Gideon Johnston suffered from one of the many illnesses present during Colonial South Carolina. Johnston describe not only his own sufferings, but also his family member’s. Johnston’s letters, while not entirely focused on the accounts of his illness, provide his own insight on the various epidemics that overtook Charleston during the 1700s.
Gideon Johnston was a dedicated leader of the church, one of over three hundred missionaries that were sent to America by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in the Foreign Parts . Johnston’s letters reveal the difficult situations he and his people faced, including poverty and illness. When Johnston arrived to the colony of South Carolina, death by disease was all too common, due to the infections brought in. In his introduction, Kilngberg explains that illness was everywhere and the ships carried it even farther. Johnston’s letters prove this to be true in his description of the effects diseases had on his own health. Johnston states, in his letter to the Secretary on July 5th, 1710, that “my body is a scene of disease, so is my family of poverty and misery- both I and my family (ten in number) are in the most miserable and languishing condition.” Within Johnston’s letters, he often describes the harsh effects of South Carolina’s “vigours of the climate and the Distempers”, which caused the desire for “Brittish physicians” to provide a cure. In his letter to the Lord Bishop of Sarum, Johnston reveals his illness has restricted him the use of his hands, “I now begin to recover a little health, but am still deprived of the use of my hands” (31). Johnston’s wife assisted him in his writings and drawings during his illness, as he explains in the letter. Johnston’s illness deprived him the use of his hands, making it impossible for him to write. Johnston was often mentally unstable throughout his illness, as well as blindness. Often, Colonial South Carolina used the same term for different diseases, which is why Johnston’s illness cannot be diagnosed in modern medical terms.
Commissary Gideon Johnston suffered through illnesses contracted upon his arrival to the colony of South Carolina. Johnston is described to have been weak and broken in health, before his tragic death by drowning. Between 1706 and 1716 many epidemics occurred in South Carolina. During these epidemics the works of parishioners, such as Johnston, were in high demand of the ill. While he felt it was his duty, Johnston became overwhelmed by the burden of visiting the ill and burying those who lost their battle against disease during this time period. Being constantly exposed to the infection and bacteria of the sick was dangerous. During 1711 in Charleston, outbreaks of yellow fever and small pox epidemics occurred and continued past 1717. In Johnston’s letters he refers to these epidemics stating that, ‘This Distemper is one of those incident to this Climate, and has been fatal to a great many this Year’”. The churches in South Carolina, as Johnston describes, were nearly empty due to the illness and mortality that was present.
This document, which was selected from the South Carolina Historical Society, is a compiling of Gideon Johnston’s personal letters. The University of California Press published the document, which is titled “Papers of Gideon Johnston”, in 1946. Frank Joseph Klingberg, the editor, compiles a number of Commissary Johnston’s personal letters in which Johnston discusses religious, social and personal accounts of his life in Colonial South Carolina. The date of the letters range from 1707 to 1716. In his letters, Johnston describes the difficulties he faced while being ill. The document consists of twenty-four of Gideon Johnston’s letters and two by the Anglican clergy of South Carolina.
Excerpts from Papers of Gideon Johnston
II
Comry Johnston to the Ld Bp of Sarum
My Lord,
I most humbly thank your Lord for the Books you sent me, and the honour you have done me in writing me – I now begin to recover a little health, but am still deprived of the sue of my hands, and know not how long I may continue in this Condition, many things contribute to make my life very uneasie, the Scantiness of my Salary, and the excessive rate of all things here are such, that were it not for the Assistance my wife gives me by drawing Pictures (which can last but a little at a time in a place so ill peopled) I shou’d not have been able to live. The inclosed Paper will in some measure shew your Lord how things are. I therefore beg your Lord to represent my Case to the Venerable Society, being perswaded that your Lords recommendation of me, will be a great inducement to that Illustrious Body, to give me some Yearly Allowance for the support of my family; By this means I shou’d be much easier and more serviceable to our Common Cause, in discharging the dutys of my Place with more chearfulness. I bless God, greatly abated and our Churches are dayly frequented more and more – all that I shall add is to begg your Prayers and the Continuance of Your favour to
My Lord
Your Lords
Most humble and
Obedient Servant
Gideon Johnston
III
Comy Johnston to the Secry
S. Carolina
Charles Town
5th July 1710
Honor’d Sir.
It is neither the want of a Just regard for you, or a profound respect for the Venerable Society and it’s most Revd President; but my continual Ailments that has been the occasion of my long silence; for altho’ as you observe in your last to me I am not their Missionary, (which is my great misfortune) yet I am resolved to depend upon them, and to receive and execute their Commands with all the Submission and Deference that is due to so great and Illustrious a body: Nor shall I fail to give them the most punctual Account of Psons and things I can from time to time, as occasion offers; and according as they shall fall within the Compass of my care of knowledge. Whatever seem’d hithero necessary to be imparted which indeed was not much, was transmitted to his Lop the Bp of London in order to be communicated to the Venble Society, if his Lop thought it convenient. But most of what was written to him being about the Resolution of some difficulty’s that occur’d to me in the discharge of my dty here I believe his Lop did not judge it proper, to trouble the Venerable Society with anything of that kind.
I might ‘tis true, spin out a lamentable History of my misfortunes and sufferings, since the first day that I engaged in this Mission: but my Bretheren saved me this trouble; having written a Letter in my behalf to my Lord Bp of London with an earnest request that his Lop after his perusing it, wou’d be pleased to transmit it and recommend me to Venble Society. But hearing nothing of this Letter, or the success of it, which was written if I mistake not in March 1708/9 I am apt to believe, his Lop, in the hurry of business laid it aside, and so forgot to send it to you.
The Design of that Letter was to move the Venble Society’s Compassion towards me; and by laying my Circumstances before them to perswade them to allow me a Salary in order to enable me to live comfortable and free from want, till God was please to provide for me otherwise. Something also of this kind my Wife, by my direction wrote to my Lord Bp of Saruml for I was not able to write myself having been deprived at the time the use of my Limbs; and ‘tis with great difficulty I now write, being obliged to take a great deal of time, and to make use of both hands, this may seem strange at first View; but it will not appear so on second thoughts especially when it is consider’d that with the left I hold my right hand steddy and keep it from Shaking. But to return, I know not whether my Lord of Sarum has thought fit to lay that Letter or any part of it before the Venble Society having heard nothing of it from his Lop or you; so that I must be forced to renew my Complaints and to apply my self directly to the Venble Society for their Assistance.
As my Body is a Scene of disease, so is my family of poverty and misery. And my necessity’s are so far from lessening, that they dayly increase upon me; for what between poverty, diseases, and debts, both I and my family (10 in number) are in a most miserable and languishing Condicon.
I am the only Missionary in the Province, Mr Maitland excepted, that has not an Allowance from the Society; which I do not mention out of envy or to their disadvantage (for alas ! al that they get is but little enough) but only to shew the Right I have to claim this favour; because I am embark’t in the same Cause, and engaged in the same design with them. Besides my family and expences are much greater than theirs in every respect; not to say anything of my continual sickness, which has been a great disadvantage to me. My whole family has been equally Exercised this way; and my wife who greatly helped me, by drawing pictures, has long ago made an end of her materials, and to add to this misfortune, God has been pleased to visit her with a long and tedious Sickness; She now is struggling with the fflux and ffeaver, as I also am; and God only knows what the Issue will be; his blessed Will be done.