of their flocks and cooked the best they had gladly when an opportunity came to feed Marion and his band. They formed, besides, an important part of the great leader's unsurpassed system of espionage.

"The Kingstree chapter Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is named for Margaret Gregg Gordon, whose daring and courage are well known. She was the beautiful wife of William Gordon and as brave as she was fair. As a British soldier attempted to escape over the fence after looting her home, she caught and held him captive. Again she rode through the silent midnight and boldly made her way to secure a horse from the enemy's fold to replace one stolen from her stables by the British.

"The name Jane Hawkins is perpetuated in history because she led seven unsuspecting British soldiers to Marion's camp when they blithely supposed she was leading them on horseback to their own headquarters.

"Jean Dobein, wife of the famous Major John James, first chosen leader of the four companies of Williamsburg patriots, suffered a frightful experience during those bloody days.

"She and her husband saw their Indiantown home surrounded by Tories whose bullets embedded themselves in the logs of which the house was built. Major James was dragged away from his wife and children by his enemies who threatened to hang him in the presence of his family. Just as they were about to swing him from the limb, a party of of his followers rode up and rescued him. Whose heart can remain unmoved at the thought of Jean's joy when her man was restored to her after she had seen the noose around his beloved throat.

"The wife of the venerable patriot, James Bradley, must have suffered agony because of the torture inflicted on her husband who was captured and led to Camden by Cornwallis, who effected the capture by passing himself off as Colonel Washington, thus securing Bradley's confidence. The old gentleman was kept in irons in Camden and forced to witness the execution of one fellow patriot after another, being assured each time that his fate would be similar. To the day of his death, he was a cripple from the marks of those chains. Mrs. Bradley followed her husband to Camden where she begged to be allowed to visit him in prison. But she was denied even the privilege of seeing him during his imprisonment.

"That those women fought in spirit and almost in fact beside their husbands is portrayed in the story of Mrs. John Frierson. When the British under the bloody Wemyss, approached the Frierson home, John Frierson escaped by hiding in the top of a tree so that he might be spared for the later protection and support of his family. The soldiers demanded that Mrs. Frierson reveal her husband's hiding place, but she bravely refused. She was then locked inside the house with her terrified four-year-old son, while fire was set to the roof and sentries placed around the house to prevent her escape. The intense heat drove the sentries away, and Mrs. Frierson, with the child, escaped. The infuriated marauders broke up beehives, poured honey out on the ground; threw on the fire poultry, pigs and all living creatures on the place. After they left, we envision the husband and wife clinging together in their desolation, assuring each other that nothing mattered so long as they were together.

"After the passing of Wemyss, which was the enemy's second invasion of Williamsburg, the settlement was in ashes. Valiant women searched among the ruins and rescued hinges, scissors, and knife blades. They herded together in the few houses left standing and carved plates and mugs out of wood, never losing courage or faith that all they endured was worth the freedom for which they fought.

"A less tragic story of one of Williamsburg's belles is that of Mary Witherspoon, the lovely fianceé of the dashing Captain Conyers, one of Marion's bravest officers. British officers were camped at the Witherspoon home, and Captain Conyers had issued a challenge to any one of them to meet him in combat. They stood in awe of the young American, and it is said that when he came near, a warning ran through the camp, 'Look out! There's Conyers!'

"One day a British officer, who may have enjoyed seeing fire dart from Mary's eyes, spoke sneeringly of Captain Conyers in her presence. Like a flash, the high-spirited girl drew the shoe from off her foot, threw it in the British soldier's face and cried, 'Coward! Go to meet him!'

"It would have been a blessing had one of these remarkable women written a diary of life as it was lived in early Williamsburg. But there was probably no time or equipment for such an undertaking. Only women, living a woman's life in the luxurious present, may hazard a guess as to what pioneer mothers went through.

"A pleasant picture of that life is evoked by the epitaph which Robert Witherspoon had carved on the tombstone of his wife, who lived far past the ordinary span of years. She is buried in the forgotten Witherspoon burying ground near Lane, where time and nature have almost obliterated the crumbling gravestones. But her inscriptions is elsewhere recorded. Its eulogy brings to mind a vision of the hospitality to strangers, of generosity to those less fortunate which were indeed a mercy in that lonely age and which are traditions still kept alive in the community. There are the words on that weatherstained stone:

"'Elizabeth, consort of Robert Witherspoon, and daughter of William and Mary Heathly, June 5, 1740 -July 5, 1820. Aged eighty years and one month. Ardent in piety, deep in humility, eminent for charity to the poor and hospitality to strangers, punctual in her attendance on the ordinances of God's house and distinguished for her reverence.'"