When the Sams Heirs’ Claims to Beaufort County Property were Settled, South Carolina looked like this. 1893 Map courtesy of the Library of Congress.
We have often told you how the events of Nov 7, 1861, led to the immediate evacuation of all plantation owners from Beaufort District. And you’ve heard most lost everything as a result. A war was going on, and both sides needed to fund their war efforts. For the Federal government, the legal steps started with the Direct Tax Act of August 1861, which levied taxes on all states and was amended in June 1862 to include the rebellious states as well. This led to Federally appointed tax commissioners arriving in Beaufort later that year. Foreclosures on South Carolina homes and land followed. This included all of the Sams real estate in the Beaufort District.
In Beaufort County, the old South was gone forever.
[Rowland, page 471]
However, there is more to the story. Thirty years later, the Federal Government compensated the Sams heirs and others for their confiscated real estate.
Direct Tax Act of 1861
As the war began, a series of steps by the Federal government quickly led to a shutting of the door against the “secesh” ever returning to Beaufort. The first step was the Direct Tax Act, passed in August 1861. It was designed to generate revenues so the U.S. Government could prosecute the war. One way it did this was to create a direct property tax that was apportioned to every state. It was enforced even in rebellious states by a statute added in 1862. Federally appointed tax commissioners in South Carolina began the process in early 1863. Landowners were given two months to pay the taxes – in person – to stay in good standing. Those who did not pay were assessed a penalty and given two more months to pay the tax plus the fine. If the landowner did not pay, the government foreclosed on the property. Once the land was put up for sale by the government, the original owner could still buy it but had to pay the tax and all penalties and swear allegiance to the United States Constitution. From “The Big Shoot” in Port Royal Sound on 7 November 1861 to the sale of the property was only 26 months. The first land sales in Beaufort began in February 1863.
On the one hand, the U.S. government required landowners to appear in person to buy foreclosed land. On the other hand, the Confederate regulations in force at the same time “threatened seizure of their assets should they enter into any intercourse with the United States.”
Larry Rowland sums it up best when he says,
The exiled owners were damned from any attempt to retain their land and homes.
[Rowland, page 157]
The U.S. Claims Court 1892
Post-war, trying to untangle the legal aspects of all these foreclosures was a messy business. They had occurred during the war, records were lost, time was slipping away, and still, the Sams heirs (and others) had not been compensated for their losses. A compromise was eventually reached in 1892 to provide restitution to the descendants of antebellum owners of sea island plantations for their losses due to the U.S. Direct Tax Act foreclosures.
This is good news for us today because it documented which lines of the SAMS family owned which plantations. Historians welcome any documentation like this.
The U.S. Court of Claims had to track down the heirs. In his second volume of The History of Beaufort County, Rowland et al. found settlements with 50 groups of claimants who had Beaufort County property confiscated. Six of these groups involved SAMS heirs. What’s interesting to me is who the claimants were, where they ‘were located’ as of 1892, and which properties had a legitimate provenance for these heirs, at least according to the U.S. Claims Court.
The whole list is interesting because it mentions other surnames and plantations you may be familiar with. The heirs compensated included descendants with surnames like Barnwell, Capers, Chaplin, Coffin, Fripp, Fuller, Heyward – the list goes on [Rowland, pages 466-471.] Property names include Morgan Island, Fripp Point Place, Cherry Hill Plantation, Coffin Point, Harbour Island, and Habersham Plantation.
The 1892 location of the heirs/claimants was expected, in general; they were from all over the U.S. I was surprised to see how many, three decades after the war, lived in Barnwell, S.C. None of the Sams claimants listed that residence, but we know many evacuated there during the war. Conversely, I was surprised to discover that other Beaufortonians went to Texas after the war, as Lewis Reeve Sams Jr did.
Sams Heirs / Claimants
The Sams settlements ranged from $1,238.25 (2022 value $39,340) to a high of $6,571.32 (2022 value $208,772). These are settlements per group of heirs/claimants. Some groups of Sams claimants had one heir, and some had several. What these records reveal about the Sams descendants in 1892 is interesting, but they also raise some questions.
The Sisters in Florida [Claimant #37, Rowland, page 470]
Claimant #37 is a group of sisters living in Brevard County, Florida, in 1892: Elizabeth Sams, Sarah Sams, and Adelaide Sams Hallonquist. They are all related to Berners Barnwell Sams. Elizabeth was the last child of B.B. Sams and his first wife, Elizabeth Fripp. Elizabeth never married. Sarah and Adelaide were the daughters of B.B. Sams by his second wife, Martha Edwards. And here’s our first mystery. The property which is the basis of their claim is “Loton Blacks Plantation,” as well as a lot in the town of Beaufort. This plantation may be what Conway Whittle Sams, a grandson of BB Sams, refers to as Black’s Point in his unpublished Sams and Whittle Family History, circa 1925. BB Sams owned a group of plantations on the northeast corner of Ladys Island.
This was in a cluster of plantations owned by the sons of Dr. B. B. Sams. These plantations were “Laurel Hill”, “Burgamot,” “Black’s Point,” and “Bolus Point” and were owned by Julius, Clement, Franklin, Bainbridge, and Donald Sams.
Conway Whittle Sams, circa 1925
However, none of these other Sams Point plantations are mentioned by any claimants.
Stanhope Sams [Claimant #19, Rowland, page 468]
There’s only one person in this group. He’s described as a Merritt Island, Florida resident named Stanhope Sams. He was the son of Lewis Reeve Sams and Sarah Fripp. The problem is, I know he is buried in Decatur, Georgia. Also, I have no record of him being in Florida. In any case, Stanhope Sams is one of several claimants who received a settlement though no specific Beaufort County property is identified. Twenty percent of the 50 claims are in this exact situation. Unclear to me why this is.
Elizabeth F. Nash [Claimant #47, Rowland, page 471]
This is another single-person claimant group. Elizabeth F. Nash was Lewis Reeve Sams’ first child with his second wife, Frances Fuller, and the only one of their four children still alive in 1892. Her brother Thomas Fuller Sams died in 1881 and left his property in Beaufort to his sister in his will. Part of her settlement was based directly on her father and part on her brother’s will. I’m surprised this did not happen with others in the SAMS family during this 1892 action. Elizabeth is identified as being in Fulton County, GA, at that time.
As with the “Sisters in Florida,” the basis for Elizabeth Nash’s claim is a bit of a mystery. The property identified as the basis of her claim included “The Cottage,” Port Royal Island, and one lot in Beaufort. It’s possible “The Cottage” was left to both her and her brother. Though deceased, he’s mentioned as a claimant.
I can find no other information about “The Cottage” home or plantation, though it is listed on the website South Carolina Plantations.
The Texas Heirs [Claimant #38, Rowland, page 470]
Claimant #38 is a group of eight Lewis Reeve Sams heirs residing in Williamson County, Texas, in 1892. They are all children of Dr. Lewis Reeve Sams Jr., the son of Datha Island’s Lewis Reeve Sams.
Dr. Sams left for Galveston in 1866 with most of his family. The claimants correlate with our records of those alive in 1892, with one exception. Martha Sams McFarland was alive but not included in the claim. Either she chose not to join the claim, or they could not locate her. Our records indicate she died a long way from Texas, in Kentucky in 1923.
One other anomaly in this group is the identification of Sarah G. and Sarah J. I think these are the same person, Sarah Jane Graham Sams.
The property for this claim is extensive and consistent with land owned by Lewis Reeve Jr. rather than Sr. The settlement is supported by them having lost Hermitage (Port Royal Island), Oakland (St Helena Island), Polawana Island, and Town Lots in Beaufort.
We know of Oakland and Polawana from the Tombee book [Rosengarten.] This claim provides circumstantial evidence that Lewis Reeve, Jr. owned the Hermitage Plantation, later known as Sams Farm in Beaufort, west of Ribaut Road.
Miles Brewton Sams [Claimant #29, Rowland, page 469]
Claimant Miles Brewton Sams was the second son of Lewis Reeve Sams and his first wife, Sarah Fripp. In 1892 he was identified as living in Spartanburg, SC. He died in 1894, shortly after his claim was settled.
His settlement was based on town lots in Beaufort, not a plantation. Unfortunately, the lots are not identified, though I assume one must be what we know today as the Miles Brewton House. In an earlier article, I mentioned his wife, Caroline Oswald Sams (1819 – 1898). The green silk taffeta gown we preserved and display in our History & Learning Center was made for her.
Caroline Pope Sams [Claimant #46, Rowland, page 471]
This last claimant group was comprised of four more heirs of Lewis Reeve Sams with his second wife, Frances Fuller. The focus of this group is Caroline Pope Sams, wife of Dr. Richard Fuller Sams, the son of Lewis Reeve and Frances. Caroline and her three living children in 1892 are all in this group. One curious note is that their location is identified as Savannah, GA. I have records of them living in several places in GA, but not Savannah.
What is most interesting about this group is the confiscated property it’s base on: Dathaw Pineland (Ladies Island), Dathaw Point Plantation (Dathaw Island), and three town lots.
This mention of Datha/Dathaw reminded me that this 1892 settlement was about compensating heirs associated with the property back in 1862. It did not affect the then-current owners of the land in Beaufort or on Datha Island. Our records show Datha Island in 1892 was owned by Anna Irwin and Eliza Tabor.
Historical Observations
First, the Sams heirs who received a settlement in 1892 based their claims on property traced back to two sons of William and Elizabeth Hext and a grandson:
- Lewis Reeve Sams, Sr. – #19, #29, #46, and #47
- BB Sams – #37
- Lewis Reeve Sams, Jr. – #38
(The numbers above refer to the same claimant groups described earlier.)
Second, claimant #46 settlement is partially based on Dathaw Point. There is no claim based on Dathaw Inlet (B.B. Sams plantation). We know Lewis Reeve left a will, and B.B. did not. Maybe this explains some of this mystery. The claim also mentions property I’ve never heard of before, “Dathaw Pineland on Ladies Island.”
Third, only one of the six claimant groups, the Florida Sisters, based a settlement on anything owned by B.B. Sams (i.e., the mysterious property entitled “Loton Blacks Plantation”.)
Fourth, these six claimant groups involved 17 Sams descendants. These 17 Sams heirs, still alive in 1892, were of different generations. Seven were grandchildren of William Sams and Elizabeth Hext (via Lewis Reeve, or Berners Barnwell). The other ten were great-grandchildren (via Lewis Reeve Jr.) The oldest was Miles Brewton Sams at 80, second son of Lewis Reeve Sams. As you can see, nearly all of the old Beaufortonians were gone.
Finally, if you total the settlements paid to the three claimant groups who traced confiscated property back to Lewis Reeve Sams, the amount far exceeds the compensation paid to the other Sams heirs.
Epilogue
It’s the descendants alive in 1892 that did not file claims, yet had a strong Beaufort connection, that peaks my interest. One is Rev. James Julius Sams (1826-1918), and the other is Dr. Robert Randolph Sams (1827-1910.) I can’t explain this except to note that what was closure for the Federal government may have been something different to each Sams heir. For example, we know Rev. Julius Sams had very fond memories of Beaufort and Datha Island. We also know he struggled his whole life with trying to forgive the North for the Civil War.
In this dramatic situation, it may just be that these claims brought closure to some. But I realize that life is not always that neat.
Sources
Beaufort County Above Ground Historic Resources Survey Beaufort County, South Carolina, 1998, page II-46. (download PDF)
Holden, Joel, and Riski, Bill – Family Tree for Sams of Dataw Island, accessed on Ancestry dot com October 4, 2020.
Library of Congress – South Carolina Map of 1893
Roney, Joe – The Sams of Florida, 2019
Rosengarten, Theodore –Tombee: Portrait of a Cotton Planter, 1986, pages 324-325.
Rowland, Lawrence S.; Wise, Stephen R.; Spieler, Gerhard – The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina, Volume 2, Rebellion, Reconstruction, and Redemption, 1861 – 1893, 2015, Chapter 19 The District Divided, pages 466 – 471.
#52Sams Closure