Item 10 - John B. Phillips letter, Co. Antrim/South Carolina

c.150pp

Folders of research material by Kerby Miller. Includes transcript of letter held in PRONI (T1449) (2pp). Information on family in Lisburn, copy of original (4pp) in PRONI. Research and Kerby correspondence relating to Fairfield County. John B. Philips, "Winnsborough, Fair Field District", South Carolina, writes to his brother James, Lisburn, County Antrim, after a "good passage being onely [sic] six weeks" from leaving Ireland. He describes the port town [Charleston] as the largest in South Carolina and "pretty well built" with an Exchange store, Armoury, Poor House, and churches (two each for Episcopalians, Congregationalists / Independents, Methodists and one each for Scotch Presbyterians, Baptists, German Lutherans, French Protestants) plus a Roman Catholic chapel, Quaker meeting house and Jewish Synagogue. After spending time with "an extensive merchant" who intended visiting Ireland, Philips was offered a post of school-master for $300 a year, by a country gentleman, in a settlement 160 miles above Charleston. He relates that both of them then travelled there by camping in the woods for four to five nights. However, the school was "engaged" so on arrival, Phillips took up employment working in carpentry with a son of Capt. James Phillips who owned a large plantation. He details how they are building "a Methodist preaching house of timber" for $700 and the good pay for tradesmen and schoolmasters. Phillips concludes with a description of the crops, cheap price of land and that he "lives as well as a man could wish". See https://imirce.universityofgalway.ie/p/ms/iiif/18126/view#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-1726%2C-182%2C5994%2C3639

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21/11/2024
26/06/2025