Journey down the Santee
Part 2: Porcher's Embankment
By John Cely
jecely@sc.rr.com

Lock #1 of the Santee Canal in 1966

Heyward Douglass and I made it over the Santee Dam and continued our 1966 journey down the Santee River at Wilson's Landing. By counting river bends downstream, we were able to find the old Santee Canal, virtually invisible from the river. We found the first lock with collapsing walls, arched culverts, and jumbled bricks. A jungle of poison ivy and other vines covered much of the old brickwork and we felt like real explorers discovering Mayan ruins.

Tying in to the east side of the canal was Porcher's Embankment. It was narrow at the top, about three- and- a- half feet, and eight- feet high. Large trees grew on the top. We marveled at the labor that must have gone into this structure.

We were not the only admirers. In 1843 Edmund Ruffin of Virginia, one of the South's top agriculturists (and also a leading secessionist and "fire eater" who reportedly fired the first shot on Fort Sumter) traveled extensively through S.C. as a paid consultant to Governor James Hammond who wished to improve the declining fortunes of Palmetto State planters.

Ruffin spent several days in the vicinity of the lower Santee, an area so thoroughly settled and farmed by the industrious and clever French Huguenots that it was called the French Santee. He spent time with the owner of Porcher's Embankment, Major Samuel Porcher of Mexico Plantation.

Porcher began construction of the embankment in 1817 and completed it in 1841. Before the advent of fertilizer, the most fertile and productive soil was found in swamps and bottomlands, but planting a crop there was risky because of flooding, or freshets, as they were called then. As the Upcountry was cleared for cotton culture, downstream flooding increased to the point that Porcher lost eight crops in succession before he began diking.

In his 1843 diary, Ruffin reported the embankment to vary in height from eight to 14 feet with a base of 35 to 60 feet. All total the vast dike enclosed about 1,400 acres of the Santee Swamp, more than two square miles. The chief crops were corn and oats with a substantial amount of cattle pasturage.

Porcher purchased neighboring swamp land as his diking ambitions grew. The higher, better drained bottomland sold for $4 an acre but most of the swamp was $1- $2, although he paid $50 an acre for one small tract. Interestingly, Robert Mills in his 1826 Statistics of South Carolina noted that lowlands along the Congaree River sold for $20 an acre while the adjoining uplands were worth only half as much.

Although Ruffin did not mention the subject, the task of clearing the heavily wooded swamp lands must have been almost as daunting as construction of the dike. Some of the embanked area did include old indigo fields that had been cleared before the Revolution but the majority was probably cleared by the slash and burn technique where large standing trees were killed by girdling with an axe while the undergrowth and smaller trees were burned.

Crops were planted and cultivated by hand, working around the numerous dead standing tree snags. This ancient land- clearing method was practiced even into the early 20th century. President Theodore Roosevelt described a cleared bottomland in Louisiana whereby in a full moon, the "cottonfields have a strange spectral look, with the dead trees raising aloft their naked branches."

Porcher was constantly repairing breaches in his dike from flooding. According to Ruffin the worst breach was about 1822 when a 180- foot- wide section was swept away. Porcher's overseer, Mr. Hawksworth, urged him to abandon the project but Porcher persisted and lived to see his edifice completed at the age of 73.

Ruffin made an interesting note in his diary that before reclamation, this area was the "principal fortress of General Marion and his followers in the Revolution," and he was shown the Swamp Fox's old camp. Snow's Island in the Great Pee Dee has generally been recognized as the Swamp Fox's main encampment but it would make sense for the famed guerrilla fighter to hide in the Santee swamp since he was raised in the area and is buried not far from Mexico Plantation.

(Next week: A sour ending)