St. James Santee

Can we talk irony for a moment here?  I find irony in the fact that the sweeping plantations of old have been swept under Lake Marion or else recaptured by the woods.  One key graveyard I wanted to visit is sleeping under a now-recreational lake.  Really, I mean really.  Meanwhile, the Lucas houses are all still standing, and look there's even a marker on the road

installed by the historical society of the area. 

My Francis Marion marker was less generous.   

At least, at least, some of the important stuff is under special care as part of a state forest. 

Named after Uncle Francis.  So there.

Case in point: Hampton Plantation of Charleston County.  Uncle Francis was friends with the owners, the Horrys, and took refuge there when Charleston was taken by the British in 1780.  Daniel Horry's brother Peter served with Francis Marion.  There's a story that the Charleston leadership was gathered round getting drunk, celebrating, perhaps the day before the British seized the city, and that Marion was the only sober fellow there.  He fled undetected by jumping from a 2nd floor window, breaking his ankle in the process, and being carted away to the family estate in Georgetown to recoop.  He didn't jump out of a building, people.  He got the hell out of there.  The Tories lead the British to Hampton Plantation in their pursuit of Marion, but Horry's wife Harriott woke him in the middle of the night and told him to swim across the creek so the enemy'd lose his scent.  How'd he manage to do that with a broken ankle?

Wambaw Church, St. James Santee parish, fourth building, dated 1768.  The parrish was founded in 1705, and would've included the Marions, Cordes, le Seruriers, de St. Juliens, Balluets, Deas, Horrys, and Hugers.  And all the love connections that carried over from France.   I've been looking at geneology records from these families, taking me to 17th century France, and all of the families were all intermarried and friendly

before they even boarded the boats to Charleston. 

The church above was used in The Patriot, when Gabriel Martin brings the cause to the people.

 

Pamphlets and church meetings were common unifiers for the cause. 

Wedge Plantation House, built by William Lucas in 1826.  The property originally belonged to my ancestor Elizabeth Deas Middleton, and was divided upon her death.  The house straddles Charleston and Georgetown counties on the South Santee River, where the French Huguenots settled.  Georgetown is the other port of South Carolina, and the 2nd oldest city. 

I used to discount it, but no more. 

the man who was legend

Marion forgotten, and by me!  No, never!  While memory looks back on the dreadful days of the revolution: when a a British despot, not the nation... but a proud, stupid, obstinate, despot, trampling the Holy Charter and constitution of England's realm, issued against us, Sons of Britons, that most unrighteous edict, taxation without representation!  And then, because in the spirit of our gallant fathers, we bravely opposed him, he broke up the very foundations of his malice, and let loose upon us every indescribable, unimaginable curse of civil war; when British armies, with their Hessian, and Indian, and Tory allies, overran my afflicted country, swallowing up its fruits and filling every part with consternation; when no one thing was to be seen but flying crowds, burning houses, and young men hanging upon the trees like dogs, and old men wringing their withered hands over their murdered boys, and women and children weeping and flying from their ruined plantations into the starving woods!  When I think, I say, of these things, oh my God!  How can I ever forget Marion, that vigilant, undaunted soldier, whom thy own mercy raised up to scourge such monsters, and avenge his country's wrongs.

-Peter Horry, 1824
Friend and fellow soldier

trail of breadcrumbs

Lake Marion, a project paired with Lake Moultrie by Santee Cooper, filled 1939.

Francis Marion's homestead, Pond Bluff

This estate, as well as others, were swallowed by Lake Marion.

Cordesville Francis Marion Historical Marker. 

Cordesville was named for Francis's grandfather, Anthony Cordes.

Gabriel and Esther Charlotte Marion's family home,

Goatfield Plantation, was here.

Berkeley County snore

I did not, in all honesty, set out to write a geneology any more than I would ask for the dwindling interest of a friend to endure a long-winded family tree review.  Yawn?  Some are interested, and you have them for an audience immediately, and others hear enough.  What I am driven to do, ardently, is speak to the fabric of the United States, the grit of bearing a united republic into the world from nothing, but from the very heart of those who desired to be free and beholden to none.  The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, words we memorize to pass in some history class way back when, were and are rare in the world.  The New World, and then the United States represented hope to a lot of people.  Still does.

The picture at left is satellite topography, and for me it's a way to see the forest for the trees, the coast as it may have appeared hundreds of years ago, without the industry and distractions of modern times.  Cloud's eye view.  I want to show you Georgetown, South Carolina's port, still an important one today, as a series of outlines, which the stories of the peoples who settled there fleshed out.  Somewhere in the middle of this history lesson, I found myself.  This is my lineage, this is my blood.

     Strawberry Chapel (1725) in Cordesville, Berkeley County. 

Rice Hope Plantation, house rebuilt 1840 on original foundation of the 1696 Daniel Huger "Luckins" plantation house in Moncks Corner.  Huger was a French Huguenot rice planter.

Berkeley County doesn't look like much.  It's flat, sandy, and just a big forest.  I have ridden on I-26 a bizillion times and always found driving through Dorchester and Berkeley counties a big snore.  We might not realize what's sleeping under the forest floor, what stories the places can tell.  Charleston was recently one of the fastest growing cities in the country, until the economy went south, and in the throws of clearing land for roads or housing communities, treasures were uncovered.  An example from 2005: a Civil War battle's remnants outside of Beaufort were awoken from the grave by a steamroller, putting all progress to a hault.  How quickly do we forget where we came from, in the romantic spin [or apathetic nod] we've given the past.  The people who settled and founded this country stood on the same soil that we do, only we are standing on their backs, on who they were and what they did.  Basic lesson of history: we're here because of them.  I see this education as an expression of gratitude.

Lou

This blog is the second installment of the sidebar project I have been digging into, for the holes in my mother's family history.  I used to believe that the Ramseys, my great great grandmother's family, were direct from Scotland and were, by all accounts, old school Church of England folk.  There are two things that you need to know about the Scotch: they are the most hospitable, enjoyable people you will ever meet, and they are adamantly NOT ENGLISH.

I once met a Scottish tourist during my time working on a plantation in Charleston.  He asked for my name after I'd spoken with him for a time.  He said, "Ramsey is a Scottish name.  You know the Scottish did exactly what the English did to them to their own slaves."  To have a Scotsman give me a history lesson, and to the point, too!  He's correct: has anyone here seen Braveheart?  Look at me tying in another Mel Gibson movie.  My point, ladies and gentleman, is that the English treated the Scots as subservient for a long time.  They made the Scots into tenants of their own land, and routinely took liberty with their women.  I'm getting a little Scotch anger just thinking about it.  When the Calvinist Movement of the Protestant Reformation swept through Scotland and the Scots left the Catholic Church by the droves, they were persecuted.  They became known as the Presbytiers.  There's a parallel between what happened to the Scottish Protestants and the French Protestants.  The Scots moved to Northern Ireland, to a province known as Ulster (see above) and were called "Ulstermen."  Here they intermarried with the Irish and again, tended their land as tenants of English land.  Until they'd had it with all the war-mongering, and started leaving for food, money, and freedom in several sweeping waves to the New World. 

The journey was frought with danger, but I believe that the heartyness of the Scots Irish is what lead them to endure.  They landed in Philadelphia and pushed into the settlements west of Philadelphia, same thing in the mountains of Maryland.  Sidebar: my paternal grandfather's mothers family, the Harrises, were Scots Irish who came down to South Carolina from Maryland.  Many of the Scots Irish paid for their journey by selling themselves into an arrangement of 4 years indentured service, in exchange for land.  Trouble: the land was Indian country.  It is said that for every Native American killed by the settlers that 50 settlers were captured as slaves or killed by the Native Americans.  It was genocide.  The Scots Irish pressed onward, aggressive people, down the Cumberland into Virginia and thrived.  Many joined the war front and made a name for themselves.  One such family was the Ramsey clan.  I was named for them, and this is their story.  

 

John Ramsey, Sr was born 1710 in Henry county, Virginia colony.  His parents were more than likely immigrants, and their information would take me to Northern Ireland.  Ramsey Sr. married a woman in his parish named Mary, and together they had seven children.  Mortality was high: people had as many children as they could to ensure the family farm was tended and that the family line continued.  Their eldest son John Ramsey, Jr. (1740-1781) was my great grandfather.  This is the beginning of the Ramsey story.  John married Mary, and their eldest son Randolph "Randal" Ramsey (1765-1826) is another one for the Daughters of the American Revolution application.  I'm coming for you, ladies.  Randal came from not much, and enlisted in his teens to the First Georgia Battalion during the Revolutionary War.  By 1784 his captain [Boswick] awarded him [for his service]  250 acres, tax free [for 10 years], in East Georgia, on the banks of the Savannah River.  Randal married Mary N of Georgia and had seven children.  I am descended from his eldest, Randolph (1784-1866).  Randolph had his own homestead a county north, in Lincolnton.  He was removed from the family drama which went down when Randolph Sr's Will went missing.  The old man had remarried, and had multiple land holdings, adopted children, and slaves by the end of his life.  Everyone wanted a piece.  I have the names of the slaves: Arthur, Sally, Ursula, and Dinah Doggett from the 2nd wife, Mary Doggett Ramsey's first marriage.  Violet "Vile," Louisa, Flora, and Jacob Ramsey were all willed to old man Randolph Ramsey's youngest daughter, Polly.  I have a HUGE soapbox about owning people.  The subject will take on several blogs for itself.

It's time for my new favorite ancestor, Lou.  Lucretia "Lou" P. Ramsey (1856-?) was the granddaughter of the above mentioned Randolph Ramsey, Jr. who had moved his family from Chatham to Lincolnton.  Randolph Jr's son Caleb was Lou's dad.  Lucretia had a ridiculously formal name, the likes of Thomasina or Edwina.  Gag.  The family nicknamed her "Lou" for short, and I think that makes her more approachable.  She had 10 brothers and sisters, and probably helped to raise half of them!  One was named for Jefferson Davis, no lie.  Lou married John Peter Dill (1846-?) of Lincolnton on Thanksgiving Day, 1875.  Lou and her siblings took turns naming their children after each other.  I'm taking that from the headstones.  The majority of the family is burried in the Sharon Baptist Church graveyard in Appling, Georgia.  Road trip!  I'm up to five graveyards to visit now. 

Lou and John's children were

Annie L. (1882-?)

Lillian M. (1884-?)

Clara Eubanks (May 1, 1890-April 20, 1980)

Noel Ramsey (1893-?)

Thomas N. (1896-1937)

Daisey (after 1900)

Clara Eubanks Dill was my great grandmother.  We're consulting my Uncle Bill for more stories about her. 

I found a 1900 Census record taken the the Lincolnton, Georgia population.  Lou was written "Lori" and poor Noel Ramsey was listed as a son!  Dumb census taker.  At least I know that my great aunt Noel felt the same pain I have felt, in always being assumed as male.  My grandmother, mother, and first cousin are all Noels.  You should've seen my mom go after the undergraduate admissions people at my future college, for nearly putting me in the boys dorm!

Clara's father, John Peter Dill was of Scots Irish descent as well.  The surname Dill comes from MacDougall.  I make the assumption, because there are Dills from Germany as well, that the Dills were Scots Irish because they had slaves and many early German immigrants sold themselves into indentured service to witness to the slaves rather than hope to own some.  I live in Moravian country right now, so I know.    Every image search I have done for an image of "Historic Lincoln" and "Historic Columbia" counties has yielded slave sale records insteadof big pretty houses.  End of story.

John Peter Dill was the son of Peter Coleman Dill and Mary Ann Bentley of Columbia County, Georgia.   Peter was a Lodge member in Haysville.  Is that like an Elk or a Mason?  John had an older sister named Ann, and a little brother named Joseph William.  John Peter Dill was named for his great grandfather, Peter Dill (1770-1837) of Virginia, who moved the family to Columbia County.  Puzzle pieces connected, researcher exhausted but happy. 

the last of the Mohicans

Lucretia "Lou" Ramsey P. Dill, my great great grandmother

I remember learning to write my name.  I was furious with my mother for giving me a long, unusual sounding name when I was surrounded by feminine Jessica's, Jennifer's, and Ann's.  My sister didn't have it any better.  I was named for my mother's family, of whom my mother is the last surviving member.  Mom is indeed the last of her kind, the last of the Mohicans.  She was being sentimental, naming me for her great aunt.  When you're a kid ANYTHING is better than being named for a great aunt, because the names of generations past are more formal and traditional.  I believe formal and sentimental names are making a come-back, but then trends are trends. 

My great aunt was one of four sisters, Annie, Daisey, and Noel Ramsey
who raised my grandmother Noel and her little brother, John, in Kittyhawk.  Noel Ramsey Dill had all the beaus, they say.  Wish that translated to me, haha.  Clara was my mom's grandmother, and a permanent installation in her life until she passed in the morning of 1980.  She had come to live with my mother's parents and had stayed with them for decades.  Twice married and feisty, Clara E. Dill Gibbs O'Neal lived to be 89, passing just weeks before her 90th birthday. 

I have a confession to make.   I had a geneology project to do in the fourth grade.  This kind of research isn't uncharted territory.  But there was a large hole in my mom's story until this very day.  The Gibbs, the Dills, and the Ramseys have all been traced by yours truly. to their humble beginnings in the New World.  There's so much that I must condense and type it in another blog.  This one's all you, Mom.  Pictures, from the top: Lucretia "Lou" P. Ramsey Dill, Clara and her sisters Annie, Daisy, and Noel Ramsey in Kittyhawk, Clara and my grandmother Noel in Venezuela, and my grandmother Noel with her brother at Pawley's Island.

The Book of Job

This is a retype.  Blogspot is a fine host for blogs, but when you lose your internet connection you cannot cut and paste your document!  Enough about that.  I want to speak to you again about separating the man, Francis Marion, from the myth, the Rambo-style family man with wildly romantic war battles.  Historic Brattonsville in South Carolina, is where the Martin family estate was supposedly set , when in reality Francis Marion lived with his brother Gabriel and eventually tended his parents estate [Goatfield Plantation] at Winyah Bay after his father passed in 1770.  Francis eventually had his own place, Pond Bluff, featured here in black and white, right next door to brother Gabriel's Belle Isle Plantation.  Pond Bluff is now at the bottom of Lake Marion.  Way to go, South Carolina.  Why were Francis and his brother so close?  Because their age difference was so great that Francis more or less grew up with his brother's kids.  That happens in families.  Gabriel and Marion enlisted together in 1775, when the Revolution was in its beginnings.

Look at this picture, which I have borrowed from a website whose obnoxious address I cannot get rid of, and take note that Hollywood portrayed Francis Marion as a father, when in reality he was the prized uncle of many nieces and nephews.  His favorite?  Big brother Gabriel's son, Gabriel Marion IV.  He was the one I mentioned who was captured and brutally murdered by the Tories, the colonists who sided with the English, just for being a Marion.  Young Gabriel's death brought out the "highly spiced" inner monster of Francis Marion, and he was peaceful farmer no longer.

So, how does all of it trickle down to yours truly?  I have devoured the family ancestry websites, and uncovered the family line.  I will produce a tree or chart when my research is complete, because for now there are holes in the story and while I've got it figured out, it is confusing as hell.  Allow me to throw in the "begot's" of Old Testament style, as we make our way back in time.

IN THE BEGINNING

Jean Marion (1645-?) and Perinne Boutignon (1650-?) of France had two sons: Gabriel and Benjamin.  The brothers were from Poitou-Charentes Province, France.  It is beautiful there.  Both of these men boarded a boat bound for the Carolinas around 1690.  Gabriel Marion (1666-?) is the grandfather of Francis Marion, our hero.  He is also my great grandfather.  Gabriel Marion's little brother Benjamin Marion, Sr. (1674-1735) is my great uncle.  I am able to keep them separated in my mind because Gabriel and his wife Louisa D'Aubrey bought land and built an estate [Goatfield Plantation] in Winyah Bay, while Benjamin and his wife Judith Baluet settled in Charleston.  The South Carolina French Huguenot Society recognizes Benjamin Marion, Sr , "the immigrant," as a man about town.  So, one brother was town, the other was country.

Benjamin Sr. had a son named Gabriel (1695-1747), and a son named Benjamin Jr.  See, confusing!  I am not descended from this family.

Back to Gabriel Marion, Sr (1666-?) and his wife Louisa D'Aubrey. 

They had son Gabriel, Jr (1695-1747).  I know, it looks as if he and his first cousin are the same person, but they're separate.  Gabriel Jr. married Esther Charlotte Cordes (1695-1757) in 1711.  They had six children.  Return to The Patriot for a moment, and recall that the man character, Benjamin Martin (based loosely upon Francis Marion) uses his concern for the care of his children as a reason not to join the war front.  Change that around and make him the youngest of a large family, and his mother, not his romantic interest, is named Charlotte.  Gabriel Marion, Jr and Esther Charlotte's children were

Gabriel Marion, III (1711-1777)

Issac Marion (1715-1781)

Benjamin Marion (1718-1778)

Job Marion (1721-1778)

Esther Marion (?-?)

Francis Marion (1732-1795)

Francis was the "surprise" of the family, in more ways than one: he was born sickly, with crooked legs, and he became the man who turned the tide of the war.  He was born the same year as George Washington, and many have called him "the George Washington of the South."  He married his cousin, Mary Videau, when he was 54 and she was 49.   They had no children.

Bringing It Home

I am the descendant of Francis Marion's brother, Job.  I'm looking for you, Job!  There's so little information about him, and I am longing to visit Georgetown, read the archives and find his grave.  Job Marion married twice.  His first wife was my great grandmother, Elizabeth de St. Julien (1730-1755), whom he married in 1752.  Do the math and you will see that poor Elizabeth may have died in childbirth or from disease, because she only lived 3 years into her marriage.  Was Job that hard to live with?  They had at least a son, who produced Helen de St. Julien Marion. 

Helen married Robert A. Palmer of Abbeville, SC, along the Savannah River near Clemson.  They had a slew of children, including Sallie Ramey Palmer, who married John James Gray during the Civil War.  Their son John Francis Gray married fiesty Elvira "Elvie" Milford.  Their first son was George Marion Gray (1897-1976), my Popaw.  His daughter Marian Ann Gray (1929-1984) married my grandfather Clayton, and their first son was Steve, my dad.  Took a lot of "begot's" but it's all coming together. 

   My grandfather and I, 2009.

France

Words cannot express what I learned in yesterday's research.  A huge thank you to ancestry resources of the Church of Latter Day Saints: I'm not a member of your church, but I truly appreciate your website http://www.familysearch.org/.  I was able trace back to 1608, a true accomplishment!  The Marions left from La Rochelle, as I have mentioned.  The de St. Julien family is from Bordeax, wine country.   The Mazyck, le Serurier, Legare, and Bossu families all came from Saint Quentin in Piccardy (Picarine, above Paris).  There is a direct parallel between the names of the provinces and cities of France from whence the peoples came and to the areas they settled and named.  I am fascinated by the old architecture of their homeland, from the Medieval forts and gates to the Gothic cathedrals. 

Pictures are, front top and reading left to right:

a map of France (I will be getting a better one), the interior of the Roman Catholic cathedral of La Rochelle, two exterior shots of La Basilique de Saint Quentin, the access gate from Paris to the road taken to Saint Quentin, a street of Saint Quentin, and two shots of the very impressive La Basilique de Saint Julien.  La Rochelle and Saint Julien are more arid, compared with Saint Quentin which is lush and closer to Belgium.  The Gothic cathedrals stand out to me not just because of what they symbolized to the French Huguenots, but because they're so freaking cool.  I want to go to France pretty badly now. 

Il ne peut pas être !

The world is a very small place.  There is something to be said for naivete, in its protection of some innocence, but then again a person could be walking around with that-can't-be thoughts.  Then reality slaps you in the face.  Kids think that cartoons are real and that when you play peek-a-boo the other person really disappears.  So here I am in my 30s thinking that penguins could fly if they'd try harder and lose some weight, and that my mom and dad weren't already related.  Lo and behold, Dad's mom and Mom's families share a blood line, and it isn't my sister and I.  No, il ne peut pas etre, it cannot be!  But it is.

They say that many Huguenots left on the same boat from La Rochelle to Charleston, and among them the Marions and the de St. Juliens.  Helen [de] St. Julien Marion was the daughter of Francis Marion's brother, her mother a de St. Julien.  Her family name has been passed all the way down to my dad's mom, Marian.  William [de] St. Julien Mazyck was the father of my mom's great grandmother Ann.  I have her long, French nose, known as the "Mazyck beak."  It is quite possible that Helen and William were as close as brother and sister.  Il ne peut pas etre, but it is.

My godmother made the suggestion that the French Huguenot cross of the French "Presbyterians" would make an excellent tatt.  It is beautiful for its artistry alone, but this symbol, worn by the members of the American French Huguenot Society, hearkons back to the persecution and blood shed that went down when people chose to leave the Roman Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation.  We don't think on it now, but Catholics and Protestants in the old country (Ireland, for example) don't care for one another.  Somebody's always right, and somebody's always wrong.  Wasn't it Bob Marley who said, "Let's get together and feel alright."

The United States, from its beginnings as a string of English colonies, was and is the last safe haven on earth for those persecuted.  The freedom to embrace free will without the interruption of someone else's edict (such as the Edict of Nantes, which declared French Protestants heretics), to be one's own man so to speak, is a glorious thing.  My husbands family had to flee their homeland too and come to America because of persecution.  And here, like the countless others including Albert Einstein, they thrived.  Why'd they come here?  Because tt can be, anything can be, thanks to our forefathers, thanks to who fought and took a stand.  I think a "highly spiced filling" may be a pre-requisite.

Brigadier General Francis Marion, the grandson of immigrants

 

Reverend William Barnwell and Ann Serurier Mazyck

(check out that nose)

a match made on eBay

The home photo of the book at left appeared in my eBay search nearly two weeks ago.  I had had some fun internet search time, and I say "fun" because I am a card-carrying history nerd.  I read about Francis Marion, and discovered several biographies on the man.  The Smithsonian recommended a couple biographies, for reality's sake in the midst of the sweeping romance of a crusty old fox of a general in the throws of war.  The Life of Francis Marion by William Gilmore Simms was published in New York in 1844.  I made a new friend in finding an original printing of this book, and brought my dad's family together in acquiring it.

Simms went about dispelling the myths from an earlier Marion bio, written by the same guy (Parson Weems) whose book about George Washington gave us the lie about little George cutting down a cherry tree.  Weems made his subjects larger than life.  I bought a copy of his book, The Life of General Francis Marion: A Celebrated Partisan Officer, in the Revolutionary War, and believe you me he writes just a long as the title.  Syrupy sweet, and who knows how much fact is wrapped in his fiction!  He claimed to co-write the book with one of the officers who served with and knew Francis Marion, Peter Horry.   Horry took one look at this book and pretty much told Weems it was a joke.  Some good stuff did come out of my reading this book: I did learn the names of Marion's brothers, one of whom is my great-grandfather: Gabriel, Issac, Benjamin, and Job.  And now I know that Francis Marion's grandparents, Gabriel and Louisa D'Aubrey Marion, were accused of heresy by the Catholic Church of France, and fled to Charleston colony in the late 1600's on the same boat as most of the French Huguenots who settled there.  They all bought land and built homes  on the Santee River, a language barrier dividing them from the English who were already there.  That changed pretty fast, and soon Charleston was the richest colony in the New World.  Rice was a huge moneymaker.

Benjamin Marion, a relative of Francis, is listed with the national and South Carolina Huguenot societies.  Benjamin Marion, Benjamin Martin anyone?  Hmmmm...

Mel Gibson did his best to act like "the sandwich" in his portrayal of General Marion, reluctantly taken from his quiet life on the farm to fight another war.  Don't mess with the bull, you might get the horns.  That "highly spiced center" was a force to be reckonned with, like a sleeping monster deep within the heart of a man.  

Marion was the youngest of 7 children, and he himself had none, loving his siblings children deeply instead, and eventually adopting a son very late in life.  His brother's son, also named Gabriel, was captured and brutally murdered by the Tories in Georgetown, just because of who his uncle was.  It ripped Marion's heart out. 

You see, The Patriot screenplay writer(s) played on that theme, instead making Marion out to be the family man, that gripping detail that rang in the box office dollars along with the fact that it was an explosive war movie.  The Partiot was filmed at Historic Brattonsville, outsideof Rock Hill, SC because Marion's estate is now under Lake Marion.   My first roommate in college maxxed out her credit card going to see "Mel" eat at Outback Steakhouse every Wednesday night while they were filming the movie.  It's true!  Hardly anyone knew who Heath Ledger was at the time, just some Aussie in his early 20s playing alongside the Mel Gibson.  He was a gifted actor, and died far too young.

Because Francis Marion was childless, I got blocked from applying for membership to the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR).  De-NYED.  You have to be a direct descendant to run with those girls.  More on that Horse and Pony Show next time.

patriotism and family pride

Francis Marion inviting a British officer to share his dinner.  This painting hangs on the 3rd floor of Congress.

This is where it all began, folks.  Memorial Day inspired me to read a little about the famous patriot in my family, Brigadier General Francis Marion.  Just who was this guy?  He's the George Washington of the South, born the same year, 1732.  The son of 1st generation French Huguenot colonists, Francis has been described by a biographer as "something like a sandwich- a highly spiced center between two slabs of rather dry bread."  He is my great uncle, whose story has been romanticized moreso than any other Revolutionary War hero, to include the Rambo version portrayed by Mel Gibson in the 2000 film The Patriot.  http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/thepatriot/  I lived 2 blocks from Gibson's rental house during filming, no kiddin! 

I was interested in separating the man from the myth, Francis from THE SWAMP FOX, and in so doing, I became aware of just how woven into the fabric of the founding of the United States I am.  I can't get enough of this man-sandwich, and how delicious the freedom we enjoy thanks to people like him, and so I have embarked on what I've named "The Sandwich Journey."  Stick around.