1.
Leonard VERNADEAU
BIOGRAPHY: Leonard Vernadeau: Hide Trader
by Phillip Mullins
It was during this period that our ancestor Leonard Vernadeau immigrated from France. I do not know if he came as an indentured servant but it is possible that he did. Over half of the white settlers of the southern colonies did come to America as indentured servants. Nor do I know if Leonard Vernadeau ever tried rice farming. He first appears in the colonial records because he decided to become involved in the hide trade. With this in mind, on Saturday, April 10,1736, he and two other men obtained a trader's license from the Lieutenant Governor of the Province of South Carolinas. This license was supposed to give them and their goods protection on a journey to Savanna Town. Savanna Town was a landing on the Carolina shore of the Savannah River about 100 miles upstream of the present city of Savannah in Georgia. This little village was a major terminus of the hide trade. Leonard Vernadeau and his companion chose to include rum as part of their trade goods. Because they were carrying rum, they became involved in the ongoing struggle between the rival colonies of Georgia and South Carolina for control of the Indian trade in the southwest.
Officials of the colony of Georgia had been harassing traders from the Carolinas since Georgia's establishment in 1733. The new colony's backers wanted to get control of the hide trade for the merchants of the Port of Savannah. Until 1803 Georgia claimed land all the way to the Mississippi River and agents of the Province of Georgia throughout this huge area systematically seized trade goods belonging to men operating out of the Carolinas. Leonard Vernadeau had the misfortune to be stopped on the Savannah River by a naval officer of the Port of Savannah. On April 20, 1736, he was accused of importing rum into Georgia. This violated a law preventing the importation and use of rum and brandies in the province. The colony had been founded just three years earlier by a group of London philanthropists as a haven for persons imprisoned in England for debt. To prevent drunkenness among the former convicts, rum and other "strong waters' were banned.
The arresting officer dumped a large quantity of an alcoholic liquor into the river. About 180 gallons of the liquor belonged to either Vernadeau or to William McKenzie, who was the boat's owner. The two men and their boats were then allowed to proceed upstream. The three hogsheads or barrels of rum that Vernadeau lost had an estimated value of thirty-five pounds sterling or about $175.00. Vernadeau's companion, Peter Shepheard, lost some or all of his rum and, in addition, was compelled to post bond of ten pounds sterling.
The incident was reported to the South Carolina House of Assembly in Charles Town and was followed by an angry exchange of letters between Governor Oglethorpe of Georgia and the government of South Carolina. The South Carolina Assembly accused the authorities in Georgia of obstructing the free passage of the River Savannah. The Savannah River was the border between the two colonies. In those days the river was the only route to Savannah Town over which freight could be hauled so traders bound for the west had no alternative routes. As far as I know, nothing else came of the incident. The next time Vernadeau appears in the records it is some six years later and he is married to a German girl named Sarah Hutto who had recently immigrated to South Carolina with her family.
: Leonard Vernadeau: Professional Soldier and Farmer
by Phillip Mullins
Orangeburg was a German-speaking Protestant settlement. The ministers of the town's Lutheran church kept records, in German, through which most of the children of Leonard Vernadeau and Sarah Hutto can be traced. On May 25, 1742, Leonard and Sara were married. The birth or baptism of all but three of their nine children are recorded in the Geisendanner church records. For the next 16 years the family appears to have moved several times as Leonard tried several professions. In 1758 Leonard and his wife finally settled down on a farm some 16 miles west of the village along the road to a remote settlement called Ninety-six. This farm was on a stream called the Rocky Swamp Creek. In 1767 a younger brother of Sarah received land nearby and there is some indication that Sarah's widowed mother, her mother's second husband and another of Sarah's brothers moved to land along Rocky Swamp Creek in later years.
Not long after his marriage to Sarah Hutto, Leonard Vernadeau was enrolled in the garrison of Fort Moore on the Savannah River. Fort Moore was located near Savannah Town, or as it was later called, New Windsor, about 100 miles upstream of the river's mouth. By land Fort Moore was about 60 miles west of Orangeburg. Leonard was stationed there in the service of South Carolina as a sergeant under the garrison commander, Captain Pepper. In March of 1744 Leonard and the men serving under him realized that they could not save any of their wages because of what they called a scheme of Captain Pepper. The captain made the men purchase supplies exclusively from his store by prices nearly double those of neighboring stores. Also the men were made to clear ground, fence and build on Captain Pepper's private plantation during work hours. Leonard and six of the privates petitioned the governor of the colony on March 1, 1744, asking for a redress of these grievances.
The petition alleges "that the petitioners from such usage and hardships...have frequently resolved to quit the service, and have given notice thereof to our said Captain, who towards every pay day begins to heal us with a little more clemency and goodness than before, and takes care then to make us drunk and then take the advantage of enlisting us again." Whatever the outcome of the petition, Leonard did eventually quit the service and in the spring of 1747 he and Sarah began to raise their family. Sarah gave birth to a child about every two years until their youngest, Anna, was born in March 1758. I do not know where they lived before 1758 but that year they received a land grant of 200 acres 16 miles west of Orangeburg near the South Fork of the Edisto River. These two hundred acres were granted Leonard by King George II in August 1758. About half of this tract was swamp when Leonard had it surveyed. The land was divided down the middle by a little stream called Spring Branch. This farm was about four miles from the Edisto River on Rocky Swamp Creek. This meant that it was easily accessible by boat. The soil was rich and moist and ideal for farming.
Leonard kept this land until at least 1794 when his oldest son, Henry, received a grant of land adjoining it. Leonard probably spent the rest of his life farming this land. He passed away between 1794 and 1800 when he was about 80 years old. He is the only known Vernadeau to have come to this country and, although his descendants have spelled their names some thirty different ways over the years and use eight variants today, everyone bearing the name Varnado or one of its variants can trace their lineage to Leonard Vernadeau and Sarah Hutto. The name disappeared in France when the last male bearing the name died some years ago.
While Leonard and his family were living on the farm on the Rocky Swamp Creek, South Carolina and the British Atlantic colonies grew to nationhood. The white population along the coast continued to increase at a slow but steady pace. After the Jacobite rebellions in Scotland in 1715 and again in 1745, more Scots immigrated to southeastern South Carolina. Nevertheless, by 1760 a nightmare of the southern planters had become a reality. By that year there were nearly ten slaves for every white male over 16 years of age living in South Carolina. The haunting fear of a slave revolt was never far from the minds of South Carolina's whites. This huge Negro population was employed first in the rice, and then in the indigo, plantations.
1745 through 1775 were prosperous years for the Carolina slave owners. Rice declined somewhat after 1750, but by 1754 indigo was a boom crop. Negro slaves could be bought on 18 month's credit, and it was possible for a planter to double his capital every three or four years growing indigo. Land and Negroes were the source of this wealth. The dark side of this success was that the competition of slave labor put an effective brake on white immigration to South Carolina. Immigrants were arriving in North America in large numbers, but almost all of them were settling to the north of Virginia. In the north the plantation system was only rarely used and there were fewer slaves. Although the south was wealthier than the northern colonies, few artisans choose to settle in the South. To the new immigrants, the labor conditions further to the north were more advantageous. This situation changed dramatically after 1760.
MILITARY: Fort Moore on the Savannah River: abt 1743 - Spring 1749
2.
John VARNEDOW
5.
Sarah VARNEDOW
7.
Thomas VARNEDOW
8.
Anna VARNEDOW
9.
Mathew VARNADORE
Military: Patriot - Rev War Sep 1778 - 1781
Of the Varnadoe brothers, only Mathew returned home wounded.
In September 1778, a year and a half prior to the fall of Charles Town, Mathew Varnedore, one of the younger sons, along with four other men from Orangeburg, enlisted in the Continental Army. He and the others marched to Beaufort Island near Charles Town to join the main body of the southern Continental Army in a brigade commanded by General Sumpter. This command left Charles Town for Cambridge, NC. and in that way avoided being captured with the bulk of the army in Charles Town in 1780. Mathew Varnedore spent the next year fighting British troops as far north as Rocky Mount in north-central North Carolina. He returned to spend the winter in South Carolina in the "High Hills of Santee" under General Green. The next fall, in September, 1781, he was wounded in his left knee by a musket ball at the Battle of Eutaw Springs. After being wounded, he was discharged and returned to his father's farm on the Rocky Swamp Creek.
BIRTH: His Own Statements