Andersons of Colonial N. Carolina

This guy’s father was the stuff of what America was made of… the son… not so much…

Firstly, the guy was a bit uppity. He had a tendancy to feel up slave girls. Then he bragged about it in his diary. That is a pervert. Secondly, he thought, incorrectly, that if a man pronounced his name as it was given to him at birth in the Latin terminology that he was evidently stupid that he did not use the Anglicised version.( That is what pissed me off personally… my ancestor, if that be the case, was not privy to the insult so I am acting in his stead.)

William Byrd wrote two versions of “The Dividing Line Twixt Virginian and North Carolina” or however he styled the books…  in 1728 he started on the coast of NC and then proceeded to the mountains of western NC… along the way he passed a guy who “may” be one of my ancestors, Carolus Anderson..

One book was meant for regular folks who were unable to understand how smart he was….

“4th. The river was here hardly fordable, though the season had been very dry. The banks too were so steep that our horses were forced to climb like mules to get up them. Nevertheless we had the luck to recover the opposite shore without damage.

        We halted for half an hour at Charles Anderson’s, who lives on the western bank of the river, in order to christen one of his children. In the mean time, the surveyors extended the line two miles and thirty-nine chains, in which small distance Meherrin river was so serpentine, that they crossed it three times. Then we went on to Mr. Kinchin’s, a man of figure and authority in North Carolina, who lives about a mile to the southward of the place where the surveyors left off. By the benefit of a little pains, and good management, this worthy magistrate lives in much affluence. Amongst other instances of his industry, he had planted a good orchard, which is not common in that indolent climate; nor is it at all strange, that such improvident people, who take no thought for the morrow, should save themselves the trouble to make improvements that will not pay them for several years to come. Though, if they could trust futurity for any thing, they certainly would for cider, which they are so fond of, that they generally drink it before it has done working, lest the fermentation might unluckily turn it sour.

        It is an observation, which rarely fails of being true, both in Virginia and Carolina, that those who take care to plant good orchards are, in their general characters, industrious people. This held good in our landlord, who had many houses built on his plantation, and every one kept in decent repair. His wife, too, was tidy, his furniture clean, his pewter bright, and nothing seemed to be wanting to make his home comfortable.”

My apologies… I have the book with both versions…  I’m lazy today and did not correct the quote below…you will get the drift..

Ahh… Mr Byrd… what did you really think of Mr. Kinchin’s wife?`

April  The Secret History

thank God we got all well on the other Side without any Damage. We went to a House just by the River-Side, belonging to a Man, who learnedly call’d himself Carolus Anderson, where we chris- ten’d his child. Then ^e proceeded to M”” Kinchin’s a Man of Figure in these parts, & his Wife a much better Figure than he.^* They both did their utmost to entertain us & our People in the best Manner. We pitch’t our Tent in the Orchard, where the Blos- soms of the Apple Trees mended the Air very much. There Mean- well & I lay; but Firebrand & his Flatterers stuck close to the House. The Surveyors crost this River 3 times with the Line in the Distance of 2V-z Miles, & left off about half a Mile to the Northward of this Place.

Aside from the “gentleman’s” observations on people beneath him… he did a pretty good job on the boundary line. 

“learnedly” call’d himself Carolus”…  come now, Mr . Byrd even 300 years later we know an insult when we hear it… Laugh out Loud!  RIP, sir.

Sweet fellow… not exactly what I consider a Gentleman, but I am grateful that he left a historic record of an obscure Anderson in 1728… I would have preferred that the reference not come from a pervert however.  And I do hope I don’t sound “learned”… if so, it may be because my dear mother spelled my name Marc with a “C”… she just didn’t know any better.