NOTE: "FILE: Enc #___" refers to personal record system of Terry McLean.
UPDATE: 1998-03-17
CHILDREN: Elenore Crespo to Terry McLean, Mar 1998; SOURCE: letter
written Mar 1943 by Robert W. Pickens, Easley SC, to ??? [prob. Miss Massey,
Tyler, TX]; copy of letter in possession of Terry McLean, Anaheim CA; FILE:
Enc #P-328.============================================================================
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!PARENTS-BIRTH-DEATH-SPOUSE: Elenore Crespo to Terry McLean, Mar 1998; ; ; ; ;
SOURCE: letter written Mar 1943 by Robert W. Pickens, Easley SC, to ??? [prob.
Miss Massey, Tyler, TX]; copy of letter in possession of Terry McLean, Anaheim
CA; FILE: Enc #P-328.
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Robert Pickens in April 1943 letter:
... John Nicholas MARTIN was born 1704 in Zweibruecken, Germany, he was a
farmer and also a Lutheren Preacher. He came to American in 1784 his large
family and 7 or 8 other families, from the first he showed that he was a hard
headed and endowed with the perserverance of the saints.
He was as good a man as could be found anywhere, though often mistaken.
After landing in Charleston, he refused the land offered him by the government
for so many weeks that when he finally did get wheat he insisted upon, it was
too late to make a crop that year. They made a failure and moved to Edgefield, settled at or near Martinstown. After settling at Martinstown, he was persuaded to teach school and turn his farm over to his seven sons, several of them were near grown. Some years later this old farmer school teacher was ordeained to prech, so he became one of the first preachers in upper Carolina, after raising a family of seven boys and five girls. [How] well he did his new job can only be approximated. He established a number of enterprises that endure to this day. He rode a circuit from the German settlement near Augusta to Winsboro, Camden, and Charlestown, when very few were riding, 1752-1775. Shortly after the country had been opened to white settlers he established a church at Cedar Run, the oldest Methodist Church in America, with a continous record of activities. Cedar Creek Church was organized foru years before the old St. John in New York.
The German Society (for the promotion of education) was organized in
Charleston by John Nicholas MARTIN, this too is the oldest charitable
institution having a continuous existence in America. Prior to 1767, MARTIN had organized a church known as the Crooked Run Union Meeting Hosue out of which came the MARTIN Methodist Society. All German emigrants were required by the laws of the colonist to take the oath of allegiance of the King of England before landing, consequently the descendants of these early Germans can be sure of their ancestry. Most of these early German emigrants had obtained deeds of grants to lands from the English government, and they had not lightly sworn loyalty to the King of England. By 1775 the ideas which were rampant in America, stange to say, the Rev. MARTIN found himself in complete disagreement with his parishoners of upper South Carolina.
In Charleston his influence for the colinies [sic] and liberty as against
English oppression carried more weight from 1775 to 1785. MARTIN spent most of his time in and near Charleston preaching and praying. Though akin to King
George, he said that was something he never bragged about. On the contrary, John Nicholas MARTIN was the first minister to publicly refuse to pray for the King. For his refusal to pray for the King and his stand for Liberty, he was dragged from his pulpit and tared [sic] and feathered and put in jail. His house burned and his family banished from the city. At the time he was over 70 with an long hair and wrinkled face.
Right here, too, I think it should be set down, in the interest of keeping the record straight, that this same old patriot German school teacher preacher was the father of seven boys who served so valiently in the Revolutionary War. His son, James Edmund MARTIN, being shot and killed by the last gun fired at Augusta [GA].
After John Nicholas MARTIN was released from jail, he took up his abode with his daughter who had married a rich tanner by the name of Daniel STROEBEL just outside the city walls of Charleston and continued to minister to them. He occassionally made the rounds of his circuit which took in a large part of creation, surely, since there are no boundaries either on the north or west of his circuit.
As late as 1788 when the old patriaarch was 84 years old, he wrote the
following upon the fly leaf of his Bible one morning when he had some doubts as to whether or not he would be able to make it alive to one of his appointments.
'I have not wandered in sheepskins and goatskins as did the ancient heroes,
but I have gone all over South Carolina in deerskins, and nice ones, too. My
dwelling place has been all out of doors in God's fair Kingdom of wild things
and flowers and my fare has been as hard as the plainest of the pioneers.
Every day, I must wade swamps, swim creeks, and many times rivers, until I am appointed to stay wet with rheumetism in every joint.
My people run a neck and neck race with starvation and have but little to give to their precher, but the Gospel they receive with joy. I am met everywhere with hearty welcomes and often with tears. Parched with fever last night and chilled with this morning's dew, I know not, if I am spared (torn--) I know that my soul is still on fire and with the blessed Paul I truly say none of these things move me, neither can I county my life dear unto myselfThis February 29, 1788, J. N. MARTIN"
Mr. MARTIN lived until July 28, 1795, on his little flour farm near Charleston [SC]."
[a letter written by Robet Pickens in Mar 1943 to Miss Massey of Tyler TX
indicates that much of the above may have been taken from an article published in the Southern Christian Advocate of SC, 1925 - tmc]
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PARENTS: Elenore Crespo to Terry McLean, Mar 1998; ; ; ; ; SOURCE: letter
written Mar 1943 by Robert W. Pickens, Easley SC, to ??? [prob. Miss Massey,
Tyler, TX]; copy of letter in possession of Terry McLean, Anaheim CA; FILE:
Enc #P-328.
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Robert Pickens in Mar 1943 letter:
Edmond, who was killed at Augusta GA, had a son Edmond, who was olden than
his uncle Thomas (who was in the war with his father)..."
..."Thomas, with his son Jacob and his nephew Edmond, moved to Anderson
County SC, settled on Beaverdam, Six and Twenty, Three and Twenty Creeks and
are buried in home graveyards on their own lands. I have visted all of their
graves, knew most all of their children, went to school with some fo their
children, and many of their grandchildren...