Dwelling Place Read online

  I find he is much beloved by all his congregation…. She cannot find a more suitable person; and she will be in one of the best societies in this or any other country…. I had a confidential conversation with Capt. Jones. He is much pleased with the prospect of his son’s happiness associated with your daughter.4

  The wedding was held in February 1841, and in this way the Jones family became more closely connected to the Dunwodys and the family of James Smith.

  The wedding of his oldest living son was an important moment for Joseph Jones. The captain was growing older, and the cemetery behind the Retreat plantation house now held not only two wives but also fourteen children. During the preceding decade, he and his wife, Elizabeth, had buried four of their little ones beside the four of Mary Maybank Jones and the six of Sarah Anderson Jones. And of their ten living children, the oldest were growing up and moving out of the parental home. So Joseph was beginning to see the shadows of his own life lengthen, and he knew that the time was not too far in the future when he would join those behind the Retreat in his own silent grave. John’s wedding made Joseph think of such matters, and within a year, under John’s gentle urging, Joseph had a conversion experience.5

  Joseph’s conversion, together with that of William Maxwell, which had taken place a few months earlier, was a cause of great rejoicing for Charles and Mary and for all the other members of the family who continued to look to the Retreat as the old home place, the center of gravity that held all the other scattered homes of the family in place and linked them to one another. Joseph’s conversion meant for his pious relatives that even in death the family that was centered in the Retreat would not be divided.6

  Joseph, as the patriarch of the family, had long held to a kind of stoic outlook on life that was deeply marked by the rationalism of the Enlightenment. When John had been converted during his college days, Joseph had written his son that while John had “chosen that good part ” that could never be taken from him, he was not to be carried away by religious emotions. “Be steady in your course,” urged the father, “and don’t let your religious feelings become too enthusiastic.” “Religion,” wrote the patriarch of the Retreat, “never was intended to lessen any of our lawful comforts here but to make us enjoy them more rationally and do all things to the glory of God.” 7 Joseph’s own conversion did not change these perspectives, or the way he managed the Retreat and his other business affairs, but his conversion did strengthen the side of his nature that was tender and generous toward family and friends and that made many not only respect him but also love him. But of course, Joseph still expected obedience where obedience was due. And he would still act decisively when his will was challenged.

  Joseph announced that he wanted to join the Bryan Neck church, although it was more than twenty-five miles from the Retreat. Two other wealthy planters indicated that they too wanted to join. Charles preached the sermon on the day they gathered in the little church, and he took for his text Jesus’ admonition: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” The text was familiar, but perhaps it made some who heard it turn their thoughts toward those who lived in the settlements. For the little cluster of whites who gathered in the Bryan Neck Presbyterian Church that day owned well over one thousand slaves, who constituted much of their treasure on earth.8

  Following the sermon the elders of the church met to examine the applicants for membership. “The meeting of session,” wrote John, “was most solemn, interesting and affecting. Mr. Stiles asked father to state some particulars touching his conversion, and as father answered for himself he was so much overcome by his feelings and tears that utterance was choked. The examinations were all solemn, close, and satisfactory, and all the applications were sustained.” Thomas Clay “was deeply interested,” and as he went to welcome Joseph to the church, “he fell upon his neck and embraced him in tears.” So Clay, the master of Richmond, and Joseph, the master of the Retreat, stood before the congregation embracing and weeping. And one in the congregation who saw Joseph’s tears said: “This must be the work of God, for that man never bowed to mortal; and if conquered now, God has done it.” At the communion service following the examination, John and Joseph sat side by side at the long table across the front of the church. “I cannot tell you,” John wrote his young wife, “how I felt as I sat by father and together we commemorated the love of a Dear Redeemer.”9

  Six weeks after Joseph joined the church, John sold to his father twenty-three slaves who were a part of John’s inheritance from his mother. Joseph paid him $8,400 for them, and John wrote a note to himself: “This morning father and I had a final settlement of our business in the way of slave property—a business for life and I hope not ever to be regretted.” John’s personality did not lend itself to the management of slaves—he was too easygoing and lacked the personal discipline needed for the efficient use of slave labor. Besides, he had reservations about slavery itself and wondered whether it was not more trouble for white owners than it was worth. So he sold to his father most of those whom he had inherited from his mother, and in this way twenty-three of those who lived in the settlement at the Retreat were not moved from family and friends but continued to live at the place they had come to know as home.10

  But not only had John inherited slaves from his mother; he had also assumed responsibility for more than thirty slaves whom Jane brought with her into their marriage. After some indecision and investigation, and much advice from his father and brothers and Mary too, he bought Bonaventure, a 2,800-acre plantation on the Medway River, and moved all but the domestic servants to the new settlement he had built on a little knoll where the clouds of mosquitoes were not so thick. A manager was hired to oversee the work of the plantation and to free John from the responsibilities of its immediate supervision.11

  The purchase of Bonaventure was an indication of the growing wealth of the white families closely connected to the Retreat. Joseph himself had expanded the Retreat so that it now contained more than 4,500 acres, and he had purchased in recent years other valuable tracts and plantations, including the 2,500-acre Laurel View and the 800-acre Lodebar, which he had purchased from William Maxwell. Both Laurel View and Lodebar were near Bonaventure, and both produced fine crops of Sea Island cotton. To these new plantations Joseph had moved families of slaves from the growing numbers who lived at the Retreat.12

  The number of slaves was also growing at Carlawter and Maybank, as well as at sister Susan’s White Oak and Social Bluff. Births exceeded deaths in the settlements by substantial margins, and the number of working hands had passed what was needed for the efficient management of these plantations and their labor force.13 In addition, Susan, Laura, and Charles Edward had inherited from the children’s grandfather Audley Maxwell twenty-two slaves. Susan’s husband, Joseph Cumming, managed from Savannah the interests of Susan and the children in Liberty County, but he was in ill health and was not able to do much supervision of the plantations. When he died in 1846, Charles encouraged his sister to buy another plantation where “her people” could be more efficiently managed. After some investigation of various possibilities, Susan purchased nearby Lambert plantation for Laura and Charles Edward.14

  For fifty years Lambert had been at the center of the Gullah community in Liberty County. Its settlement had been largely isolated from white control except for a visiting manager, and there had developed on the place a fierce independence. Here the early black preachers Mingo and Jack had lived, and here old Shaper had spent much of his time. And here midwives and healers, root doctors, conjurers, and storytellers had practiced their skills and had kept alive memories from a distant homeland. But during the 1830s the plantation had become more difficult to manage. Will had gotten drunk on a regular basis, and Fortune a
nd Toney had been involved in disruptive cases of adultery. But what had been most frustrating for the Lambert trustees had been the actions of Prince, Ned, Summer, John, and Scipio. They had broken into storehouses, stolen provisions, and run away. It was all too much for the trustees, and the decision was made to sell the plantation and its slaves and to put the proceeds in some less troublesome investment, such as the new railroads that were being rapidly built across the state. In this way the settlement at Lambert was broken up, its members scattered among various buyers, and the plantation put on the market.15

  Not long after Susan bought Lambert, she moved thirty-eight slaves into the old settlement, where Shaper had preached and where Old Lydia had nursed the sick and Scipio had pulled aching teeth with his pliers. Syphax had been sent ahead to repair the cabins that had stood empty between the sale of the Lambert slaves and Susan’s purchase of the plantation. Most of those sent to Lambert were slaves who had been inherited from grandfather Maxwell. Among them was twenty-three-year-old William, who was made the new driver for the plantation. For the next twenty years, he would be the leader at Lambert, seeing after much of its cotton and rice production.16

  Left at White Oak were the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Old Jupiter and Blind Silvey from Liberty Hall. When White Oak had been split off from Montevideo and Susan’s slaves withdrawn from Carlawter, they had gone to the new settlement at White Oak. There Prince had been made the driver, following in the footsteps of his father, Hamlet, his uncle Jupiter, and his grand-father Old Jupiter. With him in the settlement were eight other grandchildren of Old Jupiter and Blind Silvey and ten great-grandchildren.17

  The growth of the slave families at Carlawter and Maybank meant that Charles and Mary were also feeling pressure for more land. In response, they purchased in 1845 John Dunwody’s Arcadia plantation. Located toward the center of the county, not far from Midway Church, Arcadia straddled streams and swamps that were a part of the headwaters for the North Newport. Dunwody had already carefully developed its 1,996 acres, and the plantation was known for the quality of its rice produced on inland swamps. A fine plantation home stood at the end of a straight, oak-lined avenue that ran perpendicular to the main road, which ran west from Midway to the new county seat at Hinesville. The settlement, located close to the road, was to the left of the avenue as one approached the plantation house and helped to provide not only an impressive entrance but also, for those who lived there, easy access to a wider world. Altogether Arcadia represented a splendid addition to Charles and Mary’s estate, and while it would never be home for them in the way Montevideo and Maybank were home, it was to provide significant income for them and their children during the coming years.18

  Charles and Mary moved thirty-one slaves from Carlawter to the settlement at Arcadia in January 1846. The central family in the move, and the one that remained at Arcadia during the various shuffling of people during the coming years, was the family of Jack’s brother Robin. This family was to lay the foundation for a community at Arcadia that lasted long after freedom came. Stepney, Daddy Robin’s only son, was named by Charles to be the new driver at Arcadia, a position he held until the disruptions of war and then resumed in a radical new form after the war’s end.19

  Such moves as those to Laurel View and Lodebar, Lambert and Arcadia not only demonstrated once again the arbitrary power of whites, but also made Sundays an even more important time for those who lived in the settlements. Sundays provided an opportunity for separated families to gather at Midway or North Newport and have the day together. Because there were morning and afternoon services and lessons, the whole day could be spent at church. Simple meals brought from the settlements would be eaten in the early afternoon, and there would be much visiting among those who had been forced apart. So the very act of going to church was a means of resisting the power of whites to separate families and to control the lives of the black men and women of Liberty County.

  If the wealth of the white families connected to the Retreat grew during these years, the fortunes of the younger generation did not immediately flourish with regard to romance and marriage. Charles Berrien—the oldest son of Joseph and Elizabeth Screven Jones—married Marion Susan Anderson in 1843. The marriage was apparently happy enough, but Marion had an unstable side to her personality that would later, under stress, result in bizarre and criminal behavior. As for Charles Berrien, he had been and evidently remained something of a mother’s boy. He lacked his father’s drive and business acumen, and he would never be as successful in planting and other business activities as his younger brothers Henry Hart and James Newton. But what he lacked in success he made up for in pomposity. Being well connected became the primary source of his identity, shaping not only the way he saw himself but also the way he saw and judged others.20

  The day after Charles Berrien married Marion, his sister Evelyn married Marion’s brother Joseph Anderson. Evelyn—who had traveled with Charles, Mary, and the children to the North in 1839—was a favorite of family and friends. She possessed a gentle and affectionate manner and enjoyed the company of many friends. But she was in poor health and had been most of her life. Her trip to the North had been in large part an attempt to gain strength and put on weight, but she was frail when she married. And the man she married, like his sister, had an unstable side to his personality. His instability later led to alcoholism and probably to opium addiction, and the misery that would come his way would serve as a warning to all who knew him.21

  Of all the children of Joseph and Elizabeth Screven Jones, none was more attractive in spirit than James Newton Jones. He had a kind disposition, he looked for the best in others, and, when there were disagreements between friends and family, he sought to be a mediator and reconciler. Moreover, others looked to him as a responsible person who cheerfully sought to do what was best for his family and friends. About a year after the marriages of his brother and sister he became engaged to Mary King, daughter of Roswell and Julia. Mary was, as Betsy described her, “gay as a lark and at the head of all mischief and fun.” She admired James, thought he would make a good husband, and said yes when he proposed. The trouble was that she did not love him. He was perhaps too responsible, too agreeable, and too much of a reconciler for her lively spirit. Julia pleaded with her daughter as Mary began to waver and to wonder whether she had made a mistake in becoming engaged to James. Julia said that affection built upon a foundation of respect and esteem “must be productive of happiness.” But such parental advice did no good, and Mary King broke the engagement. Julia had to write the letter to James Newton telling him of Mary’s decision. “I have a singular letter from Mrs. K to show you,” he wrote his sister Mary Jones. “Thanks to a merciful providence,” he confessed, “I am able calmly to bear what I once thought I never would.”22

  “Is not Cousin Mary King’s conduct scandalous,” wrote Charles Edward Maxwell. A solemn and sacred commitment had been made and then broken. “I cannot approve or justify that which I honestly believe to be wrong,” wrote Mary Jones to her friend Julia. But she assured her that she had no “feeling of ill will or unkindness” to young Mary and that, in spite of the pain, the relationship between the families would not be damaged. In four years Mary would marry Charlton Henry Wells, a handsome young physician, a graduate of Dartmouth and the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. It would be six years before a bruised James Newton Jones married the attractive daughter of a neighboring planter. Both marriages would be happy, and both would be short.23

  Henry Hart Jones was the third child of Joseph and Elizabeth Screven Jones. He possessed in large measure those qualities of his father lacking in Charles Berrien—a quick mind, great energy, and a determined will. As a college student in Athens, he fell in love with Laura Maxwell—as well he might, for of all the women associated with the Retreat, she was not only the most beautiful but also the one possessed with the most playful spirit and the most winsome personality. Like her Aunt Betsy and her cousin Mary King, she lo
ved to tease and to laugh and to tell stories on herself and on friends and family that revealed in humorous ways the foibles and pretensions of the human heart.24 So it was not surprising that Henry fell in love with her; he was one of many. He told her that he loved her, and she evidently listened to him and wondered what it might be like to be married to him. But for two years he said nothing to Laura’s mother, Susan, about his feelings, confiding only to his sister Mary Jones, who, as always, was ready to give advice. Finally he wrote from school in Athens, requesting permission to begin a “correspondence” with Laura that would mean an engagement. Laura, he wrote his sister Mary, responded “in quite a kind and open manner, in which she announced the decision of her Mother with reference to our correspondence.” Susan had said no. “Tell Henry,” she had said, “I think it best to defer the consideration of the matter until his course of study is completed; he is very young and the delay will not be hurtful, but rather beneficial.”25

  The response was kind and, as with the best of southern manners, it allowed Henry to hear the decision as a practical matter and not as a personal affront that would rupture relations within the family. But as so often with southern manners, Susan’s answer also evidently concealed deeper and more troubling matters. The problem was not that Laura was Henry’s first cousin once removed, but that Henry at a very young age already had two children by a slave woman in the settlement. She was a mulatto, apparently very attractive and no older than Henry. While much about the character of their relationship (even her name) was hidden behind the protective screen of southern society, one thing was clearv —he was a white male, son of a powerful planter, and she was a vulnerable young woman, the slave of a powerful planter. Power and its abuse were fundamental factors in the relationship, even if there had been an element of consent on her part. She, after all, was a slave in a system that demanded obedience.26