JOHN & AFFRA COMING OF COMINGTEE PLANTATION
This memorial stone, honoring the memory of Affra Harleston Coming, can be found on the grounds of Grace Episcopal Church on Glebe Street. Its inscription reads:
In Memory Of
Affra Harleston Coming
Who epitomizes the courage of the woman who
pioneered the settling of this state.
Coming by herself from England in 1670 as a
bonded servent and serving a two year
indenture to pay for her passage, she afterwards married
John Coming, First Mate of the ship Carolina.
While her husband was often at sea, Affra, despite danger
from disease and often hostile Indians, cleared
lands, planted crops and managed a remote plantation.
In 1698, after Captain Coming's death
Affra deeded seventeen acres of her Charleston lands
to the rector of St. Philip's Episcopal Church
and his seccessors "in consideration
of the love and duty I have, and owe to the church...
to promote and encourage ... good charitable
and pious ... work." She died not long afterwards.
The glebe, surrounded by St. Philips, Coming,
George and Beaufain Streets, is a living reminder
of the vision and character of
Carolina's first settlers.
Erected by the Society of First Families of
South Carolina 1670 - 1700
SOURCES & MORE INFORMATION
Ball, Edward. Slaves in the Family (New York: Farrow, Strauss and Giroux, 1998), 33-40.
The Charleston Museum has an excellent photo collection of enslaved people who lived and worked at Comingtee.
Edgar, Walter, ed. The South Carolina Encyclopedia. (Columbia, S.C.:University of South Carolina Press, 2006), p.211.
Lowcountry Africana: African American Genealogy in SC, GA and FL
Middleton, Margaret Simons. Affra Harleston and Old Charles-Town in South Carolina. (Columbia, S.C.: R.L. Bryan, 1971).
If you can handle the mosquitoes and an occasional snake, you might want to put on a pair of good, solid boots and explore one of the Lowcountry’s nearly forgotten places — Comingtee Plantation.
Though virtually a ghost today, its ruins evoke memories of the Lowcountry’s earliest European settlers and remind us that nothing lasts forever.
John Coming (d. Nov. 1, 1695; will dated Aug. 20, 1694) was born into a family of modest means from Devon, England. He worked as a mariner aboard the Carolina, making frequent trips across the Atlantic carrying passengers and cargo bound for the new Carolina colony. On the trip carrying the first permanent English settlers there in 1669 he met his future bride.
Affra Harleston (c. 1640s-1699) was born into an affluent landed family from Essex who fell on hard times following the English civil wars of the mid-17th century. Supporters of the unfortunate Charles I, the family moved to Ireland to escape Oliver Cromwell’s wrath after Charles’ beheading. Affra was probably born there in the mid-to-late 1640s; some sources say 1651. For unknown reasons, she boarded the Carolina during its first stop in Ireland seeking a new beginning. Some sources say she traveled alone, others that she traveled with her brother Charles. If indeed Charles did travel with her, he did not stay long in Carolina and perhaps returned to Barbados.
John and Affra met and fell in love during the voyage, which was a harrowing one with severe weather that caused Affra to declare she would never cross the ocean again. Some sources say they were married aboard the ship, though that seems unlikely, as she came aboard as an indentured servant, i.e., a passenger who agrees to become a servant for a defined period of time in return for her passage and a grant of land after her service. Perhaps the couple was “unofficially” married on board, then “officially” reaffirmed their vows after her two years of service were up in 1672.
In 1675, John was granted, along with another settler, Henry Hughes, 133 acres that today comprise most of Charleston’s historic peninsula. The pair donated half of their holdings on the peninsula for the new city of Charles Town when it moved from Albemarle Point around 1680.
Though he was still traveling, becoming Captain of first the Edisto and then the Blessing, John began planning for the couple's life together in the Charles Town colony. Under the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina (which was never officially adopted), a free man was granted 150 acres of land for every laborer he brought to the colony. John used his maritime earnings to hire six indentured servants – five men and a woman – and in February 1678 was awarded 900 acres where the east and west branches of the Cooper River fork. This plantation they called Coming’s T, presumably because of the T shape of the fork. Over time its name has been modified with different variations and spellings, and today is most often referred to as Comingtee.
Undoubtedly a young woman of stalwart character, Affra survived epidemics, hostile natives, bears, wildcats and alligators (not to mention the aforesaid snakes and mosquitoes) as she tamed this wilderness. She and her servants cleared the heavily forested land, planted crops and built a house and agricultural structures.
A descendent of the Ball, Harleston and Coming families Edward Ball writes in his book, Slaves in the Family, (1998): “I suspect John and Affra were struck by the fecundity of the swamps, the draperies of moss, the tree canopies and the abundance of game. There were alligators and rattlesnakes, bobcats, and an occasional bear – but there was also easy food for the table, including deer, duck, and possum.”
John eventually retired from his life and returned to Affra in Charles Town, where he remained until his death in 1695. Though married for 25 years, the couple never had children of their own. Instead they sponsored a number of young friends and relatives on voyages to join them in Charles Town and took in at least one local orphan if not more, so the house at Comingtee was always full. John was eventually named to Charles Town’s Grand Council.
Affra’s letters to her family in 1696 describe her grief and sense of loss after John’s death. John left everything he had to Affra in his will, dated Aug. 20, 1694. She moved from Comingtee to Charles Town and built a house near the corner of Wentworth and St. Philips streets. On Dec. 10, 1698, Affra donated 17 acres of land south of George Street to St. Philips Church, known as the “Glebe Lands,” or lands belonging to the church.
Affra’s will, dated Dec. 28, 1698, perhaps the date of her death, divided the remaining estate between her nephew, John Harleston, and her husband’s half-nephew, Elias Ball. Author Edward Ball references a letter in which Affra said that John had intended to leave part of their estate to his half-brother William Ball. William, however, was by this time in his 30s and well established in England as a tailor. For whatever reason, he chose not to pull up stakes and move to Charles Town, thus Affra passed the second half of the inheritance to his son, Elias Ball. The family holdings were consolidated when Elias Ball married John Harleston’s sister, Elizabeth.
By 1738, Ball had completed the part of the house whose ruins remain today, a two-story stucco-over-brick addition to the original wooden structure Affra had built. Over the next 200 years, Comingtee remained the Balls’ home for six generations as their fortunes from rice cultivation grew.
In 1927, the Balls sold Comingtee to U.S. Sen. Joseph Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, who used it as a hunting retreat. He maintained the house’s structural integrity through 1949, when he sold the property to what became MeadWestvaco for timbering.
According to Jennifer Howard of Steward Terra Communications, Comingtee became part of Westvaco’s Special Areas program, meaning the site was identified as significant and a management plan was developed for it to keep the forest from naturally taking over the ruins and removing vines that would compromise the integrity of what remained. When Hurricane Hugo ripped off its roof in 1989, however, that sounded the house’s death knell. Today, its ruins languish amid the forest of what in 2004 became the Bonneau Ferry Wildlife Management Area.
Though the site is open to the public except on designated hunt days, few find their way along the poorly marked dirt roads to visit the ruins, now mostly reclaimed by the forest.
Meanwhile, one remembers John and Affra Coming’s legacy through such place names as Harleston Village and Coming, Glebe and St. Philip streets near the College of Charleston campus. A marker commemorating Affra’s donation of the glebe lands stands amid the shrubbery along the east side of Grace Church Cathedral.
John and Affra are buried in unmarked graves, probably at Comingtee.
