About Don Pucik

This is Carol Hardy Bryan, again. Rev. Daniel Marshall had huge impacts in this area just across the Savannah River from Fort Augusta prior to the Revolution. He later moved to Georgia and established the first Baptist churches there. However, I am not convinced that he influenced the actual founding of our church, Little Stevens Creek Baptist Church in 1789. That privilege goes in my mind to Rev. Philip Mulkey who basically founded the Bethel Association in what is now Spartanburg and Union Counties. Our church was active in that association before later becoming for a brief period of time a member of the Georgia Association begun by Rev. Daniel Marshall. A lay leader from our church was one of two men who were instrumental in founding the Edgefield Baptist Association and the South Carolina Baptist Association. His name was Abner Blocker. He later moved to Alabama and helped found a church there, and died there, but not before a son was born in east Texas, moved to Texas and possibly becoming a Baptist leader there [later to be determined.] Sure would like to compare notes with you. Right now I am following Daniel Marshall on his inspirational Christian journey. Although he is well known, I do not believe that anyone has followed his trail from Connecticut to Pennsylvania, to Virginia, to North Carolina, to South Carolina and then to Georgia. What a story!!! I will attempt to download my first article on him here.

Rev. Daniel Marshall
Compiled by Carol Hardy Bryan

The Old Baptist Preacher was Whipped by Tories, Samuel Cartledge Plied the Lash. The Truth is Told by Miss Jane Crawford, a Grand-Daughter of the Old Preacher, By Sarge Plunkett, [Atlanta] Constitution, Sunday, 26 May 1895.
Sarge Plunkett was the pen name of A. M. [Addison Mark] Wier when he entertained southerners with his widely circulated and folksy stories for decades. He was born 7 Oct 1845 on a small farm in Pike County, GA. His education was acquired only through his own diligence. His small farm in rural Decatur was his home base, but he also served for a time as a calibrator/printer for the Atlanta Constitution.
The old Baptist preacher was Rev. Daniel Marshall who was a native of Connecticut having been born there in 1706. He was inspired by the evangelist George Whitfield to active missionary ministry. This endeavor brought him by 1763 to Stevens Creek where he received 500 acres of land in St. Paul’s Parish of Colleton County. SC. He also acquired twenty-three acres of adjoining property on Marshall’s Creek (later known as Tobler’s Creek), waters of Stevens Creek.
His son Rev. Abraham Marshall’s biographical sketch of his father informed us that before the Revolution the Marshall family lived on Marshall’s Creek on the north side of the Savannah River. His father planted two churches: Big Stevens Creek [which early had the name Hardy’s] and Horn’s Creek. These churches became the home bases for Daniel’s preaching which included other areas in South Carolina and in Georgia accross the Savannah River. The general assembly of the colony of Georgia passed a law in 1757 establishing religious worship therein according to the rites and ceremonies of the church of England. so Georgia law prevented other denominations until after the Revolution. The Georgia Baptist preaching was a point of major contention and caused trouble with Georgia authorities. The content below tells a couple of his early incidents there.
From Horse Creek my aged father made his first visits to this State. On the second or third of these, while in prayer, he was seized in the presence of his audience, for preaching in the parish of St. Paul, and made to give security for his appearance at Augusta, the Monday following, to answer to this charge. Accordingly he stood a trial, and, after his meekness and patience were sufficiently exercised, was ordered to come no more “as a preacher” into Georgia . He answered the demand, Whether it right to obey God or man, judge ye.
As a friend to the American cause, he was once made a prisoner and put under a strong guard; but obtaining leave of the officers, he commenced and supported so heavy a charge of exhortation and prayer, that, like Daniel of old, while his enemies stood amazed and confounded, he was safely and honorably delivered from “this den of lions.”
In spite of the law, and well before the Revolution, Marshall acquired property in Richmond County, GA and moved to Kiokee Creek near Appling, Georgia where in 1772 he began to plant churches beginning with Kiokee which was the first Baptist church in Georgia located in Richmond County and what later became Columbia County.
Sarge Plunkett wrote an article which appeared about 1900 in the Atlanta Constitution about a very unfortunate event that referred to a whipping of Rev. Daniel Marshall. Managing editor, Mr. Clark Howell, threatened to fire Plunkett from the newspaper if he could not prove the facts he reported on Rev. Marshall. Mr. Plunkett (A. M. Wier) resorted to asking doubting readers to write to citizens they knew in Appling, GA and have his facts verified. The outpouring of requests alarmed the postmaster in Appling who then wrote to Mr. Howell to refute the previously printed article his newspaper. Sarge Plunkett held fort. He succeeded in acquiring proof as recorded below in an account from Rev. Daniel Marshall’s grand-daughter, Miss Jane Crawford, who wrote a letter to “Sarge Plunkett” with the true facts of the historical event. Mr. Howell printed the letter in the Constitution and I quote:
Below is the all important letter. We learn here from the grand-daughter the facts in the case. Why the circumstances have never been recorded in any Baptist history I cannot explain, except, perhaps, it was in deference to the relatives both of the man who was whipped and the man who did the whipping. Anyhow, I rest my case on this letter . . .
The identical place and location of this transaction was at or on what was then and now called Heggie’s Rock on the road from Appling to Augusta, a large, bold, bare rock several acres in extent, but of romantic scenery, especially during spring and early summer being covered most profusely with yellow jessamine with its delicious perfumery wafted upon every breeze, rendering it a fit rendevous for picnics, love-making, and courtships. You will probably remember it as you have passed over it often on the route from Appling to Augusta , and in your political campaigning.
In those days when churches were rare and out-door or open- air exercises were more common than now, it seems that Rev. Marshall had an appointment to preach at Heggie’s Rock, and at that time there was a bold spring gushing up through the rock and overspread by a huge oak tree whose branches reached almost to the rock, and during his preaching a young lad had climbed up onto one of the limbs
and had fallen asleep and tumbled off, but several of the men present put out their hands and broke the force of his fall and he escaped unhurt.
Tories being numerous and present at this meeting they took Rev. Daniel Marshall, who was a Whig. A man by the name of Samuel Cartledge, a Tory, was present and with a cowhide did apply it vigorously to the back of Rev. Daniel Marshall. The said Sam Cartledge was afterwards convinced of his sins under Marshall’s preaching, converted, baptized and ordained a preacher by Rev. Daniel [Abraham] Marshall, but the huge oak tree under which he preached was riven into splinters by lightening and the spring went dry and nothing remains now but the bare rock and no verdue [sic] to give shade to the spot.
Rev. Cartledge preached for seventy-three years. Miss Jane tells me he came and staid all night with her father. He was then ninety-five years of age. Do you believe you could feel much love for the man who whipped her grandfather?
A little sleuthing uncovered facts about Jane Crawford. In the 1850 census she was living in Columbia County, GA in the household of Nathan Crawford, a medical doctor and planter. He was 74 and she was age 27. It turns out that her mother was Mary, a daughter of Daniel Marshall, who married Nathan Crawford and died in 1826. Jane’s cemetery record showed a birth date of 30 Jul 1813 and death date 2 Aug 1907. The birth date coincided with the 1850 census age of 27.
This compiler found a similar version of the beating of Rev. Daniel Marshall recorded by Rev. Abiah Morgan Cartledge [born in 1817], son of John Vickers Cartledge [also a preacher] and a son of Rev. Samuel Cartledge. Rev. Abiah Cartledge spent many hours with his grandfather Samuel who died in 1843. He wrote this account of his grandfather Samuel’s conversion:
On one occasion, Daniel Marshall had an appointment to preach at a certain place. Grandfather’s brother, James, who was a State Constable, received orders to go and arrest him. Grandfather went with him. But when they arrived at the place, Marshall had commenced the services for the occasion and they concluded not to arrest him till after the close of the exercises. They both
became deeply convicted under the sermon. The arresters were arrested. They left after asking Marshall to pray for them. They were both finally converted, and became Baptists. After teaching and helping others on their farms Abiah went to Furman Seminary in Winnsboro. His parents migrated to Mississippi, but Abiah remained, preached and taught school which included teaching women at the Winnsboro Female Institute.
Because both James and Samuel Cartledge were on hand at Rev. Daniel Marshall’s preaching event, then it is quite possible that both men participated in the whipping. Some historians question whether Samuel Cartledge was actually the constable that gave Rev. Daniel Marshall the Tory whipping. It is quite possible. Samuel was born in 1750 in North Carolina and moved to Richmond County with his father Edmund who died in 1784. His great-grandfather Edmund was among the first Quaker settlers to arrive with William Penn when he began his holy experiment in Pennsylvania. Samuel’s grandfather Edmund was a large landowner and highly respected Quaker, but his two sons, John and Edmund [who was Samuel’s father] were Indian traders. The two boys both owned trading posts near the Native American town of Conestoga, on Conestoga Creek, a tributary of the Susquehanna River. A biographer of James Logan, William Penn’s secretary, described the two Cartledge boys as “crude, raffish, violent . . . backslidden Quakers . . .”
By 1739 the fur trade was on the wain and father Edmund moved southward to North Carolina and down to South Carolina. He became a prosperous farmer and justice of the peace, married an Anglican woman, left his Quaker heritage and joined the Anglican Church which was more expedient to his lifestyle. Edmund’s moves eventually landed him about 1762 to Georgia on Kiokee Creek and it was here that the boys grew to manhood. Edmund was commissioned as a captain in the King’s militia and his sons James and Samuel became constables.
His staunch British family history, being what it was, would lend credence that Samuel was the constable who laid the lash to Rev. Daniel Marshall before being converted by the very preacher to whom he laid the lash. The whipping most certainly happened and, in conclusion, was carried out by Constable Samuel Cartledge with his Constable brother James in cahoots. The event had such an impact on the boys’ young lives that they fell under conviction of their own sins, were converted under the preaching of Rev. Daniel Marshall, and were later given the believer’s baptism. Samuel was licensed and ordained in 1789 and served for six decades as a Baptist pastor carrying the moniker Saul of Tarsus. Among the Edgefield churches he served were Callaham’s Mill [later became Parksville], Plum Branch, and Big Stevens Creek. He also had a hand in founding Republican, Red Oak Grove, Rehoboth and Red Hill, all in Edgefield District. He was the founder and pastor for served several churches in Georgia.
Dr. Lansing Burrows was a well-known Baptist leader. Before becoming president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1914-1916 he served as a pastor in Augusta, Georgia in 1884 when he addressed Baptists in Atlanta. He thanked God for the religious freedom that existed, and told the congregation if they would come to Augusta he would point out the place where Daniel Marshall was whipped for preaching the gospel because he was a Baptist.
An unnamed correspondent to the Constitution also told of visiting the grave of Daniel Marshall in Appling, GA in October of 1889. He described the grave and wrote, It is in deep humiliation to see the resting place of that bright jewel, whose back bore the marks of oppression, who was insulted as an “Anabaptist dog,” watched by paid constables and interrupted by drunken mobs without redress, so shamefully neglected.
An account of the whipping was provided by Jesse Campbell. But about his second or third visit, he had a meeting in woods, under a grove. While engaged in prayer, in the opening of the service he was arrested by Constable Cartledge, (afterwards a physician) and baptized by Mr. Marshall, and who continued steadfast in the faith till his death in 1825, and security for his appearance was given by Hugh Middleton, who resided just across the Savannah on the South Carolina side. Mrs. Marshall, who was present, quoted several texts of scripture with so much force as to confound the opposers and convict several persons. The services went on; and after preaching two persons were baptized.
It is quote possible that the Anglican minister for St. Paul’s Parish had a hand in punishing Rev. Marshall. Anglican ministers were urged by the government to target their efforts to specific areas in order to combat those Baptist vagrants.
One can’t help but think the biblical Saul of Tarsus would be very pleased of the outcome of the life of Rev. Samuel Cartledge.

Carol Hardy Bryan
carolbryan1941@gmail.com

December 4, 2021 at 11:05 am Reply

One thought on “About Don Pucik”

Carol H Bryan

This is Carol Hardy Bryan, again. Rev. Daniel Marshall had huge impacts in this area just across the Savannah River from Fort Augusta prior to the Revolution. He later moved to Georgia and established the first Baptist churches there. However, I am not convinced that he influenced the actual founding of our church, Little Stevens Creek Baptist Church in 1789. That privilege goes in my mind to Rev. Philip Mulkey who basically founded the Bethel Association in what is now Spartanburg and Union Counties. Our church was active in that association before later becoming for a brief period of time a member of the Georgia Association begun by Rev. Daniel Marshall. A lay leader from our church was one of two men who were instrumental in founding the Edgefield Baptist Association and the South Carolina Baptist Association. His name was Abner Blocker. He later moved to Alabama and helped found a church there, and died there, but not before a son was born in east Texas, moved to Texas and possibly becoming a Baptist leader there [later to be determined.] Sure would like to compare notes with you. Right now I am following Daniel Marshall on his inspirational Christian journey. Although he is well known, I do not believe that anyone has followed his trail from Connecticut to Pennsylvania, to Virginia, to North Carolina, to South Carolina and then to Georgia. What a story!!! I will attempt to download my first article on him here.

Rev. Daniel Marshall
Compiled by Carol Hardy Bryan

The Old Baptist Preacher was Whipped by Tories, Samuel Cartledge Plied the Lash. The Truth is Told by Miss Jane Crawford, a Grand-Daughter of the Old Preacher, By Sarge Plunkett, [Atlanta] Constitution, Sunday, 26 May 1895.
Sarge Plunkett was the pen name of A. M. [Addison Mark] Wier when he entertained southerners with his widely circulated and folksy stories for decades. He was born 7 Oct 1845 on a small farm in Pike County, GA. His education was acquired only through his own diligence. His small farm in rural Decatur was his home base, but he also served for a time as a calibrator/printer for the Atlanta Constitution.
The old Baptist preacher was Rev. Daniel Marshall who was a native of Connecticut having been born there in 1706. He was inspired by the evangelist George Whitfield to active missionary ministry. This endeavor brought him by 1763 to Stevens Creek where he received 500 acres of land in St. Paul’s Parish of Colleton County. SC. He also acquired twenty-three acres of adjoining property on Marshall’s Creek (later known as Tobler’s Creek), waters of Stevens Creek.
His son Rev. Abraham Marshall’s biographical sketch of his father informed us that before the Revolution the Marshall family lived on Marshall’s Creek on the north side of the Savannah River. His father planted two churches: Big Stevens Creek [which early had the name Hardy’s] and Horn’s Creek. These churches became the home bases for Daniel’s preaching which included other areas in South Carolina and in Georgia accross the Savannah River. The general assembly of the colony of Georgia passed a law in 1757 establishing religious worship therein according to the rites and ceremonies of the church of England. so Georgia law prevented other denominations until after the Revolution. The Georgia Baptist preaching was a point of major contention and caused trouble with Georgia authorities. The content below tells a couple of his early incidents there.
From Horse Creek my aged father made his first visits to this State. On the second or third of these, while in prayer, he was seized in the presence of his audience, for preaching in the parish of St. Paul, and made to give security for his appearance at Augusta, the Monday following, to answer to this charge. Accordingly he stood a trial, and, after his meekness and patience were sufficiently exercised, was ordered to come no more “as a preacher” into Georgia . He answered the demand, Whether it right to obey God or man, judge ye.
As a friend to the American cause, he was once made a prisoner and put under a strong guard; but obtaining leave of the officers, he commenced and supported so heavy a charge of exhortation and prayer, that, like Daniel of old, while his enemies stood amazed and confounded, he was safely and honorably delivered from “this den of lions.”
In spite of the law, and well before the Revolution, Marshall acquired property in Richmond County, GA and moved to Kiokee Creek near Appling, Georgia where in 1772 he began to plant churches beginning with Kiokee which was the first Baptist church in Georgia located in Richmond County and what later became Columbia County.
Sarge Plunkett wrote an article which appeared about 1900 in the Atlanta Constitution about a very unfortunate event that referred to a whipping of Rev. Daniel Marshall. Managing editor, Mr. Clark Howell, threatened to fire Plunkett from the newspaper if he could not prove the facts he reported on Rev. Marshall. Mr. Plunkett (A. M. Wier) resorted to asking doubting readers to write to citizens they knew in Appling, GA and have his facts verified. The outpouring of requests alarmed the postmaster in Appling who then wrote to Mr. Howell to refute the previously printed article his newspaper. Sarge Plunkett held fort. He succeeded in acquiring proof as recorded below in an account from Rev. Daniel Marshall’s grand-daughter, Miss Jane Crawford, who wrote a letter to “Sarge Plunkett” with the true facts of the historical event. Mr. Howell printed the letter in the Constitution and I quote:
Below is the all important letter. We learn here from the grand-daughter the facts in the case. Why the circumstances have never been recorded in any Baptist history I cannot explain, except, perhaps, it was in deference to the relatives both of the man who was whipped and the man who did the whipping. Anyhow, I rest my case on this letter . . .
The identical place and location of this transaction was at or on what was then and now called Heggie’s Rock on the road from Appling to Augusta, a large, bold, bare rock several acres in extent, but of romantic scenery, especially during spring and early summer being covered most profusely with yellow jessamine with its delicious perfumery wafted upon every breeze, rendering it a fit rendevous for picnics, love-making, and courtships. You will probably remember it as you have passed over it often on the route from Appling to Augusta , and in your political campaigning.
In those days when churches were rare and out-door or open- air exercises were more common than now, it seems that Rev. Marshall had an appointment to preach at Heggie’s Rock, and at that time there was a bold spring gushing up through the rock and overspread by a huge oak tree whose branches reached almost to the rock, and during his preaching a young lad had climbed up onto one of the limbs
and had fallen asleep and tumbled off, but several of the men present put out their hands and broke the force of his fall and he escaped unhurt.
Tories being numerous and present at this meeting they took Rev. Daniel Marshall, who was a Whig. A man by the name of Samuel Cartledge, a Tory, was present and with a cowhide did apply it vigorously to the back of Rev. Daniel Marshall. The said Sam Cartledge was afterwards convinced of his sins under Marshall’s preaching, converted, baptized and ordained a preacher by Rev. Daniel [Abraham] Marshall, but the huge oak tree under which he preached was riven into splinters by lightening and the spring went dry and nothing remains now but the bare rock and no verdue [sic] to give shade to the spot.
Rev. Cartledge preached for seventy-three years. Miss Jane tells me he came and staid all night with her father. He was then ninety-five years of age. Do you believe you could feel much love for the man who whipped her grandfather?
A little sleuthing uncovered facts about Jane Crawford. In the 1850 census she was living in Columbia County, GA in the household of Nathan Crawford, a medical doctor and planter. He was 74 and she was age 27. It turns out that her mother was Mary, a daughter of Daniel Marshall, who married Nathan Crawford and died in 1826. Jane’s cemetery record showed a birth date of 30 Jul 1813 and death date 2 Aug 1907. The birth date coincided with the 1850 census age of 27.
This compiler found a similar version of the beating of Rev. Daniel Marshall recorded by Rev. Abiah Morgan Cartledge [born in 1817], son of John Vickers Cartledge [also a preacher] and a son of Rev. Samuel Cartledge. Rev. Abiah Cartledge spent many hours with his grandfather Samuel who died in 1843. He wrote this account of his grandfather Samuel’s conversion:
On one occasion, Daniel Marshall had an appointment to preach at a certain place. Grandfather’s brother, James, who was a State Constable, received orders to go and arrest him. Grandfather went with him. But when they arrived at the place, Marshall had commenced the services for the occasion and they concluded not to arrest him till after the close of the exercises. They both
became deeply convicted under the sermon. The arresters were arrested. They left after asking Marshall to pray for them. They were both finally converted, and became Baptists. After teaching and helping others on their farms Abiah went to Furman Seminary in Winnsboro. His parents migrated to Mississippi, but Abiah remained, preached and taught school which included teaching women at the Winnsboro Female Institute.
Because both James and Samuel Cartledge were on hand at Rev. Daniel Marshall’s preaching event, then it is quite possible that both men participated in the whipping. Some historians question whether Samuel Cartledge was actually the constable that gave Rev. Daniel Marshall the Tory whipping. It is quite possible. Samuel was born in 1750 in North Carolina and moved to Richmond County with his father Edmund who died in 1784. His great-grandfather Edmund was among the first Quaker settlers to arrive with William Penn when he began his holy experiment in Pennsylvania. Samuel’s grandfather Edmund was a large landowner and highly respected Quaker, but his two sons, John and Edmund [who was Samuel’s father] were Indian traders. The two boys both owned trading posts near the Native American town of Conestoga, on Conestoga Creek, a tributary of the Susquehanna River. A biographer of James Logan, William Penn’s secretary, described the two Cartledge boys as “crude, raffish, violent . . . backslidden Quakers . . .”
By 1739 the fur trade was on the wain and father Edmund moved southward to North Carolina and down to South Carolina. He became a prosperous farmer and justice of the peace, married an Anglican woman, left his Quaker heritage and joined the Anglican Church which was more expedient to his lifestyle. Edmund’s moves eventually landed him about 1762 to Georgia on Kiokee Creek and it was here that the boys grew to manhood. Edmund was commissioned as a captain in the King’s militia and his sons James and Samuel became constables.
His staunch British family history, being what it was, would lend credence that Samuel was the constable who laid the lash to Rev. Daniel Marshall before being converted by the very preacher to whom he laid the lash. The whipping most certainly happened and, in conclusion, was carried out by Constable Samuel Cartledge with his Constable brother James in cahoots. The event had such an impact on the boys’ young lives that they fell under conviction of their own sins, were converted under the preaching of Rev. Daniel Marshall, and were later given the believer’s baptism. Samuel was licensed and ordained in 1789 and served for six decades as a Baptist pastor carrying the moniker Saul of Tarsus. Among the Edgefield churches he served were Callaham’s Mill [later became Parksville], Plum Branch, and Big Stevens Creek. He also had a hand in founding Republican, Red Oak Grove, Rehoboth and Red Hill, all in Edgefield District. He was the founder and pastor for served several churches in Georgia.
Dr. Lansing Burrows was a well-known Baptist leader. Before becoming president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1914-1916 he served as a pastor in Augusta, Georgia in 1884 when he addressed Baptists in Atlanta. He thanked God for the religious freedom that existed, and told the congregation if they would come to Augusta he would point out the place where Daniel Marshall was whipped for preaching the gospel because he was a Baptist.
An unnamed correspondent to the Constitution also told of visiting the grave of Daniel Marshall in Appling, GA in October of 1889. He described the grave and wrote, It is in deep humiliation to see the resting place of that bright jewel, whose back bore the marks of oppression, who was insulted as an “Anabaptist dog,” watched by paid constables and interrupted by drunken mobs without redress, so shamefully neglected.
An account of the whipping was provided by Jesse Campbell. But about his second or third visit, he had a meeting in woods, under a grove. While engaged in prayer, in the opening of the service he was arrested by Constable Cartledge, (afterwards a physician) and baptized by Mr. Marshall, and who continued steadfast in the faith till his death in 1825, and security for his appearance was given by Hugh Middleton, who resided just across the Savannah on the South Carolina side. Mrs. Marshall, who was present, quoted several texts of scripture with so much force as to confound the opposers and convict several persons. The services went on; and after preaching two persons were baptized.
It is quote possible that the Anglican minister for St. Paul’s Parish had a hand in punishing Rev. Marshall. Anglican ministers were urged by the government to target their efforts to specific areas in order to combat those Baptist vagrants.
One can’t help but think the biblical Saul of Tarsus would be very pleased of the outcome of the life of Rev. Samuel Cartledge.

Carol Hardy Bryan
carolbryan1941@gmail.com

December 4, 2021 at 11:05 am Reply

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