John Stanyarne, planter in Colleton County, was the son of the immigrants Thomas and Mary Stanyarne.
He was the recipient of grants totaling 1,210 acres on the Stono River and Bohickett Creek in Colleton County, 610 acres in Granville County, and 2,000 acres on the Pee Dee and Winyah rivers in Craven County.
Commons House service began for Stanyarne when Colleton County elected him to the Third Assembly (1696-1697), and he continued to represent Colleton in the Sixth (1702-1703), Seventh (1703-1705), and the Tenth (1707-1708) Assemblies. When elected by his home county to the Twelfth Assembly (1710-1711), he declined to serve.
A Quaker, Stanyarne on 23 February 1703 walked out of the Sixth Royal Assembly along with other dissenters in protest of the Anglican faction and later exhibited his dissenting views by opposing the Church Act of 1704. He, unlike his brother James, supported proprietary rule throughout his political life, although he did in 1716 sign the petition to the Crown which complained of poor conditions in Carolina. He returned to the Commons House as a member of the Seventeenth Assembly (1720–1721), the last assembly under proprietary rule.
Local offices held by John Stanyarne included tax assessor, for raising money for the defense of the province (1702); road commissioner, for Johns Island (1705); bridge commissioner, for Wadmalaw River (1712); bridge commissioner, for Wappoo Cut (1712); bridge commissioner, for Stono Bridge (1713); and Commissioner of the High Roads for Johns Island, St. Paul Parish (1721).
SOURCES:
Maria Locke Bell, The Bells and Allied Families (Columbia, SC, 1953), pp. 60-61.
Commons House Journals, 1702-1703, 52–53.
Grand Jury Lists, 1720.
McCrady 1:409.
Moore & Simmons, p. 3.
Petit Jury Lists, 1720.
Royal Grants, 38:305, 435, 509, 39:12, 22, 24, 142, 440, 450.
Sirmans, Colonial SC, pp. 42, 80, 98n.
SCHM, 12:210; 271, 170, 171; 62:94.
SC Statutes, 2:183; 9:10, 24-25, 27, 31, 52.
Warrants, pp. 611, 624, 626, 660.
