[...continued]

RAMSAY'S HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
From ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT IN 1670 TO THE YEAR 1808.
by David Ramsay, M.D. 
Preface dated "Charleston, December 31st, 1808"
Published in 1858, by W.J. Duffie, Newberry, S.C.  
Reprinted in 1959, by the The Reprint Company, Spartanburg, S.C.   

Volume I, CHAPTER I, pp 13-14
CIVIL HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA. CHAPTER I.
Population.
-=-=-=-=-=-=

If comparisons among the different nations which have contributed to the
population of Carolina were proper, it might be added that the Scotch and
Dutch were the most useful emigrants. They both brought with them, and
generally retained in an eminent degree, the virtues of industry and economy
so peculiarly necessary in a new country. To the former, South Carolina is
indebted for much of its early literature. A great proportion of its
physicians, clergymen, lawyers, and schoolmasters, were from North Britain.
The Scotch had also the address frequently to advance themselves by marriage.
The instances of their increasing the property thus acquired, are many - of
their dissipating it, very few.

Emigrants from all countries on application readily obtained grants of land;
either by private agreement from the proprietors, or from officers appointed
by them, and acting under their instructions. The fees of office were not
unreasonable. The price first fixed by the proprietors, was at the rate of £20
sterling for a thousand acres, and an annual quit-rent of one shilling for
every hundred acres. When a warrant for taking up land was obtained, the
person in whose favor it was granted had to choose where it should be located.
It was then surveyed and marked. Plats and grants were also signed, recorded
and delivered to the purchasers. This was the common mode of obtaining landed
estates in Carolina, and the tenure was a freehold. They who could not advance
the purchase money, obtained their lands on condition of their paying one
penny annual rent for every acre. The first settlers, having the first choice
of lands, had great advantages; and many of their descendants now enjoy large
and valuable estates, purchased by their ancestors for inconsiderable sums.
This mode of settlement by indiscriminate location, dispersed the inhabitants
over the country without union or system. The settlers generally preferred the
sea coast - the margins of rivers - and other fertile grounds; and gradually
located themselves westwardly on the good land, leaving the bad untouched. For
the first eighty years, they had advanced very little beyond an equal number
of miles; but in the following fifty, they stretched to the Alleghany
Mountains nearly three hundred miles from the ocean. While the people of New
England extended their settlements exclusively by townships, presenting a
compact front to the Indians, and co-extending the means of instruction in
religion and learning with their population, South Carolina, in common with
the other Southern provinces proceeding on the former plan, deprived her
inhabitants of the many advantages connected with compact settlements. These
evils are now done away; for, since the revolution, nearly all the vacant land
in the State has been taken up. They who have been obliged to content
themselves with the long neglected poor lands, have the consolation that what
they lost one way is made up in another; for it is found, that the high and
dry pine land is by far the most healthy.

[END CHAPTER I]

==== SCROOTS Mailing List ====