For many, the casual reading of history is a pleasant diversion from the monotony of all that's modern. For others, the reading of history can be instructional -- i.e., de Tocqueville's Democracy in America (1834), abridged edition, is as timely a read for the politically savvy as it ever was in the 1840s.

Finding an old account of Charleston written 327 years ago is as exciting to the lover of local history as the finding of colored glass is to an archaeologist. Little is known of Samuel Wilson other than the fact that he was in the employ of the 1st Earl of Craven.

However, no one had better vantage to write a report for the London investors in Carolina than did Samuel Wilson, secretary to the Carolina governing council in 1682. Charles Town, the new city being built on Oyster Point, known today as White Point, was just 2 years old.

Victory by sword

Samuel Craven was secretary of the privy council here, a circle of aristocrats who owed allegiance to the Duke of Albemarle and the Lords Proprietors. Serving as secretary in London to the Proprietors was William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven. Much of Samuel Wilson's correspondence was addressed to him.

Earl Craven was, in his young adult years, had fought for Bohemian King Frederick V on the Continent during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). As a soldier of fortune, William Craven had not been born of gentleman status. Yet, with his sword he won fame, fortune, and the heart of beautiful Elizabeth, the queen consort of Frederick. Elizabeth was the sister of England's King Charles I, and she influenced Craven to support her brother Charles financially during the English Civil War. Whether Craven was Elizabeth's lover, or whether he was her devoted courtier, historians can only conjecture. But the beautiful royal had complete sway over the English general employed in her husband's army.

When Charles I was beheaded in 1649, Cromwell seized William Craven's lands in Berkshire. With the restoration of the Stuarts in 1660, Charles II restored Craven's lands tenfold and made him an Earl. William Craven the proprietor most closely connected with every phase of the this colony's development. Samuel Wilson was Craven's regular correspondent. His letters and reports are some of early Carolina's most valuable accounts.

A view of two rivers

Wilson's earliest account begins: ‘In may, 1680, The Lords proprietors sent their orders to the government there appointing the port Town for these two rivers to be built on the Point of land that divides them, and to be called Charles Town, since which time about a hundred houses are built, and more are building daily by the persons of all sorts who come there to inhabit, from the more northern English colonies, and the Sugar islands, England, and Ireland ....'

Like early historians of the Virginia Colony, Wilson describes this region as a northern part of Florida. The Florida appellation, as late as 1682 when this account was written, shows still how much Spain influenced the thinking of those Englishmen who'd seized this region for themselves. Ponce de Leon had given the whole of the southern region of North America the Floridas designation in 1513.

A busy harbor

By 1680 it was common, said Wilson, to see 16 ships riding anchor at one time in Charles Town harbor, some approximating 200 tons. These ships came from the farthest reaches of the British empire. Carpenters were already constructing massive bridges into the eastern side of Charles Town's peninsula. What we call a pier, or a dock, the colonials called a bridge. The bridges were triangular and reached into deep water. Large ships calling here were off-loaded without ferrying their cargo on skiffs.

David Shields, McClintock professor of southern letters at the University of South Carolina, in an article titled 'mean Streets, mannered streets: Charleston,' describes the earliest markets, which were located near the ship bridges.

'Be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That at least four Days before any Sale is to be made by him the said Vendue Master at publick Out-Cry–he shall fix and put up at the most noted and the usual Places in Charles-town several Notes and Papers, thereby to certify that on such a Day such Goods and Merchandizes or others . . . are to be sold . . . and immediately before such Sale begins, the said Vendue Master shall cause publick Notice to be given by Ringing of a Hand Bell through the most usual and frequented Streets in Charles-Town.'

Shields, arguably the most knowledgeable source on colonial Charles Town culture, relates that streets here were not officially named until the 1720s. Sailors and citizens alike referred to locations here by referencing popular taverns, tall steeples, public buildings, and warehouses.

Farm friendly

Samuel Wilson reported to Earl Craven that cattle thrived in the pastures of the Lowcountry and that he [Wilson] believed that Carolina could supply [the] northern colonies with salted beef cheaper than they themselves [could do]. According to Wilson, hogs do even better in this area, and a single settler can easily raise 300 hogs with no trouble since hogs forage for themselves.

It's a wonder that Earl Craven wasn't tempted to sail out to Carolina to see this bountiful new land for himself, but by 1682 the astute Londoners were well-used to the hyperbole used by colonial administrators. Ever since Richard Hakluyt published in 1582 his Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America and the Islands Adjacent unto the Same, Londoners had been hearing tales of the New World that were almost too good to be true.

Hakluyt, who is mentioned in most American History textbooks, never ventured to the New World. He culled accounts secondhand from English sea-lords who themselves were seeking more funding. However, Samuel Wilson dwelled somewhere within the walls of early Charles Town.

When Wilson wrote that our early townsmen imported 150 mares and colts from New York and Rhode Island to breed with local stock and that the offspring were uniformly superior to their Dams and Sires, what could an Englishman do but yearn for generous acreage in Carolina!

Some things remarked upon by Wilson are amusing to today's reader. 'With the Indians the English have a perfect friendship, they being both useful to one another.'

 Taking everything into consideration, Wilson's on-the-scene reporting doesn't appear any more biased than the government reports we read today.

Dr. Thomas B. Horton is a history teacher at Porter-Gaud School.