Orangeburg

Cap Moorer and the Anatomy of an Error

Cap Moorer House before repairs and renovation.

In April 2023, I met with staff at the Calhoun County Museum in St. Matthews, South Carolina. Among the pictures I had for reference was this one. When the photograph had originally been shared with me in 2014 by a family member, it was labeled as the home of John Lewis Moorer c. 1850. John was frequently referred to with the honorific of “captain” and this was “Capt. Moorer’s Home.” Except I was about to discover that it wasn’t. For context, I should mention that John Lewis Moorer was white, part of the German-Swiss community of the area. All of his children were biracial. This makes research challenging at times for a number of reasons, from the lack of records to the tendency towards omission by narrators of the past. For example, I’ve included John L. Moorer’s obituary, which makes no mention of his immediate family, not even the son who was a respected local doctor.

The Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, South Carolina) · 18 Dec 1908, Fri · Page 8
John Lewis Moorer (1822 – 1908)

Intimately familiar with the area, my host with the museum was skeptical and asked when John lived. No, no, the house wasn’t from that time period. It wasn’t right at all. It was from much later, about 1900 or 1910. The house was the “Cap Moorer” house. “Cap Moorer?” How weird. Why would it be called “Cap Moorer” but not have been the home of Captain Moorer?

Later that day, we were speaking with a gentleman who grew up in the area and, after a notable military career, returned and was quite involved in the community. He agreed with the museum director, yes, of course, that’s the Cap Moorer House. Cap was before his time, but he knew Fannie lived there and then her children. Yes, all of Fannie’s children, they grew up in that house.

I went back to my AirBnB for the night and then home early the next day, slightly confused but overall extremely satisfied with how everything had gone.

John Lewis Moorer’s son, John Capers Moorer was about 45 years old at the turn of the twentieth century. “Cap” was married to a woman named Fannie and together they had at least ten children. According to the 1900 census, everyone in their household over the age of 8 could read and write, one daughter attending school at age 16 and another a school teacher at age 18. They owned their farm with no mortgage. Fannie lived until May 1945, six years after the birth of the man I was speaking with in 2023. It’s not the house of Capt. Moorer. It’s the house of John Capers “Cap” Moorer.

Enslaved Families of Henry Moorer circa 1846

This needs to be out on the Googleable-verse, I think.

“At the time of his death in 1846, Henry Moorer (1780-1846) owned approximately fifteen hundred acres from “Metts Crossroads” where the Belleville Road intersects with Old State Road (hwy 176) where George Moorer‘s lands were, south westward to “Lime Kiln Creek” where his daughter and Dr. Jenkins lived. In December of 1846 a few days before Christmas, Henry’s estate was divided.”

—–

Mrs. Henry (Mary Dantzler) Moorer remained in the family home “Magnolia,” located on a prominent sloping hill in the middle of Henry’s lands.

Jack Less
Dolly
Adam
Charles
Simon
Jim
Lidia and her child
Ned
Emmah
Simon

Cherry

—–

Dr. Jenkins and Henry’s daughter, Barbara lived closest to Orangeburg, on the hill above Lime Kiln creek in the two story home built by Dr. Van de Vastine Jamison in about 1800 … “White Hill.” The home would be destroyed in a very bad cyclone (tornado) in 1861. Their children were Julia A. 11, James Henry 7, Mary E. 4, Lewis 2 and Anna F. just born.

Russel
Peter
Moses
Elo
Sharper

Vinna and her child

—–

Francis Marion Moorer likely still lived at home with his aging mother and would make “Magnolia” his home when he married Ella Dantzler in 1850.

Noah
Rose
Samson
Manuel
Selena
Jack

Amy and her child

—–

Widow Eve Moorer (George died in 1837) lived in his home with her children Lewis 17, Barbara 14 and Ella 10, near Mett’s Crossroads, until she died at 1856.

Edward
Jonas
Cato
Sambo
Deannah
Daniel
Sary

Ceilah and her child

—–

Henry and Sarah Moorer lived on the Belleville Road just south east of his parents and across the Little Fleabite creek at their home… “Oak Grove.” Their children at this occasion were Henrietta 4, Ann Hess 2 and she was pregnant with Augusta.

Old Sany
Violet
Tom
Vineard
Anthony
Clander and her child

Violet

—–

John Moorer also likely lived at home with his aging mother until he build his own home down the hill toward Mett’s Crossroads […]

Adam
Mary
Toney
Rose
Sam
Magdalin
Mires
Patience and her sick child

—–

John Sellers (Henry’s daughter Mary Ann before 1846) Lived near Mett’s Crossroads with his younger brother Samuel and children, Agnes C. 17, Eliza Marg 14, John 10, Moorer Henry 6, George 4, and Frances Electra 2.

Sempy
Livy
Ellick
Betty and her child
Evans
Robbert

Milley

—–

Emanuel T. Pooser and Henry’s daughter Frances W. with their children Clara 13, Mary J. 11, Eliza 9, Emma 3 and Emanuel 1. Their home location is not now known. Believed to be toward Jamison Church.

Washington
Cherry
March
Calvin
Nanny and her child
Wallin
Sharlet

The Obituary of an Eigth Year-old

I have long been curious about where our family picked up the first name Laurens. This was the name of my grandfather, often confused for Laurence, and seeming to harken back to some proud long ago heritage.

Aware of the famous South Carolina Laurens family, I have search for a connection, but nowhere have I found our people to have crossed paths. They were prominent in The Palmetto State during the American Revolution while the Beckwith family was largely still in Virginia. Nowhere have I found the Laurens family mingling with any other Beckwith or associated family lines.

Any hint of the name Laurens though has always been a sure way to make sure I compulsively poke my head into every possible rabbit hole of available records. This is how I found myself ordering a copy of an obituary from Wofford College indexed on their website under an interesting name. Beckwith, Laurens H. 5/30/1907.Gravestone Beckwith

I knew that Laurence Ranson Beckwith, namesake of his grandfather and son to Laurence Henry Beckwith (my great grandfather’s brother), had died as a child in 1907. I’d seen his grave marker in the Prospect Cemetery on the Jamison side of Orangeburg, South Carolina. I’d raced there in a rental car one evening after I had finished at the South Caroliniana, fighting some surprisingly thick traffic through Columbia to find myself suddenly standing alone at dusk in an old graveyard full of familiar names.

So I knew about Laurence. I knew about his father Laurence. I know about his grandfather, who went by “L. R” but had, during his time in the Confederacy, clearly signed his name as Laurence more than once.

The obituary arrived.

BECKWITH. — Laurens Ranson, third child and oldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Laurens H. Beckwith, was born April 9, 1898, and died February 14, 1907. For one so young, he was a bright light in the home circle, very bright in intellect, gentle, and kind. How his willing hands are missed. He has left this blighted land where flowers so quickly fade, for the one where they constantly bloom. How soon his little soul was wafted above on angel’s wings far from earth to his God, where he sits and sings with that little band. How dear father missed his footsteps following him. He was sick but a short while, falling victim to that dreaded disease whooping cough. While he is not here with father, mother, sisters, and brother, his dear spirit shadows them. Dear father and mother, while your hearts are crushed and bleeding, you know where to find our dear boy. The Lord says, Suffer little children to come unto Me of such is the kingdom of heaven.

Auntie.

1SG L. R. Beckwith's 1864 requisition of horses. Interesting signature.
1SG L. R. Beckwith’s 1864 requisition of horses. Interesting signature.

Okay, first of all, I’d like to take a moment to thank anyone who ever had anything to do with the development of childhood vaccinations. Next… what? The obituary writer is a family member herself, taking great pains to elegantly describe the pain and glory of the little boy’s passing, so it seems unlikely that this is a matter of a misspelling. Did the grandfather, the L. R. Beckwith who signed as Laurence at one point in his life, come up with Laurens? Was it the boy’s father, Laurence Henry, who decided that he wanted to be Laurens Henry?

What I do know is that my grandfather was not the original Laurens and that’s where I will leave it for now, stalled again but a little closer to an answer.

UPDATE

After writing this post, some dear Find a Grave volunteer photographed the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral Cemetery, including the grave of Laurens Ranson Beckwith’s father, Laurens Butler Beckwith (1814-1869) confirming the name on the gravestone. The gravestone certainly looks original, but I am no expert. However, his name is given as Laurence in the obituary that ran in The Spirit of Jefferson following his death.

The only conclusion I can come to is that they probably used nicknames and signed things with their initials, as was customary, so their actual first name didn’t really come up very often.

The Beckwiths Come to Orangeburg

I am not fascinated with my family tree as simply a collection of genes, but in how history and war and geography shaped that tree. Orangeburg, South Carolina is a huge part of that. Orangeburg was where the Beckwith family and the Moorer family came together. I kind of knew that, but hadn’t dug out the details of it because I’d assumed the story was boring and full of people named Henry growing corn.

Burnt out on researching the Martin family, I set out to answer the questions of why and how the Beckwith family came to Orangeburg. I wasn’t expecting much, but what I began to unearth was, to me at least, kind of amazing in its dramatic expression of our country’s violent relationship with itself.

Laurence Ranson BeckwithLaurence Ranson Beckwith* was born in Columbia, South Carolina in 1842. Two short autumn months after L. R.’s eighteenth birthday, his home state would be the first to secede from the union. When he enlisted in the 6th Regiment South Carolina Cavalry in Columbia on June 12 of 1862, he brought with him a horse valued at $250 and equipment worth $60. Shortly after being furloughed with grave injuries two years later, he would carry with him the rank of of First Sergeant, the remains of a subordinate, and a bearing towards that man’s family burial ground in the rural countryside. America’s bloodiest war officially ended before Beckwith’s twenty-fourth birthday.

[UPDATE: I recently discovered that L. R. Beckwith served alongside his younger brother in the Infantry prior to his service with the Calvary]

The son of Laurens Butler Beckwith and Harriett Hunt, L. R. was the type to show up later in books about prominent Virginia families, even after being born himself in South Carolina. L. R.’s grandfather had two middle names and a plantation, the son himself of an English baronet. They married people who were related to people who signed the Constitution when they weren’t marrying their own first cousins.

According to Some Prominent Virginia Families (Volume 4, Page 24), L. R. was captain in the “Hampton Legion,” Confederate States Army. However, I’ve had some issues with this particular book, so anything that I get from it is pretty much for “good starting point” value only.

The more I looked into the captain claims, the funnier they smelled. Finally, my nose led me to Battle of Trevilian Station: The Civil War’s Greatest and Bloodiest All Cavalry Battle (Col. Swank, USAF Ret.), a book that had both the story and some documentation to go with it. 1st Sergeant Beckwith’s military career ended in Louisa County, Virginia in June of 1864. The paperwork for his furlough was done by July. Advertisements for an insurance agency that L. R. was involved in during the 1880s list his name with no title along with an associate who is designated as “Capt.” I’m pretty confident that Beckwith was indeed a first sergeant when he was taken to the C.S.A. General Hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia with service-ending injuries at the age of twenty-one.

Laurence stayed in the C.S.A. hospital from June 13 to July 5.  The details of the medical board examination are at the National Archives and this is my official note to myself to go look at those next time I’m in DC.  Confederate Archives, Chapter 6, File 215, Page 362.

Col. Swank (RET) prints in his book a letter from Robert B. Wilkinson, Jr., of St. Matthews, that provides some detail to the story:

Francis Marion Moorer was the great-great-great uncle of Robert B. Wilkinson, Jr., and Captain John L. Wilkinson, USAF, of the Wade Hampton Camp #273 of Columbia, S.C. He was born Jan. 1, 1825, in Orangeburgh District, being named for the “Swamp Fox,” (Francis Marion, who was one of South Carolina’s heroes of the first war for independence) under whom his grandfather served in 1781 as a lieutenant. At the time of his enlistment on Dec. 21, 1861, “Frank” as he was known, was a moderately successful planter. His plantation ‘Magnolia Grove,’ was built in 1810 and inherited from his father. It was built adjacent to his great grandfather’s land (who was one of the first settlers of Orangeburg, S.C., in 1735, a Swiss.) He was enlisted at the age of 36, in the 20th Regiment, S.C. Volunteer Infantry, later Company B, under Capt. P.A. McMichael, serving on Sullivan’s Island and the defenses of Charleston, S.C. On Feb. 1, 1863, he requested transfer to the 5th S.C. Cavalry, Company A and served with them in Charleston until called to Virginia. While serving under General Wade Hampton’s command, he was mortally wounded in the fighting at Trevilian’s Station, Virginia, on June 11, 1864. He died the next morning. His young friend, Sgt. Lawrence Ransom Beckwith, marked his grave. (Beckwith was also wounded in that battle.) Beckwith who was to become Frank’s nephew after the war, returned to the grave with Frank’s brother, John Lewis Moorer and a two horse wagon. They recovered his remains in some sort of bag and solemnly rode the 460 miles back to their home. His final resting place was the old family burying ground on his great grandfather’s land. Frank’s widow and two daughters survived the barbaric horde of Gen. William T. Sherman eight months after his death only one daughter was to survive past 1880 on the impoverished plantation.

As Mr. Wilkinson alludes to, after his return to Orangeburg with Pvt. Moorer’s brother, L. R. stayed and married Ann Hess Moorer a short time later. L. R. went into business with the Moorer family, competed in the local agricultural fair against them, and was buried in the cemetery alongside the man he had once fought great and bloody battles with.

There’s so much more to the story, but in the interest of actually hitting Publish on this thing, I will save that for another time. L. R. died in 1884 at the age of 42 and the second half of life may be worth even more discussion than the first. Reconstruction was not an easy time for men like Beckwith.

 

*Laurence Ranson Beckwith’s first name can be read in his signature as either Lawrence or Laurence. I usually see it written by other people as Lawrence because that is the traditional spelling. His middle name is printed in some records as Ransom and others as Ranson.

I believe the first name is Laurence and middle name is Ranson because he named his son after himself and that son’s name is most definitely Laurence Ranson Beckwith (1898 – 1907). That is how the name is spelled on the son’s gravestone in the cemetery of Prospect Southern Methodist Church in Orangeburg, South Carolina. That gravestone would have been erected under the direction of the senior Laurence Ranson Beckwith himself and most certainly wouldn’t contain a misspelling.

It is also worth noting that, a generation before, the family lived in what later became Ranson, West Virginia. Either way, it seems that he went by L. R. Two Three of L. R.’s grandsons (including my grandfather) were named Laurens so the name thing is of a bit of interest to me.