Arriving at Charlestown

Wally Waits

©2014

Since the majority of English and Welsh citizens were farmers, it is highly likely that John Waight was a farmer, too.  Born about 1708, he lived during the period of great change.  Manors were enclosing farm land in a shift to raising livestock.  Lords were changing from “open farming” to the concept of tenant farming. The estate’s land was assigned to specific families in exchange for annual payments.  The result of these changes was a large number of farmers were losing their livelihoods.

In the 1760’s, this change was nearly a century old.  Perhaps the Waightes had tried tenant farming and, as many did, found it unsustainable.  Whether or not they were either newly arrived from the farm, or they were giving up on living in a city (Bristol?); in 1767 the decision was made to immigrate to the British colonies in the New World.

The Waightes were apparently recruited to make the trip by the offer of the owner of the ship St. Helena.  He would ferry the six across the Atlantic in exchange for the Colony of South Carolina’s payment for Protestant immigrants.  This probably explains how the choice was made to go to a southern colony.

This also suggests that the Waightes were nearly indigent at least to the point of being unable to pay their own way and still have enough money left over to start fresh.  They very well may have boarded the St. Helena with only a little money in their pockets, a few small possessions and the clothes on their backs.

After the St. Helena left the port of Bristol, England, it sailed for more than a month southwest across the Atlantic Ocean to its home port in Charlestown, Colony of South Carolina.  The St. Helena was usually loaded with a freight cargo.  This is the only known time the St. Helena took immigrants to Charlestown.

Philadelphian Pelatiah Webster[1] arrived at the same port three years earlier.  His first view of the coast was of “low lands” and very few places of raised land.  The Waightes on board the St. Helena probably had the same view and experiences.

There were a few seagoing ships visible in the harbor.  On Monday February 1^st, five vessels had arrived at Charlestown.  The next day two more arrived.  On Wednesday, when the St. Helena arrived, it was one among six that arrived in the harbor.  While no more sailed into Charlestown on Thursday, Friday saw the arrival of 25 new ships including four[2] that probably sailed from Bristol on the same wind as the St. Helena.

The St. Helena was one of about 450 that arrived at the entrance to the Charlestown harbor in 1768.[3]  Captain George Arthur ordered the lowering of the sails and then dropped anchor.  The “harbor bar at Charleston” required ships of 200 tons or more to lighten their load in order to cross into the harbor.[4]  With a cargo capacity of 1000 barrels, the St. Helena could carry 625,000 pounds of rice. This capacity meant that the St. Helena was rated at over 300 tons.  So Capt. Arthur would have waited for the harbor pilot.  Before long, a small sailboat arrived at the St. Helena’s side bearing the harbor pilot who guided the St. Helena across the sand bar that blocked much of the harbor’s entrance.  It took a couple of hours for the St. Helena to drop anchor a second time once inside the harbor.

In 1765, Webster’s ship dropped anchor 100 fathoms, or about 600 feet, from shore near the “market house.”  This market house was one for the sale of fish.  Two other markets were for vegetables or produce and for meat.  They served much like a farmer’s market of the present day and were opened each morning by the ringing of bells.  Later travelers observed buzzards feasting on the beef, pork and fish remains at the markets.[5]

Sloops arriving from Caribbean ports were small enough to sail directly up to the wharf.  The wharf led directly to the Customs House.  The Royal Customs House was where the passengers and cargo passed through and officially entered the colony. Trading companies counted their incoming and outgoing cargo at the Customs House. The people there would have included buyers and sellers making deals, clerks tallying the barrels and crates of merchandise being on-loaded and off-loaded, and the curious townsman looking for the latest foreign news about events in the other colonies and overseas.

Businessmen would be especially interested in the latest information about the changes in currency exchange rates and the demand for commodities in European markets.[6] 
Merchants would eagerly listen for news about ships reaching foreign ports and the latest losses of ships at sea.

At the Custom House, there were many crates and barrels stacked in preparations for loading on either outgoing freighters or freight wagons destined for the Charlestown businesses.

The port at Charlestown was much smaller than the ports at Philadelphia or New York City, and was tiny compared to English or European ports.  In British shipping, however, the Charlestown port was second only to that of Virginia and Maryland. Most of the arrivals dropped anchor from December to May when Charlestown was at its busiest.[7]

The Brig Lord Dungannon also arrived Wednesday, but shortly after the St. Helena dropped anchor.  It brought 139 Irish immigrants to Charlestown.  They were among the 3,000 Irish who arrived between 1761 and 1768.[8]

There was a Waits family aboard the Brig Lord Dungannon.  It consisted of John (age 24), Mary (age 23) and Eleanor (age 2) among the passengers.  Given that this brigantine put to sea at Belfast, Ireland, there is little likelihood of a close family connection with the Waightes.  This idea about non-kinship is reinforced by the fact that the Irish family did not select land near the Waightes, nor are there later records that might suggest any type of association.

The Lord Dungannon was a “bounty” ship that carried a human cargo much like a “slaver” ship did.  The difference between the two was that the Irish were recruited by ship owners to immigrate.[9]  Many were said to have suffered greatly from little food and crowding during their voyage.  The colony paid the ship owners £2 for the Irish youth between the ages of 2 and 15. For adults over the age of 15 there was a payment of £4 sterling.

Activity at the Charlestown harbor just bustled and hummed starting Friday.  To the Waightes, the crowded harbor would have been a topic of conversation.  A survey in 1770 counted 1292 dwelling houses and an estimated population of 5,000 white and 5,800 black inhabitants.[10]

The Waightes had to find lodging in a tavern at as none was provided by the colony for the immigrants.  Until the colonial government paid 20 shillings each to help the new immigrant survive until their first harvest, the Waightes had been forced to spend the meager savings they had when boarding the St. Helena.

After wandering about the streets of Charles Town for ten days, it was time for the immigrants to go to apply for the land promised by the colonial government.  It was a madhouse on Feb. 13^th when the Waightes entered the state house.

They followed the Irish immigrants who were aboard the Brig. Lord Dungannon.  Just like the Irish, they were asked to hand over a “certificate of good character.”  This certificate could have been signed by either a court official or a church minister.  If they had no certificate, they had to attest that they were of Protestant faith.  Then the immigrant swore allegiance to King George II.

As the Waightes meandered their way from the Colonial Secretary’s office, to the Treasurer’s office, they jostled elbows with the other immigrants trying to stay together as they moved through the State House.  At last, the six Waightes were paid £6, which amounted to 120 shillings sterling to cover the cost of necessities such as tools and seed for starting a farm.  One pound in 1768 was worth $180 in today’s dollars.[11]

The money set aside by the Colony of South Carolina to fund the immigration program was all spent by the following July.  At that time, the flood of new settlers ended.  Payment for immigrants ended except for a couple of ship loads of immigrants, for who had sailed before word arrived in European ports that the colony was no longer paying for Protestant immigrants.

Thereafter, the colonial government ceased recording the arrival of immigrants.  The records were never kept for people who could afford their passage fares, or who had friends or family to pay the fare for them.

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[1] Journal of a Voyage to Charlestown in So. Carolina by Pelatiah Webster in 1765. Found at http://books.google.com/books?id=m7E-AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:webster+inauthor:pelatiah&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3rUtVNbJB4-byASbyoD4Cg&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false

[2]South Carolina Immigrants, 1760 to 1770, by Moreland & Warren, p. 259-260.  The four Bristol ships were the Ship Indian King, Snow Elizabeth, Brigt. Unanimity, and Brigt. Barclay.

[3] Charleston Business on the Eve of the American Revolution, by Leila Sellers, p. 11.

[4] Charleston Business on the Eve of the American Revolution, by Leila Sellers, p. 4.  The “bar” was the sand and silt that piled up at harbor entrances often requiring ships to be lightened before entry into the harbor.  The harbor pilot knew where the deeper water was enabling to sail across gaps where the bar was lower.

[5] Charleston Business on the Eve of the American Revolution, p. 21.

[6] Robert Morris: Financier of the American Revolution, by Charles Rappleye, p. 11, 25.

[7] Journal of a Voyage to Charlestown in So. Carolina by Pelatiah Webster in 1765, p. 7.

[8] South Carolina: A History, by Walter B. Edgar, p. 59.

[9] Ulster Roots, Aug-Sep. 2002,  http://www.ajlambert.com/paul/strytctc.pdf

[10] Charleston Business on the Eve of the American Revolution, p. 15.

[11] Historical Currency Conversions, at http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=1&currency=pounds&fromYear=1768, says that 1 English pound in 1768 would equal 180.3 USD in 2014.  One British pound also was the same as 20 shillings.