Pierpont Plantation

Recently, my cousin Dave [Pierpont] was travelling around South Carolina with his wife (he’s retired like I am, but doesn’t have the homeschooling responsibilities of his grandchildren like I do). He came across an area near Charleston which was called “Pierpont Plantation.” Knowing my interest in genealogy, he copied the information on their website and sent it to me in a message. The text indicated that the name of Pierpont Plantation was taken from “Benjamin Pierpont, an early owner”. Of course, I was intrigued – as Dave thought I would be. So, I took him up on the challenge to find out more.

[SC Plantations]

 

Using the text he sent, I quickly located the actual website. The plantation was originally begun in 1677, meaning that Benjamin Pierpont would have owned it in the late 1600s or early 1700s. But that’s pretty early in US history – so, who was he?

My initial thought was that this was yet another case of one of the English Pierrepont family coming to the US. I had documentation on three different emigrations – the New England Pierponts started by brothers Robert and John who came to the Boston area in 1640, Henry Pierpont who came to the MD/VA area in 1623 (and who I’ve written about here), and a Canadian branch (who I’ve written about here). I quickly ruled out the latter as they only emigrated in 1911. Was Benjamin yet another branch?

I did a bunch of quick searches using a variety of terms to see if I could find further information about Benjamin. One really good result was an entry in WikiTree. It called him “Rev. Benjamin Pierpont”, son of John Pierrepont and Thankful Stow, born 26 Jul 1668 in Roxbury, MA and died on 3 Jan 1698 in Charleston, SC. But John and Thankful are also the parents of Rev. James Pierpont, the progenitor of the New England Pierponts. This was not another immigrant, but Benjamin was part of the New England Pierponts. I then gathered some additional information on him. Here is his story.

 

Benjamin Pierpont

Benjamin was born in 1668 in Roxbury, MA. He was the tenth and youngest child of John and Thankful. Like his older brother, James (who was 8 years older), Benjamin got his education at Harvard (then a school for Puritan ministers) in 1689. James had accepted a call from New Haven, CT, in 1685. In 1691, Benjamin led a company of men from Roxbury who sailed south with the intention of starting a new church in South Carolina.

According to one very detailed source (see below for details), the tract of land had been granted to George Bedon in 1677. He conveyed it to George Hewes in 1683, but when Hewes died his executor conveyed it to Henry Symonds. Henry died shortly after and his widow, Francis, conveyed it to “Benjamin Pierpont, Gentleman” in 1696. Evidently, Benjamin had made quite an impact on Francis in the five years he had been in Charleston. As this source notes, “If he was the grantee of the 510 acres on the Ashley river then he enjoyed the property for a very brief time for it is said he died in 1698. Nevertheless his name survived as the name of the plantation which is still known as ‘Pierponts.’”

Looking at other sources, Benjamin died of smallpox on 3 Jan 1698 in the ministerial office. He was only 29 years old. His property back in Roxbury had been given to his brother James. Benjamin apparently never married, and he died “without issue.”

 

As it turned out, Benjamin is my great*8 uncle. If he had not died rather young from small pox at the age of only 29, then there might still be a branch of the New England Pierponts thriving in SC. Instead, we have his legacy of an area of Charlestown that bears his name as well as a Pierpont Street. When one starts on a genealogical hunt, you never know what you will find!

[Pierpont Ave]

 

 

Source Material

“Old Charles Town and Its Vicinity, Accabee and Wappoo Where Indigo Was First Cultivated, with Some Adjoining Places in Old St. Andrews Parish”, Henry A. M. Smith, published by South Carolina Historical Society in 1915 (see here).

A later issue of this magazine (see here) notes that the property passed to another individual by 1712.

The following sources are listed in the WikiTree article:

·        Vital Records of Roxbury, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849 (The Essex institute, Salem, Mass., 1925-1936) Vol. 1: "Roxbury Births", Page 279

·        Savage, James. A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England (Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1861) Vol. 3, Page 433

·        Ellis, Charles. The History of Roxbury Town (Samuel G. Drake, Boston, 1847) Page 126

·        Marks, Edward J. A genealogical abstract of descent of the family of Pierrepont (1881)

·        Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988

·        Ullmann, Helen S. The Pierponts of Roxbury, Massachusetts (Newbury Street Press, Boston, Mass., 2007) Page 20-1

·        Sibley, John Langdon. Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University (Charles William Sever, Cambridge, 1885) Page 429

·        Sibley, John Langdon. Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University (Cambridge: Charles William Sever, 1885) Vol. 3, Page 429