By Tom Poland, A Southern Writer
TomPoland.net
I visit cemeteries never knowing what I’ll find. February 10, a cemetery gave me a story that has the elements of a great movie—risk, bravery, tragedy, the largest fire in the country, and a drunken sailor with wobbly feet.
The story actually began when my friend and co-author, Robert Clark, took a fine photograph of Old St. David’s Episcopal Church in Cheraw, South Carolina. You’ll find that photo on page 92 in our new book, South Carolina Reflections—A Photographic Journey. It’s a historic church, the last Anglican parish established in South Carolina under British rule. It played vital roles in the American Revolution and Civil War. British soldiers sleep in its cemetery. And so does a sea captain.
On my way back to Irmo from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I had the church on my mind. I crossed the Great Pee Dee River on U.S. No. 1 and entered Cheraw. I detoured and looked for Old St. David’s Church. I found it on a cold windy day, parked, and walked the beautiful cemetery.
Close by St. David’s front entrance I spotted the grave of Capt. Mose Rogers whose tombstone said he was the first to command a steamship across the Atlantic. The S.S. Savannah could steam and sail across the sea. A steam-and-sail-powered ship hybrid (Sound familiar?), its voyage seemed risky, so risky that not one paying passenger signed up for the trip. The crew steamed on . . . well, after a delay they did.
Sea captain-entrepreneur Rogers convinced Georgia investors to finance his steam-powered sailing ship named after its home port of Savannah. After a trip to New London, Connecticut, to find a crew brave enough to make the risky voyage, the ship returned to Savannah where President James Monroe took a ride on it before it steamed off to England.
The departure day arrived, except it didn’t. A drunk sailor fell off the gang plank and drowned, delaying the May 22, 1819, departure. The so-called departure two days later was a jaunt to Tybee Island where the crew better prepared for the voyage. At 5 am, May 24, the S.S. Savannah set sail across the Atlantic. Rough weather forced the crew to use the sails for most of the 29-day trip, logging just 80 hours of steam-engine use.
She made it to Liverpool mid-June to great fanfare, then visited several European ports before sailing back to the United States. Steam seemed fraught with risks and an apprehensive steamship clientele would postpone the crossing of another steamship for 30 years. And what of the S.S. Savannah?
Alas, the Great Savannah Fire of 1820 forced her sale due to financial hardship. No ordinary blaze, it ranked as the largest fire in U.S. history at the time. It destroyed 463 buildings and rendered two of every three residents homeless.
As we run out of steam here, two mysteries exist. Why does Rogers’s tombstone say “Mose,” not “Moses,” and what brought the captain to Cheraw? One mystery we can solve. Capt. Rogers took command of a small steamboat, the Pee Dee, which transported goods from Georgetown, to Cheraw via the Pee Dee River. In early November 1821, Capt. Rogers fell ill on a trip from Cheraw to Georgetown. Yellow fever had him in its grips. His health declined and he died in Georgetown. Buried at first at Antipedo Baptist Church in Georgetown, Capt. Rogers was reinterred at St. David’s in Cheraw thanks to his support of the community. His body journeyed one last time up the Great Pee Dee River to his final port.
The second mystery remains unsolved. Why does his tombstone say Mose and not Moses? Surely it’s not a typo? Since “Mose” can be a shortened name for Moses perhaps the friendly people of Cheraw simply referred to him as Mose. Perhaps a reader knows. Let me hear from you if you do.
