Walworth Plantation

Purchased by Major Samuel Porcher, soon after the introduction of cotton into the State. and named by him in affectionate remembrance of the village near London where he had been educated. He built an elegant house upon it, and gave it to his son Thomas William Porcher, who made it his residence. He married in 1828 Ellinor, daughter of Captain Peter Gaillard of Haydon Hill.  They had four children: 1. Julius, who married Mary, daughter of Edmond Wickham, Esqr., of Richmond, Va.;  2. Mary, who married Rev. C. P. Gadsden, now of Charleston, and died of Yellow Fever in 1864;  3. John Stoney the present owner of Walworth, who married Harriott, daughter of Isaac Porcher, Jr., of  Chapel Hill.;  4.  Ellinor, who married John Gaillard and died in 1860.

Julius T. Porcher, the eldest of these children, was born in April, 1829. In his boyhood he attended the best schools in Charleston, and graduated at the South Carolina College. He afterwards studied medicine, and was admitted to that faculty.  Amply provided for by his father, he had no inducement to follow the practice of the profession, and having been settled by his father as a planter at St. Julien's, he brought to the pursuit of this business all the resources of a cultivated mind, and patient industry. Early taught to regard life as a trust he made it his business to discharge with fidelity that which was committed to him and he early commanded the respect and esteem of all who knew him. The improvement of his estate was both a duty and a pleasure, and his patient industry and habits of accurate observation made it certain that every improvement which he might effect for himself would be permanent, and so well founded on facts and well conducted experiments as to be a gain also to his neighborhood and to his country.

Called to the command of a company on the breaking out of the war, he was intrusted with the defence of Bull's Island. After the abandonment of that port he was transfered to the army of the West and followed Gen. Bragg in his various movements. Censured as this general was during the greater part of his career, those who knew Capt. Porcher never joined in this censure, for they knew, that the General enjoyed his confidence and so great was their confidence in him that they cheerfully submitted their judgment to his superior means of information. In the army he rose to the rank of Lieut. Col. With that rank he entered the fatal field of Chickamauga, or Missionary Ridge, and was never more seen bv his friends. No effort could ever recover his body. On that fatal day perished this young man, the joy and hope of his family. the pride and honour of his name. the hope and ornament of his country. I can well sympathize with the Duke of Ormond. who gloried more in the grave of his Ossory than other fathers did in the splendid prospects of their living sons. My Ossorys, too, lie in their graves, their reputation safe beyond all assaults of calumny, all temptations whether of prosperity or of adversitvy- and I take an honest pride in here recording the virtues and the graces of my honoured kinsman.

Upper Beat of St. John's Berkeley By Frederick A. Porcher (26) Walworth