John Grimké Drayton (May 1, 1816 – April 2, 1891) was a nineteenth-century planter and priest in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a horticulturalist at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens on the Ashley River and an Episcopal priest who served nearby Old St. Andrew's Parish Church for forty years.
Early life John Drayton Grimké was born on May 1, 1816, to Thomas Smith Grimké and Sarah Daniel Drayton. He was the second of six children."Drayton Family Tree," Magnolia Plantation and Gardens archives. His father was a renowned attorney and state senator whose real calling, he believed, was to the ministry. Pursuing that vocation, however, was overruled by his father, the acclaimed Charleston attorney and politician, John Faucheraud Grimké. His mother's parents owned a large plantation west of Charleston, Magnolia-on-the-Ashley (now known as Magnolia Plantation and Gardens). His aunts were Sarah Moore Grimké and Angelina Grimké, who had left Charleston as young adults when John was still young and became noted abolitionists.
Education John attended the Southworth School in Charleston, and later the College of Charleston, where he graduated in 1833.<Porwoll 2014, p. 133. He studied and traveled abroad in 1836. The following year he became a candidate for Holy orders in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina. In 1838–39 he enrolled at General Theological Seminary in New York City. On his return to Charleston, he continued his studies for the ministry under the Reverend James Stuart Hanckel, rector of St. Andrew's Parish Church just south of Magnolia, and Bishop Nathaniel Bowen.<Porwoll 2014, p. 134
Inherits Magnolia Magnolia has been in the Drayton family since 1679. John's grandfather, Thomas Drayton, had willed the plantation to his son William Henry, on the condition that he marry and produce a son. When Thomas died in 1825, and childless William Henry died the following year, the property went to John's older brother Thomas – provided that he changed his surname from Grimké to Drayton. He did, and he inherited the 1,872 acre Magnolia plantation. Thomas died in a hunting accident on the property in 1836. John heard of his brother's death while he was in Europe and returned home. He was next in line to inherit Magnolia provided he also changed his surname, which he did. John Grimké became John Grimké Drayton. Throughout his life, he considered himself a Drayton and not a Grimké-Drayton, since he signed his letters "J. G. Drayton."See for example, J. G. Drayton to S. C. Brincklé, April 2, 1856, Old St. Andrew's Parish Church archives; J. G. Drayton to S. C. Brincklé, March 22, 1861, Old St. Andrew's Parish Church archives.
Marries Julia Ewing On his way to New York City and the seminary, Drayton stopped in Philadelphia to visit family. There he met Julia Ewing, whom he fell in love with. She came from a prominent family and led an active social life. The couple were married on July 9, 1840, and moved to Magnolia soon afterwards. The couple divided their time between Magnolia and the Grimké family's Charleston home at 42 South Bay fronting the harbor. Today the site is a national historic landmark known as the William Gibbes House located at 64 South Battery.
Contracts Tuberculosis Just after his marriage John became ill with tuberculosis. Where he contracted it is unknown, although he may have picked it up in the cold, damp, crowded living conditions at seminary. His granddaughter Marie Clinton Hastie remembered that John was troubled with a "weak throat and chest".Hastie, Marie Clinton (ca. 1927). Magnolia-on-the-Ashley (Magnolia Gardens). p. 7. South Carolina Historical Society. His doctor prescribed a treatment common to tuberculosis patients in the first half of the nineteenth century: exercise and farming. "The dilemma was frustrating and ongoing," wrote Sheila Rothman in a study of tuberculosis and its social effects, "how to reconcile an invalid's moral and medical obligations with personal ambitions and goals. Was it necessary for those who yearned to become ministers or teachers to take up farming?"Rothman 1994, p. 24. That is exactly what John Grimké Drayton did.
Tuberculosis plagued Drayton for his entire adult lifetime. After he became active in ministry, he recounted numerous times that illness had limited his ability to preach, teach, and conduct worship. The severity of the illness intensified as he aged..
Develops Magnolia's Gardens Drayton's treatment plan was "digging in the dirt".Lashley 1969, p. 31. He also wanted to please his new wife, who found it difficult to adjust to such an isolated, rural life after leaving Philadelphia. His goal: "to create an earthly paradise in which my dear Julia may forever forget Philadelphia and her desire to return there."
Drayton's focus now became rebuilding Magnolia's deteriorating gardens and postponing his ordination. He chose a garden format popular in the mid-nineteenth century called the Romantic style, a natural, informal approach to design and plantings. Drayton's "picturesque" style of Romanticism, "expressed by striking, irregular spirited forms", was a stark contrast to the formal, geometric style of nearby Middleton Place and a naturalistic expression at Drayton Hall, where "man exert[ed] control over the natural environment."Cothran et al. 2011, pp. 20–21. Drayton's Magnolia became an innovative showcase for unbridled natural beauty, "which allowed man and nature to co-exist. Wildness was glorified and enhanced, not tamed."Cothran et al. 2011, p. 21. In the 1840s Drayton was one of the first people in the United States to plant Camellia japonica (Japanese camellia) outdoors on a large-scale and grow Azalea Indica (Indian azalea) outdoors.Cothran et al. 2011, p. 14. His vision and genius turned Magnolia Plantation and Gardens into one of the world's most impressive, cultivated landscapes.Hastie (ca. 1927), p. 11.
John Grimké Drayton's Magnolia was not only a beautiful gardens but also a working farm. The 1860 agricultural census showed that Magnolia produced 13,000 lb. (6.5 tons) of rice, one of the few areas where rice was grown in St. Andrew's Parish; 2,000 lb. (1 ton) of cotton, a minor producer; 600 bu. (42,000 lb. or 21 tons) of corn; 20 bu. (1,200 lb. or .6 tons) of Irish potatoes; and 40 bu. (1,120 lb. or .56 tons) of peas and beans."Schedule 4. Productions of Agriculture in Saint Andrews in the County of Charleston in the Post Office of Charleston, Year Ending June 1, 1860." United States Census (Agricultural), 1860.
None of this gardening or farming would have been possible without the labor of Magnolia's enslaved men, women, and children. The 1850 Census listed 45 in 1850Population Schedules of the Seventh Census of the United States, 1850. South Carolina. Slave Schedules. and 41 in 1860.South Carolina Census 1860 (Slave Schedule), Charleston County, St. Andrew's Parish.
Raises a Family John and Julia Drayton had two daughters. Julia was born on October 30, 1848, and Ella, on March 10, 1853. Julia would marry William S. Hastie Jr. and settle at Linwood, in Summerville, in 1883. Julia would inherit Magnolia on her father's death and take great care of it. She died on November 3, 1920. Ella would marry Edward Reed Memminger, whose indifferent approach to Christianity infuriated Reverend Drayton, who attended their wedding but did not officiate it.Porwoll 2018, pp. 176–177. She died on February 23, 1926.
Begins His Ministry For more than a decade, Drayton postponed his entry into the ministry to recover his health and focus on his gardens. He was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church at St. Andrew's Parish Church on March 16, 1851, and a priest seven months later at Grace Church, Charleston.Porwoll 2014, p. 135. Later that year Reverend Drayton replaced Stuart Hanckel at St. Andrew's and became the church's eleventh rector. He would also become its longest serving rector, for forty years until his death in 1891.Porwoll 2014, p. 132.
He inherited a parish church whose best days seemed to be behind it. St. Andrew's was one of the wealthiest parishes in British North America before the American Revolution, due to rice, indigo, and the plantation slave system that made it possible. But the parish suffered severe economic decline after the war, and the parish church felt the effects. The church was open only seasonally, from about November through May when the weather was cooler.Porwoll 2014, p. 119. When Stuart Hanckel arrived in 1838, there were only 17 white communicants. When John Grimké Drayton arrived in 1851, the number of white communicants had risen to 26, but the 69 black communicants outnumbered them by more than two-to-one.
Stuart Hanckel had begun a ministry to the enslaved on the plantations in St. Andrew's Parish. Three chapels had been built for slave worship and instruction: at Nathaniel Russell Middleton's (later Samuel G. Barker's) plantation on the Stono River in the southern part of the parish (1845), at Simon J. Magwood's plantation in the center of the parish (also 1845), and at John Grimké Drayton's Magnolia (1850).Porwoll 2014, pp. 122–126. Drayton took this ministry to new heights. During the 1850s, the number of white communicants remained low (an annual average of 21), dwarfed by the number of black communicants (an annual average of 119, or five times as many as white).Porwoll 2014, p. 143.Porwoll 2018, p. 27. Drayton used all four venues as worship centers. From 1856 to 1860 he held an annual average of 20 services at the parish church, 29 at Magnolia Chapel, 12 at Magwood's Chapel, and 7 at Barker's Chapel.Porwoll 2014, p. 144. He wrote to a Delaware friend and Episcopal priest in 1858 that "My black Roses are prospering."Porwoll 2014, p. 145.J. G. Drayton to S. C. Brincklé, January 6, 1858, Old St. Andrew's Parish Church archives.
The antebellum parish register, begun in 1830, further illustrates Reverend Drayton's focused ministry to the enslaved. Of the more than two hundred baptisms, confirmations, marriages, and burials he performed in the 1850s, more than 90 percent involved the enslaved.
Drayton's tenure before the Civil War was also marked by one of the most comprehensive renovations of a "very dilapidated"Porwoll 2018, p. 235. parish church since its founding in 1706. Col. William Izard Bull, a prominent parishioner who lived at Ashley Hall Plantation south of the church, installed new pews, a new pulpit and reading desk, cast iron railing around the pulpit, desk, and altar, a new sandstone paver floor, and two marble monuments, one to his Izard family and one to the Bulls. He also had the walls painted to cover cherubs which had previously been added, "all to the horror of grandma and the other ladies".Porwoll 2014, pp. 136–141.
In addition to his work at St. Andrew's, Reverend Drayton filled in for absent clergy at St. Peter's Church, Charleston (1857–60), St. Philip's Church, Charleston (1858), and beginning in 1855, St. John in the Wilderness in Flat Rock, North Carolina, from June to early November.Porwoll 2014, pp. 144–146.
Builds a Home in Flat Rock Flat Rock, North Carolina, was a haven for wealthy Charlestonians who sought relief from the lowcountry's heat, humidity, and insects. It was informally called "Little Charleston in the Mountains."See for example, Patton, Sadie Smathers (1961). A Condensed Story of Flat Rock (The Little Charleston in the Mountains). 3rd ed. Hickory, NC: Hickory Printing. John Grimké Drayton first visited Flat Rock in 1853 and a few years later built a summer home and gardens there, which he called Ravenswood. It was situated next to Rock Hill, the home of Christopher Gustavus Memminger, who would become the Confederacy's first Secretary of the Treasury.Porwoll 2014, p. 146.
Endures Civil War