Best of Gerhard: Tales of Retreat Plantation and Jean DelaGaye

Originally published May 30, 2004.

In the May 22 edition of The Beaufort Gazette, staff writer Michael Kerr wrote of "Pinckney Retreat to be developed." He described the old plantation house as "built in 1736 by French Huguenot Jean de la Gaye for his young bride, Catherine Gautier, overlooking Battery Creek on Pinckney Retreat plantation, the future site of an upscale single home development."

Jean DelaGaye (the name is spelled different ways) was a French Protestant who came to the new Purrysburg settlement some time after 1733. In 1738, he was granted Town Lot 231. Settlers soon found the location unhealthy; many of them died and others moved elsewhere, including the town of Beaufort.

In March 1745, Thomas and Mary Simmons sold to "John Delagaye, gentleman" 250 acres bounding on lands of John Grayton and Peter Palmeter, and on the southwest and northwest on a creek. That tract became known as Retreat Plantation.

DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSE

The plantation house was described in a tour guide as "the residence of Mr. and Mrs. B.E. Pinckney, one of the oldest plantations still in operation in the United States. Built circa 1720, it is a typical pre-Revolutionary house with recessed windows, paneled walls and a narrow winding stairway. The walled garden of azaleas, camellias and pyracantha still retains its Old World character."

ST. HELENA'S CHURCH REGISTER

The Register of St. Helena's Church record-

ed the marriage of John Delagaye and Cather-ine Gautier, on April 17, 1737, by the Rev. Lewis Jones. Between 1748 and 1752, John DelaGay and his wife bought properties, as well as tracts outside of the town. In the deeds, he was variously described as storekeeper, merchant and gentleman. One lot was on Bay street on which was a combination store and living house, where the present John Mark Verdier House stands, on the corner of Scott and Bay streets.

St. Helena's Vestry Book has numerous mentions of John DelaGaye, beginning with his election as church warden in 1747. The minutes record on Aug. 22, 1754 "Mr. Jno. Chapman and Mr. Jno. Delegay were chosen as Gen(tlemen) of the Vestry, in the room of Capt. John Gordon who resigned, and Mr. Chas. Purry, deceased."

There were two intervals in Jean DelaGaye's official church activities. The first absence of mention was from August 1750 to August 1754. The second lasted from August 1757 to March 1761. The last mention of John Delagaye as member of the Vestry was in May 1768. Through the years, it was his mercantile firm, which furnished the communion wine to St. Helena's Church, as well as other goods.

A TRAGIC DEATH

Gothic tales of horror and mystery have always been popular and the story of Jean DelaGaye, Catherine his wife and Retreat Plantation had all the prerequisites. Research, however, has proven them untrue. DelaGay's bride did not die of fever; she was not buried in front of the plantation house. His black servants did not murder him, "after he withdrew from the outside world."

In the Iseley and Baldwin book, "Plantations of the Lowcountry," one reads "There is a romantic tale of the de la Gayes. After his wife's tragic death, the heirless Frenchman lived on in embittered seclusion until murdered by two of his slaves (one of whose head lends its name to nearby Skull Creek)." Corres-pondence with Henry Laurens, however, shows that Jean DelaGaye returned to France with Catherine, his wife, and remained there.

"In contrast to the misery of the legend, the letters concern themselves with the purchase of handkerchiefs and the lawsuits that de la Gaye had left behind."

MORE TO THE STORY

We are told more of the DelaGaye story in The Papers of Henry Laurens, Rogers and Chesnutt, eds. DelaGaye and

his wife returned to France in April 1769. At the beginning of the American Revolution in August 1775, Daniel DeSaussure, in Beaufort, wrote to

Henry Laurens in Charles Town regarding military affairs in the Beaufort

area. He added a post script: "P.S. Inclosed you will receive a letter from Mr. Delagaye."

There was no indication of the letter's content. George C. Rogers in a 1980 article in "Transactions, Huguenot Society of South Carolina, may have shed light on the matter:

"In reading the Laurens-Gervais correspondence, one comes to see still another dimension to the American Revolution, one not previously discovered at all -- the view from the positions of the continental Protestants. As Gervais spoke English, French and German with ease, he was the ideal person to receive the foreigners who were passing through Charleston in the early years of the war. Baron de Kalb, Baron Hotzendorff, the Marquis de Bretaigne, the Chevalier de Cambrai -- the stream was endless. John DelaGaye sent from Nimes in Languedoc the Chevalier de Jaussaud."

In his correspondence with John DelaGaye, Henry Laurens often extended greetings to Mrs. DelaGaye. Thus, in a letter of Oct. 21, 1774, the beginning passage read, "Mr. Poyas did me the favour some days ago to inform that you and Mrs. DelaGaye were in good health ... " The index further identified Mrs. DelaGaye as Catherine. Obviously, she had not died in South Carolina, nor been buried in the front yard of Retreat Plantation.

BAY STREET STORES

Lawrence Rowland, in his book, "History of Beaufort County, Vol. 1," wrote of Bay Street in the 1750s: "The principal local merchants, Francis Stuart and Jean DelaGaye, were both hard pressed to match this big money competition, and both advertised heavily in the South Carolina Gazette.

"In 1762, Stuart built a new store next door to DelaGaye and advertised 'cloth, clothes, glassware, tools, furniture, guns, knives, swords, tea, pepper, ginger, olive oil, spices, gunpowder, liquor, rum, coffee; and many other items for sale.

"DelaGaye, in turn, advertised cloth, nails, paint and 'European goods suitable for the season ... to sell cheap in Beaufort,' all recently imported from London and Bristol."

Gerhard Spieler's articles have been printed in The Beaufort Gazette since 1972.