by Bruce Orr
We now know that all his efforts to obtain the naval base in Charleston were futile. Obviously, just like the final balloon display over Charleston as the president departed, Governor John Geddes’s hopes for the naval base in Charleston went down in flames. President Monroe had the facility built in Virginia.
CHAPTER 12
Motive
THE SINS OF THE FATHER
We now have a motive for the state’s appropriation of the tracts of land containing both the Five Mile House and the Six Mile House. This gives a pretty good idea of the intended use of the land, how the state would benefit, and how the governor would definitely benefit. This also explains why the state engineer, the man directly responsible for the appropriation of land and its conversion to state use, was on the jury that indicted the owners. That explains the use of John Peoples’s case and the summary judgment, but what about the David Ross case and his lynch mob seizure of the properties?
In an effort to explain that, we have to go back to the very beginning of the disputed properties.
Samuel and Joseph Wragg were brothers and the first of the Wragg family to venture to Charleston from England. They were Loyalists, loyal to the crown. Each of these brothers had a son. Samuel’s son was William Wragg. Joseph’s son was John Wragg.
In 1718, Samuel and his son, William, were sailing to England from Charleston. Their ship came under attack by pirates, and they were captured by none other than Blackbeard himself. They were robbed, ransomed and humiliated but otherwise released unscathed. William Wragg grew up and remained loyal to the crown. That was not a popular thing to do in revolutionary times, and he was banished from America in 1776 and his land was confiscated. He drowned off the coast of Holland on his way to England.
The same banishment happened with John Wragg, the son of Joseph Wragg. In 1758, John Wragg had inherited his father’s properties. Having been banished in 1776 and having his land confiscated, there was little he could do. In 1783, he petitioned for a hearing to plead his case and have his name removed from the lists of confiscations and banishment. Apparently he was successful and received his father’s land. A part of that land was in what is known as the neck area of Charleston and included a tract of land with a quarter house upon it known as Six Mile House.
John Wragg now owned the Six Mile House tract, according to the federal government, removing his disgraced father’s name from the confiscations and banishment list. This was the United States doing this and not the state of South Carolina. South Carolina still views them as confiscated.
In 1796, John Wragg died leaving no heirs. In 1801, proceedings were held to have the property partitioned off and divided among his siblings and their children. A section in the city of Charleston known as Wraggsborough was also divided, and one of the relative recipients was Nathaniel Heyward. In 1810, an additional two hundred and thirteen acres belonging to the deceased John Wragg were sold to John Ball whose executors sold them to Nathaniel Heyward in 1819. Nathaniel Heyward’s son was William Heyward.
There appears to now be a dispute over the property between the heirs of John Ball and Nathaniel Heyward as to who is the rightful owner.
Plat 6887 shows Six Mile tract as belonging to the heirs of John Wragg. Courtesy South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
A close up of plat 6887 shows Six Mile tract as belonging to the heirs of John Wragg. Courtesy South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
Plat 6879 designates Six Mile tract as belonging to Nathaniel Heyward Sr. Courtesy South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
Close up of plat 6879 designates Six Mile tract as belonging to Nathaniel Heyward Sr. (upper right-hand corner). Courtesy South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
Remember that William Heyward was bonded out of jail by Richard Heyward and Stephen W. Moore. Stephen W. Moore would face off in court against Patrick Duncan in 1822 in a dispute two years after the execution of William Heyward. Patrick Duncan would later claim to be one of the heirs owning the Six Mile tract.
Do you remember John Wilson? He was the member of the jury in Chapter 5 that indicted Heyward and the Fishers. He was also the state engineer responsible for state improvements. Remember how it seemed strange that he would be on a jury?
From 1815, the engineer had been busy. With the end of the War of 1812, which ended in 1815, Wilson had been the surveyor of many military projects including plans for lands appropriated by the South Carolina legislature to be used for fortifications. These included lands in the neck area. By 1817, Thomas Gadsden had filed a petition asking for compensation for damage done to his property by the erection of military defenses, and John Wilson’s name was included in the motions. Stephen W. Moore was also one of those parties.
In 1818, Wilson made a report on the conditions of public buildings in various districts and also on the navigability of each of the state’s rivers. It is interesting that this was done one year prior to the president’s search for a location for a naval depot. Wilson had an interest in seizing lands and converting them to military use. He had obviously already been doing it in the Charleston neck area, the area that contained the Five Mile House and Six Mile House.
Plat 6886 shows the survey of Six Mile tract for the state of South Carolina. Courtesy South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
In 1820, the Fishers and Heyward were hanged. The sheriff, Colonel Nathaniel Greene Cleary, also was accused of framing the Fishers, and he lost the election. In 1820–1828, a judiciary committee reviewed reports made to them on the petition of the assignees and securities of N.G. Cleary asking that the amount of his contingent accounts be paid to them and not the Bank of the State to pay his debts. John Wilson was named in this action, and he signed off on the petition. This freed Cleary from paying the bank. He could settle his debts individually. This could help Cleary since the state was in a depression. Perhaps this was a trend Wilson used to help others. It also seems the state engineer, before he left office, was helping those who had helped him. In 1820, Wilson filed petition for the cancellation of his bond as civil and military engineer. No explanations and no reasons were given. Maybe he knew it was a good time to get out.
So we have the state engineer appropriating lands in the name of defense and the sheriff seizing those lands; we have the sheriff’s militia clearing the property and arresting the owners; we have the state engineer sitting on the jury; we have a relative (Moore) of the accused (Heyward) involved in a dispute with the state engineer over the seizure of lands; and we have the sheriff being called out and accused publicly by the condemned and he loses reelection. He is in debt, and his creditors want to cash in. The state engineer resigns his commission. The governor goes off and tries to buy Key West, Florida, in a scam. Hmm—something does not sit well, and it appears that these three government officials were losing power in Charleston.
There is a plat dated 1795–1848 that stated 205 acres had formerly belonged to a Manigault and had been conveyed to J. Creighton, Patrick Duncan, Chisolm and Wragg. This is where Duncan staked his claim.
After receiving the property in 1819, Nathaniel Heyward had conveyed 302 acres along with 69 additional acres to his daughter Elizabeth who married Charles Manigault. The area was known as Marshfield Plantation or Manigault Farm.
Apparently the area was not successfully claimed by Patrick Duncan, and in 1880, it was sold by the descendents of the Manigaults to a Cecelia Lawton. A large portion of it became incorporated into properties belonging to the U.S. government and the navy in 1890. The Charleston Naval Clinic, formerly the Charleston Naval Hospital, now sits on the site where Six Mile House once stood. So the descendents of Heyward achieved what Geddes could not. They profited by their property going to the navy, seventy-one years after Geddes tried the same thing.
It appears that William Heyward had a right to be on the property of his father Nathaniel Heyward. If he was rightfully on his property, he had the right to defend it from seizure from the lynch mo
b and David Ross.
In 1813, a petition was filed by numerous persons who were assignees of the Bank of South Carolina. This petition was against William Heyward. Of the eighteen names listed, one stands out. That is the name James Fisher. James Fisher had died, and his brother, Colonel George Fisher, was the administrator of James’s affairs. In 1810, he had been in a lawsuit on behalf of James against state engineer John Wilson. Wilson owed Fisher for horse gear and saddle wear. That puts George Fisher in connection with John Wilson.
James Fisher’s will of August 6, 1795, is interesting. It lists his wife as Esther. It also states he had three daughters, Jane, Esther and Margaret, and one son, John. That means Colonel George Fisher is John Fisher’s uncle, and James Fisher was his father.
This means that the state engineer that sat on the jury initially indicting John Fisher had a prior civil dispute with John’s uncle and father. To bring things a little closer into perspective, James, the father of John Fisher, was one of the assignees in the 1813 petition against William Heyward. That puts the father of John Fisher and William Heyward also in a civil dispute. John’s uncle, George Fisher, is now left with all of his responsibilities after John’s father’s death including his only male heir, John Fisher himself.
A plat of land in Prince William Parish near Coosawhatchee River was surveyed December 13, 1770. It lists Nathaniel Heyward and George Fisher together as owners. These are obviously related, predecessors of the other Nathaniel Heyward (owner of Six Mile) and Colonel George Fisher. The fact that they were neighbors also means they were more than likely related as property was usually divided up and willed to multiple family members.
Nathaniel Heyward had another son, other than William, named Nathaniel Heyward Jr. He died in 1819, the year before William Heyward was executed. This is the very year of the sale in which Nathaniel Heyward received the disputed land and his heirs were eliminated. One was eliminated by death and the second was incarcerated and eventually executed.
The petition against William Heyward was in the amount of $7480.00, a pretty hefty debt. A portion of that belonged to the late James Fisher. It is a debt that would have fallen on his only male heir, John. It is also a debt that Colonel George Fisher would be interested in. If he could seize an asset of William Heyward, he would have a legal foothold in securing Heyward’s debt to his deceased brother.
Could the reason John Fisher was inhabiting the Six Mile House be because William Heyward had given it to him to repay the debt he owed John’s father? After all, John was a living heir and entitled to repayment of the debt before his uncle, the executor, was.
Colonel George Fisher was involved in disputes with the U.S. government over land that he had prior to the Indian wars. His land was invaded in 1812 and 1813, and he had to flee. The government had moved into North Carolina to quell the Indians and restore order. He was not only trying to collect on his deceased brother’s affairs in South Carolina, but he was also dealing with his own in his home state of North Carolina.
Colonel Fisher had a daughter named Anne Amelia. In 1817, she married Jack Ferrill Ross. In 1819, Jack Ferrill Ross was the first territorial state treasurer for Alabama. His wife was pregnant and would give birth to William Henrys Ross in December. Now remember the lynch mob and the first assault victim, David Ross? It is all beginning to tie in and come together now.
We now have evidence of a land and property dispute not only among various heirs of John Wragg, but also James and George Fisher, the government and the heirs. The evidence shows that William Heyward was rightfully on his father’s property. With the Five Mile House and Six Mile House both belonging to Nathaniel Hayward as of 1819, the Fishers were also legitimately there. The Lynch Law seizure of the land by the mob was a pretext as most probably was the assaults on both Ross and Peoples. We now have reason and motive for the attack on Five Mile House and Six Mile House on February 18, 1819. Nathaniel Hayward had just appropriated the land—a land valuable for potential use to the military and land desired by both Colonel George Fisher and Governor Geddes. One now understands that if the Fishers had been condemned and executed for the assault on David Ross that would have given Colonel George Fisher a foothold on the land. By switching to the John Peoples case, this eliminated that foothold giving Governor Geddes and Charleston a chance at the disputed property.
It appears, from the evidence gathered, that the Fishers and Heyward were innocent in regard to where they needed to be and also in defending their property. It is strange how out of the twelve arrested for such a horrendous crime that only the owners of the properties were executed. Nine others walked away from the hangman’s noose, a lot different than the legend. Remember the Toohey brothers? One was executed for murder and one received a branding in regard to the same incident. This shows that the judges in Charleston had discretion in sentencing. Peoples was beaten and robbed of between thirty five and forty dollars, and three people were executed. The Toohey brothers murdered someone, and one of them went free. The point is the charges were deliberately changed so that the three proprietors could be executed and eliminated.
Up until now there has been nothing known in regard to the lineage of either John or Lavinia Fisher. It is now known that Colonel George Fisher of North Carolina was John Fisher’s uncle. This is the first connection made for him. But what is known about the lineage of Lavinia?
Lavinia has always been a dead end as far as genealogy. No one has found anything regarding who she was, who her parents were or where she came from. All anyone knew was that she was born in 1792 by simple mathematics. If she died in 1820 and was 28, then we know her date of birth. We also know that she was different than most of the fair-skinned women of Charleston. One source described her as an “Amazon or a Termagant,” meaning her skin was darker.
We also know that Lavinia believed in her innocence, and we also learned that the women of Charleston petitioned the governor to keep a white woman from hanging. They were afraid that it would set a precedent. A “decent” society would not execute a white woman for any crime; the thought of it went against any “civilized” thinking. White women were not hanged in respectable society in the mid 1800s. Why not have mercy on Lavinia and let her go? Why hang a white woman?
What if Lavinia Fisher was not considered to be white?
In an 1810 bill of sale to Dr. Joseph Glover, Colonel George Fisher’s attorney, William Porter sells two slaves for the sum of $700. We know that slaves were given the surnames of their owners for identification purposes so the obvious last name of these two would be Fisher. The bill of sale is for two young Negro girls. Their names are Sally and—Lavinia.
A 1810 bill of sale for two female slaves belonging to Colonel George Fisher, one of which is named Lavinia. Courtesy South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
An enlargement of the bill of sale. Courtesy South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
In 1810, Lavinia Fisher would have been eighteen, young enough to be classified as a girl. This slave would have been an eighteen year old “Lavinia Fisher.” Is this a coincidence that John Fisher’s uncle would have owned a slave with the same unusual name as John’s future wife? The answer to that is very unlikely. What makes it even less of a coincidence is that Dr. Joseph Glover was a prominent doctor in Charleston, South Carolina. That puts a teenage slave girl by the name of Lavinia Fisher once owned by John Fisher’s uncle arriving in Charleston nine years before the incident at the Six Mile House. It is an extremely giant leap to believe this is just a simple coincidence.
Suppose John had taken an interest in a slave of his uncle—not at all uncommon but not popular or accepted. What if his uncle who resided in Rowan County, North Carolina, sold her to a doctor in Charleston, South Carolina, to separate the two young teenagers? It would explain why they were ostracized and why Lavinia’s lineage was unable to be traced. Could it be possible that Lavinia was a mulatto, part black and part white with very fair skin? It would explain the descriptors. It would als
o explain why there has been no marriage documents found. It would explain why John Fisher left North Carolina and his uncle and came back to South Carolina. It would also put a new twist in their tale: a white man in a common law marriage to a black woman in 1819.
As an added note, William Henrys Ross, the grandson of Colonel George Fisher, would marry into the Glover family—the family that bought Lavinia.
CONCLUSION
Things Are Not Always as They Appear
We have taken actual court documents, articles, eyewitness accounts and victim statements and established that the true crimes involving John and Lavinia Fisher, William Heyward and the other persons associated with the Six Mile House crimes are quite different than what we have read and been told. As we break down the characters and events, a different story emerges that has us scratching our heads and questioning the legend.
The facts show that the incidents occurred at the Six Mile House, not the Four Mile House as many claim. The house it occurred in was burned to the ground in 1819, which was documented in the news article from that time. The Four Mile House was bulldozed in 1969.