Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

· Literature, Principally Belletristic .
In the name of the Almighty God Amen, I, Arthur Dobbs, of Brunswick
in New Hanover, Governor and Captain General of the Province of North
Carolina, in America, injoying a moderate state of health and having by
the blessing of the infinitely perfect and good God the Father Almighty,
a perfect and sound mind and memory, to make this my last will and
testament in manner following:
First, I recommend my soul to the Almighty Triune God, Jehovah
Elohim and his only Begotten son, Jesus Christ my God and only Saviour
and Redeemer and to His Holy Spirit Blessed forever; and my Body to
the Earth to be decently and privately interred, in an assured and full
hope of a Glorious and happy Resurection with the Just, at the first
Resurection and a Blessed immortality in the Heavenly Kingdom of
Christ the Messiah untill he shall deliver up his Mediatorial Kingdom to
God his Father when he shall be all in all his Creatures.191
A significant South Carolina will mentioned in Chapter III above is that
of James Child of St. John's Parish, Berkeley County, who left property
and funds for a school, schoolmaster, and hoped-for university. Though
Child signed himself "yeoman," his estate was greater than that of most
planters who called themselves "gentlemen." Equally interesting for its
educational provisions and because of the historical importance of the
testator is the will of "Francis Nicholson, Esq. of South Carolina in America,
now residing in St. George's, Hanover Square" in London, and dated
March 4, 1726/27. This former governor of Virginia, Maryland, and
South Carolina and one of the more northern colonies left specific directions
as to where he was to be buried within the Chapel of St. George
and what should be engraved upon his tombstone, that the funeral was to
be performed immediately after sunrise on the morning following his
decease, and that only the clergyman, the reader and clerk, and six bearers
were to attend while the whole funeral service was read. Nicholson made
further allowances or bequests for the church and college in Virginia,
mourning rings for several S.P.G. missionaries and schoolmasters in America,
and personal bequests to various notables in Britain and South Carolina.
Landgrave Abel Ketelby of his last governorship was to be his
overseer and trustee. Such was the final word of this remarkable man declared
by at least one shrewd contemporary as fit to be a bishop as well as
a governor.192
There are undoubtedly in southern archives hundreds and perhaps thousands
of these wills which reveal in their authors' own words their attitudes
toward many things in this world and the next. Some are literarily, even
more intellectually, interesting. Almost the same may be said for the even
more expressive diaries, journals, autobiographies, and letters still emerging
from forgotten archives, dark attics, and scattered descendants. For
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