Cheesy Grits: John S. Thorne of Edisto and the Art of the Deal

Botany Bay Road
Edisto Island, SC
Photo by Jane Godfrey Jan. 2018

Jane and I recently took another family history trip to Charleston. Well, they do have great restaurants down there, plus, the winters are warmer than they are here. All good reasons to go.

The central part of the family history agenda was to spend time on Edisto Island, which we've come to love. But it wasn't just for the drive down Edisto's Botany Bay Road; no, no. In recent years, Edisto has come alive with efforts to preserve its singular history, including the African American history, and we were there to help spread the story of John S. Thorne, one of the two "Black Kings of Edisto."

Thorne's story is important because within two decades after the end of the Civil War, he had helped make landowners of perhaps as many as 60 formerly enslaved Edistonians. These were folks who came out of the War owning little more than pockets filled with dreams—dreams that included making livings for themselves and their families from their own land. It's part of the American Dream.

Cheesy Grits: Daniel Payne's Anson Street School

Daniel Alexander Payne
Historiographer and Bishop of the A.M.E. Church
First President of Wilberforce College (now University)

My last post described my search for the address of Daniel Payne's school on Tradd Street. The evidence currently suggests that 122 Tradd Street warrants further investigation as the site of his first school, begun when he was only 19 years old.

The Tradd Street school, however, didn't last long, as Payne found that he couldn't make a living with just a few students. So he closed the school and pondered what to do next. No sooner had he closed the school, however, than he something of a spiritual awakening: he perceived that his callings to learn and to teach were in a strong sense sacred callings that he could not abandon without betraying himself and his students, whether enslaved or free.

Payne reopened his school and soon found that his problem had inverted: he had so many students that there was no longer enough room for them. He moved the school once and quickly outgrew those premises as well.

Cheesy Grits: Finding Schoolmaster Daniel Payne's First School in Charleston

Bishop Daniel A. Payne (1811-1893) had two great loves: his church and his students. He served both throughout his life as the first historiographer of the AME Church, then as a Bishop, and then as the first president of Wilberforce College (now University), the first Black-owned and -operated college in the United States.

Bishop Payne was free-born in Charleston, orphaned at a young age and raised by a grand-aunt. The Minors' Moralist Society, which was set up by members of the Brown Fellowship Society for the education of orphans, provided Payne with his first taste of schooling. He demonstrated sufficient aptitude and ability that he soon came under the direct tutelage of Schoolmaster Thomas S. Bonneau. When he reached the age of twelve, he was apprenticed out, as was the custom, first to a carpenter and then to a tailor.

But Payne soon realized that what he really wanted to do was teach. His opportunity came when in 1829, at age 19, he was asked by Caesar Wright, a Free Person of Color, to teach his three children at his home on Tradd Street. He accepted, and was soon teaching not only the Wright children but three enslaved people as well.