James Island Connections

Settlement and Warfare

James Island, one of the many sea islands in the South Carolina Lowcountry, lies just south and west of Charleston across the Ashley River. According to one history, “African slaves were among the first colonists to live on James Island full-time. As houses and working plantations developed, white families took up residence. By 1695 a network of settlements was emerging.” ¹ Early sea island colonists lived in peril of political instability, disease, and warfare. “South Carolina faced destruction three times during the proprietary era: In 1686 by the Spanish, in 1706 by the French and Spanish, and in 1715 by the great Yemassee uprising.” ² Colonial-era Fort Johnson was erected at the far eastern point of James Island in about 1706, and though the colonists initially repulsed the British navy in 1776, the Island was later occupied by land forces from 1780 to 1782. It was on the site of Fort Johnson that the first shots of the U.S. Civil War were fired in 1861.

James Island Presbyterian Church

Rev. Thomas Bell was a Scotch Presbyterian Minister on James Island, where he died in October 1756 (see family Bible) in the ninth year of his ministry.

The Bells and Allied Families pg. 1

According to an unpublished family history³, our ancestor Thomas Bell (ca. 1714-1756) was called from Scotland to minister to the Presbyterians who lived on James Island in the Carolina colony. In researching Thomas I contacted the still-active James Island Presbyterian Church (JIPC) and arranged a visit. JIPC has occupied the same site for more than 300 years, at the intersection of what is now Fort Johnson and Folly Roads.

I had never been to James Island before, and was warmly welcomed by Douglas O., the church historian. It was a sunny and warm May afternoon, and Doug led me on a tour of the property. A large Live Oak dominates one section of the the grounds. Doug shared that an arborist recently estimated that it likely dates to the earliest years of the colony, and thus was probably there when The Reverend Bell ministered at the church. It is thought that our ancestor and many of the early Presbyterian colonists are buried on the property, but those graves “can neither be identified nor located, their wooden markers lost to rot and fire. …Today, the oldest legible stone in the cemetery marks the grave of Esther Odingsells, who died in 1765.” ¹

Civil War Connections

Doug pointed out the Odingsells marker among many others, the most famous of which is that of Samuel “Goat” Smalls (1889-1924), the inspiration for “Porgy” in the musical “Porgy and Bess.”

One gravestone of particular interest to us both belongs to Doug’s ancestor William C. Davis (1840-1914), which prominently notes his service in the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery (BVA) during the Civil War. Not only does Doug have at least two relatives who served in the BVA, but so do I, including a grandson, great-grandson, and two great-great grandsons of Rev. Thomas Bell. The artillery battery numbered from 80 to 200 men during the conflict, so our forbears certainly knew each other. Some likely served together for the entire war, much of it right there on James Island. BVA unit histories state that a detachment of the artillery battery was on James Island during the shelling of Fort Sumter in April 1861, and served at the coastal forts around Charleston including Fort Johnson, Fort Wagner at nearby Morris Island, and even Fort Sumter itself in Charleston Harbor in 1864 and early 1865.

According to a Fort Johnson history, “During early 1861, South Carolina state troops erected two 10-inch mortar batteries of two mortars each and an earthwork of three guns [at least one of which likely belonged to the BVA]. The signal shot which opened the bombardment of Fort Sumter and marked the beginning of the American Civil War was fired from the east mortar battery on April 12, 1861. A historical marker on the Fort Sumter side of the point designates the approximate site of the battery. During the next three years, considerable building activity turned Fort Johnson into an entrenched camp mounting 26 guns and mortars. Aside from a certain amount of artillery fire, the only major action at the fort occurred July 3, 1864, when its Confederate defenders, numbering about 130 men, repulsed two Union regiments totaling about 1,000 men. …On the night of February 17, 1865, Fort Johnson was evacuated during the general Confederate withdrawal from Charleston Harbor.” ⁴

Coincidence? Or Providence?

Doug subsequently introduced me to four church staff members including the pastor. That each shared a Christian name with someone in my immediate family seemed rather coincidental. When we later arrived at local restaurant that with a family surname, I was no longer surprised. During dinner Doug and I determined that we not only shared a spiritual and military heritage, but it could be that our ancestors are related by marriage and possibly even by blood. Add the fact that he and his wife recognized the names of my sister’s in-laws who lived on James Island for many years and ran a landmark restaurant on nearby Folly Beach, and one can clearly see God’s hand in our newfound friendship – brought together by a man from Scotland who lived 300 years ago.

Adapted from A String of Bells: Stories of a Southern Family © 2020 by Nick J. Guevara, Jr.

¹ James Island Presbyterian Church: Three Hundred Years of History by Sarah Fick  ©2006 James Island Presbyterian Church pg 2, 36

² The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina Vol. 1 by Lawrence S. Rowland et al ©1996 University of South Carolina Press

³ The Bells and Allied Families (1953) compiled by Maria Bell Locke

⁴  “The History of Fort Johnson”  http://www.dnr.sc.gov/marine/mrri/ftjohnson.html