In Old Times Jehossee Was A Happy Place For
Master And For Slave.
The governor rarely
locked the door of his mansion.
The family
plate, valued at fifteen thousand dollars, was
stored in a chest in a room on the ground-floor
of the house, which had for its occupants, during
four months of the year, two or three negro
servants. Though all the negroes at the quarters,
which were only a quarter of a mile from the
mansion, knew the valuable contents of the
chest, it was never disturbed. They stole small
things, but seemed incapable of committing a
burglary.
When the Union army marched through
another part of South Carolina, where Governor
Aiken had buried these old family heirlooms and
had added to the original plate thirty thousand
dollars' worth of his own purchasing, the soldiers
dug up this treasure-trove, and forty-five
thousand dollars' worth of fine silver went to enrich
the spoils of the Union army. Soon after, three
thousand eight hundred bottles of fine old wines,
worth from eight to nine dollars a bottle, were
dug up and destroyed by a Confederate officer's
order, to prevent the Union army from capturing
them. Thus was plundered an old and revered
governor of South Carolina - one who was a
kind neighbor, a true patriot, and a Christian
gentleman.
The persecutions of the owner of Jehossee
did not, however, terminate with the war; for
when the struggle was virtually ended, and the
fair mansion of the rice-plantation retained its
heirlooms and its furniture, Beaufort, of South
Carolina, was still under the influence of the
Freedman's Bureau; and when it was whispered
that Aiken's house was full of nice old furniture,
and that a few faithful servants of the good old
master were its only guards, covetous thoughts
at once stirred the evil minds of those who were
the representatives of law and order.
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