Person:William Lynch (29)

Captain William Lynch (1742-1820 An Intriguing Past, but An Uncertain Future By Dennis Chastain

They say he was a big man - a man possessed with the physical stature of an Olympic athlete. But everything known about old William Lynch indicates that he was a prominent figure in ways that go beyond physical stature.

While living in Pittsylvania Virginia in the mid-1700s, he was a recognized leader in his local community and served as Captain of the local of militia. Later, during the American Revolution, he fought under the command of General Nathaniel Greene. Lynch served one term in the Virginia House of Delegates, and by 1836, he had gained sufficient notoriety that no lesser personage than American icon, Edgar Alan Poe, felt compelled to write a commentary in the Southern Literary Messenger about the Lynch Law, naming William Lynch as the author. Lynch later relocated to the Pendleton District, where he became a substantial landowner. His homestead in the Holly Springs community in northern Pickens County was depicted in the Mills Atlas (1820) map of the Pendleton District as the most prominent landmark in the immediate area. And it can now be said with some authority that he was, indeed, the source of the term "Lynch Law", which is a story within itself.

No less than a half-dozen individuals throughout history have been proposed as the source of the Lynch Law, and theories regarding the origin of this controversial system of summary justice abound, but all the speculation can now be put to rest. Just as some of his descendants have maintained for years, it was indeed, old William Lynch, who took matters into hand and initiated the actions that led to the historically significant phenomenon known as the Lynch Law.

The story begins back in 1776 in colonial Virginia, specifically the area around Pittsylvania, near the Dan River along the North Carolina/Virginia border. During this awkward period in American history, the arm of the law was not quite so long as one would have liked. As a matter of fact, it seldom reached beyond the limits of the major centers of population. Lawlessness in the backcountry was rampant and folks in the hinterlands of the colonies were forced by necessity to fend for themselves. It was the same phenomenon that, in the 1760s, led to the Regulator movement in South Carolina.

In Virginia, William Lynch decided to do what he could to remedy the situation. He gathered his neighbors together one Sunday afternoon and established a rudimentary system of summary justice for errant souls and roving gangs of scofflaws that terrorized the colonists. In their written agreement, Lynch and his neighbors, wrote that they had, "sustained great and intolerable losses by a set of lawless men, who have banded themselves together to deprive honest men of their just rights and property, by stealing their horses, counterfeiting, and passing paper currency, and committing many other species of villany, too tedious to mention, and that those vile miscreants do still persist in their diabolical practices, and have hereto escaped the civil power with impunity" The group decided to form and organization, later known as the "Lynch- men", and vowed to "put a stop to the iniquitous practices of those unlawful and abandoned wretches..." That very afternoon they wrote and adopted a set of guidelines for dispensing summary justice, the document that later became known as Lynch's Law. It was a bold stroke of "can do" spirit that even critics described as imminently successful, and a phenomenon that later spread to other colonies and even into Europe.

Much of what we know about William Lynch during his later years in Pickens County comes from the diaries of two 19th century surveyors who boarded with Lynch while engaged in surveying the border of between the two Carolinas and Georgia. First was George Blackburn, a professor of mathematics and astronomy from South Carolina College (later the University of SC). Blackburn surveyed the border between North and South Carolina between Caesars Head and the Chattooga River. He wrote in his journal stories of which he is himself the Hero. He gave us an account of a law called Lynch's law". Blackburn, who was a scientist and a self-styled poet, also wrote a bit of prose about old William Lynch in his journal. George Blackburn, by the way, was a colorful character in his own right. His students, back in Columbia, so despised him that they burned him in effigy one evening. A large crowd gathered, a melee ensued, and the Governor had to call out the state militia to quell the riot. Nevertheless, his journal entries regarding William Lynch are an invaluable resource for those wishing to know more.

Andrew Ellicott, who in 1811 was engaged by the state of Georgia to determine the border between the two Carolinas and Georgia at the 35th parallel, also spent some time with William Lynch. Notably, Ellicott wrote in his journal, "Captain Lynch just mentioned was the author of the Lynch laws..." Ellicott went on to say that, "I should not have asserted it as fact had it not been related to me by Mr. Lynch himself and his neighbor Mr. Lay, one of the original association together with several other Lynch-men as they were called" It should be noted that George Blackburn, Andrew Ellicott and Edgar Alan Poe were unanimously critical of the principle of summary justice behind the Lynch Law, which they saw as nothing more than vigilantism, but nevertheless Blackburn and Ellicott both expressed a favorable impression of Lynch himself. The truth is that the actions of every man, living and dead, must be judged in the context of the times in which they live. There is no denying that in later years, and particularly in the years after William Lynch's death and up to the time of the Civil Way, the principle of summary justice was much abused and probably did, indeed, eventually lead to many acts of pure vigilantism. But one has only to read the text of the Lynchmen's compact to know that their motives were sincere and their goal was noble in spirit.

William Lynch was an important figure in American history and it would only be logical to assume that the gravesite of such an important figure would be a way- point on any historical tour of Pickens County, but few people even know where his grave is. It would seem appropriate that his role in American history would be detailed in his school textbooks, but not a word of William Lynch's residence in Pickens County or the Lynch Law can be found in textbooks on the history of South Carolina. One would expect that, at a minimum, his gravesite would be maintained and cared for and identified for posterity with a permanent historical marker, but that is not the case. Furthermore, the gravesite is not only poorly maintained, it barely escaped the blade of a bulldozer last year. On an obscure pine knoll in the midst of The Rock resort development, located at the intersection of US Highway 178 and the Cherokee Foothills Scenic Highway in northern Pickens County, the neglected remnants of Captain William Lynch's gravesite lies hidden away. In order to access the grave, one must first obtain permission from the landowner and then try to locate the grave behind a patch of briars and broom straw, and a jumbled mess of storm-felled Virginia pines. All that remains to mark the final resting place of Old William Lynch is a crumbling wall of fieldstones and a somewhat primitive granite monument, which has toppled over on its backside.

Except for the efforts of several of his descendants, which led to a recent article in the Greenville News, the gravesite would likely be lost forever. Among William Lynch's many descendants and extended relatives in the upstate, only a small group, led by Karen Patterson, of Travelers Rest and Linda Skelton, a descendant who now lives in South Carolina's low country, has sustained the effort to get recognition and permanent preservation for the gravesite. But despite their dedicated efforts, the future of the William Lynch grave can only be described as uncertain.

The above article appeared in the Old Pendleton District Newsletter, Vol. 18, No. 5, June, 2004 The Carolina Herald, Summer Issue 2004 Page 24

Source: http://rootsweb.ancestry.com/~scpicke2/cemetery-txt/p242.txt