Volume 03 Page 0090

for five years viz: from the 1st January 1872 to the 1st January 1877 at $3200.
In November 1877 a very important correspondence took place between my
Father and Mr Heyward, the latter being most anxious to break the Lease by
returning Gowrie to [us] on the 1st January 1872 offering to pay five
Hundred dollars for this privilege. My Father however would not think
of this, and held him to his Agreement. The correspondence is in our
Iron Safe in Charleston So. Ca. and is of interest as indicating a critical
moment in the history of Gowrie.

Upon taking charge of Gowrie on the 1st January 1876 we continued as far as
practicable to give the same wages for labor that Mr Heyward and others
were doing. The price was Seventy five cents for a full day's work, or 50 [cents]
in money and 25 [cents] in Rations per day to each prime Hand. This was the
maximum price, and it was only the primest Hands that would succeed in obtaining
the said amount. All of this free-labor-system was perfectly new to me, but
Mr James B. Heyward Jun'r understood it perfectly, having been engaged in this
business since the termination of the Confederate War (1865), and was perfectly
at his ease in the routine plantation affairs. I found that Irishmen in
great numbers were in the habit of seeking work upon our Savannah River
rice plantations during the Winter season. They are 1st Class ditchers, and
are superior in all Canal and bank work. They come out in squads of 5 or
6, and are under the head of a Foreman with whom your contract is made.
These men occupy any ordinary negro house and are quiet and orderly in demeanor,
From our commencing with one squad of 5 men early in December 1875
I increased this superior labor, having at one period up to Twenty five
or six Irishmen, digging down to the hard mud the most important sections
of the canals, viz: the Gowrie canal next to James Potter's Estate & adjoining
Nos 7 & 4 G; the Canal between Nos 4 & 7, 5 & 8 Gowrie and East Hermitage
Canal from Settlement W. to cross canal bulkhead. All of this work was
perfected in real 1st class order, being five feet deep, and much new mud
and large stumps being thrown out on the margins. The immediate effect of
drainage upon this canal work was most effectual and beautiful to behold.
for example No 3 E. H., a perfect morass, would now be entirely flowed, or
vice versa (entirely dried) in one tide. I had the E. H. Settlement placed in
perfect order by Irishmen, with ditches and drains dug down to the hard, and
in some parts new ditches cut. The Irish labor, in ditching & banking, is
so superior to that done by the very best negro men, that I made use of
it as far as my means would allow. Our calculation was to plant about
350 Acres. The ditches and Quarter drains of Nos 1. 2. 3. 5. 6. G; Nos 4 & river side
of 8 E. H. were dug four feet by Irishmen; River bank around New Ground: Nos 13. 14. 15. G & E. H. raised by them. We found, as with every thing else, that some Squads of