A production of the South Carolina Educational Television Network ♪ ♪ ["The Way We Were"] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ We are in Brattonsville on a beautiful autumn day on the porch of the home of William and Martha Bratton.

Colonel Bratton was a hero of the American Revolution in this area, and his wife Martha was a most remarkable lady.

We know that William Bratton came from Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, via the Great Wagon Road into upstate South Carolina.

He bought 200 acres of land in 1765, and his home was built in the 1770s.

This is an excellent example of the architecture of the homes of these pioneer families.

Notice the huge rocks from the fields, which are the foundations on which the house was built.

Originally there were two rooms, downstairs and upstairs, with a chimney to warm both.

Later the kitchen was added and another room.

It's a beautiful building, and you will enjoy a visit here.

Let's lift the latch and go in.

[footfalls on porch] [door opening] ♪ We are in the main room of the Revolutionary War home of William and Martha Bratton.

This is the living room, as we would call it today, but I think of it as an all-purpose room.

The walls are plastered white, with a little baseboard tastefully painted in Williamsburg gray.

The ceiling is about 9 feet tall, and it has been furnished in period furniture to represent what the Brattons would have had in the 1770s.

In one corner is a three-quarter bed.

This would have been the major bedroom for the head of the family and his wife.

Also, it was the place for conversation.

Here children would learn their lessons, and this was the meeting room where people would gather to talk about the American Revolution, the Patriot cause, or even the price of crops and how the hay is faring.

It's a delightful room today.

You feel these people about you.

The fireplace is interesting because it's open to the sky.

Santa would have no trouble coming down this fireplace!

The damper, which closed off drafts, was not introduced until this century.

We have a warming pan.

Hot coals would be placed in this copper pan.

Then it would be run between the sheets as one was ready to go to bed, so that cold sheets would not freeze the person.

One can feel the family here in this gracious room, very spacious for the time in which it was built.

Here in the evening, the family would talk about the occurrences of the day.

Possibly they would have a mug of from the teapot on the hob by the fire.

The gentlemen might want a stronger libation if they were welcoming a guest or it had been very cold.

Here, too, members of the family would read aloud.

Possibly Father would read the Bible or a newspaper, which occasionally came in this area, as Martha would darn socks and tend to the eternal sewing necessary for her family.

Books were kept in one of two bookcases which Colonel Bratton had made in the walls of this house.

The grand sum of $5 was paid to the carpenter for opening walls and constructing the bookcase.

Here, too, the gentlemen would often have a pipe at the end of the day of homegrown tobacco.

They would crumble tobacco from the pouch and place it in this long-stemmed churchwarden pipe.

Occasionally they would have visitors and a limited number of pipes.

The last person to smoke would break off a bit of the stem so it would be fresh for the next person who smoked.

You can feel that there's been a lot of happiness and living here.

But with imagination-- we're next to the kitchen, you know-- I believe we might have a turkey roasting, and possibly a pie ready from the oven.

Let's see what Martha and her cook has prepared for dinner.

♪ Oh, dear, there isn't a turkey cooking in the kitchen, but upon occasion we have found them here.

Notice a cutout prepared by the National Park Service to show how the original construction of this building was formed.

This is interesting to students of architecture as well as students of frontier life.

We're in the kitchen of the Revolutionary War house with some very interesting items that the ladies used to prepare meals.

Here, much too close to the fire, we have a churn for making butter.

If it were this close, the milk would sour.

We have the ordinary fork-- we have its counterpart today-- an d the ladle.

Close to the coals we have the spit, which would be run through a roast or chicken or fowl.

There is a handle by which the meat could be turned until it was cooked.

In the back of the fireplace, we have hooks of various heights from which pots and other items co uld be suspended according to the distance needed from the bed of coals and the fire itself.

An interesting pot, which hung on a hook, would simmer away until the food was cooked.

Here we have a sieve, a ladle with many holes, which could be dipped into a pot this size.

The liquids would fall through, and material that the cook wanted would be left within the sieve.

This very interesting item belonged to the Bratton family.

It's a waffle maker.

I can't lift this with one hand... it takes two, and at that, I don't believe I could open it to prepare a waffle.

In those days ladies didn't need Nautilus equipment.

They just had to cook!

This gourd has been hollowed out, raised on the farm, probably, and let dry, all the seeds taken out.

This was your dipper for water to drink or to use in cooking.

In this corner we have a large bin with two lids.

In the bin would be placed flour and sugar and items which would be brought to the household in order to provide nutritious meals.

On top is a very interesting cookery piece.

I'm sure that by hanging from a ladle with a flat bottom, it was used for making biscuits or baking a cake.

Leaning against the bin is a very interesting wooden item which, I believe, was used to remove kernels of corn from the cob.

One would work very carefully in order to have fresh corn, which then could be dried and used throughout the winter or made into cornmeal to use in different ways.

Here at the table in the kitchen we have several interesting items.

First, a candlestick... a block of wood with the candleholder set in the center.

Here is a plate, the type used by people of the Revolution and later.

This pewter plate was much better to bring than fine china, silver, and glassware, because the boxes would joggle as one came down the Great Wagon Road in their wagons and carts.

This would last for many, many generations, and it could not be broken.

We have a powder horn, which gentlemen used to keep their powder dry.

It is a horn of an animal, plugged, with a latch across the top so it attached to a belt.

This lantern is of pierced tin.

The door would open, the candle placed, and light from the candle would come from out of these many openings, but the container of the lantern itself would give protection to the candle as the wind would blow.

From the kitchen we face the dining room.

Here the family would take their meals or do whatever activities were necessary during the day.

Sometimes this entire floor would be used for travelers and strangers who would come by, needing the hospitality of the home.

The idea of the sleeping bag is not new.

Travelers would roll up in their blankets and get what sleep they could on the hard floor.

You would be interested in the dining room to see the rack in which plates were stored.

Now, let's go upstairs and enjoy the sleeping rooms of the children.

♪ This enclosed stairway seems very strange and dangerous to us today.

It has its own door to seal off the heat, and the steps are wedge-shaped and very narrow.

When you visit, be very careful.

This is typical of the homes of the period to save heat and space going up to the dormitory-type bedroom.

Now, let's go up the steps... very carefully.

♪ ♪ We are in the upstairs room of the 1770 house built by Colonel William and Miss Martha Bratton.

Architecturally speaking, this is a beautiful example of the architecture used by the pioneers in this area, pioneers who cleared the wilderness, built log homes, added to those homes, and made a foundation for their families in the Upcountry of South Carolina.

We just came up some very interesting, wedge-shaped steps, but those steps were not in the original house.

They were added in the renovation of 1839.

So from 1770 until 1839, this room was reached only by a ladder from the downstairs room.

The logs were split and very crudely finished, not as if they were to be shown in the downstairs area.

In between them we have the type of concrete which they used at that time to make it solid and firm.

It's so old, it's cracking.

This did not seal the room completely.

With four small windows, it was extremely hot in the summertime and, since it wasn't insulated as we know it today, very cold in the winter.

A large fireplace would heat this room as best they could, but it uses the same flue as the fireplace downstairs.

This room has something extremely interesting.

I borrowed this stick to pretend that it was one of the long rifles of the Revolutionary War period.

The roof is an overhang roof.

There were rifle slits, two of them, in this room, so the men of the family-- hopefully taller than I-- could aim the rifle under the overhang, sight the enemy, and shoot, and thereby protect their home from any marauders or the Tories and the British in the time of the Revolution, or the unhappy, warfarelike Indians who sometimes roamed through this area.

This is a very interesting type of architecture and one that is rarely seen, but just think how important this was for the defense of the home in the 1770s.

Across the ceiling of the room we have a structural beam.

When all the girls of the Bratton family used this as a bedroom, we can imagine the things that would be hanging from the beam and the wall.

Colonel and Mrs. Bratton had eight children.

From their letters and diaries, it's known that the girls used this as their bedroom.

It was also a type of dormitory.

Whenever guests would come or travelers who had ladies with them, the ladies would spend the night in this large, communal room, sometimes on pallets on the floor.

For permanent members of the family, there were different types of beds.

In one corner we have the normal-sized bed of today, but it's a little higher from the floor than we expect because it was built for the trundle bed.

The trundle bed is child's size, shorter and less wide than the adult bed.

It was built to slide under the larger bed, out of the way in the daytime, because I imagine this would be the playroom when it was rainy or inclement weather.

So the trundle would slide under in the daytime and come out at night, a very effective form of furniture.

Now, the coverlet on the large, high bed is a typical handwoven coverlet, hand woven by very meticulous weaving, usually in the homes of the people, because the ladies never rested.

If they weren't weaving or sewing or cooking or baking, they were teaching lessons to children.

In another corner we have the basic bed, which lasted up until this century in homes on the various frontiers.

It could be easily dismantled, put on a wagon, and then reassembled wherever th e destination happened to be.

This is a rope bed.

The ropes take place of the modern springs.

They would be woven up, down, and across, and then tightened by a special gadget, which was part of the bed equipment.

On top of the rope "springs," to call it that, there would be a mattress filled first with pine straw, if that was all that was available, or corn shucks, later cotton.

Best of all would be goose down from the feathers of geese raised on the farm.

The inside material of the bedding tick could be removed and the cover folded up whenever it was necessary to move on to another home in another distance.

♪ If you do it properly, by turning this spindle you can make thread of this length of wool, but I don't understand it.

The room in which we are now was added by the son of William and Martha Bratton, Dr. John Simpson Bratton.

He realized that his daughters were not receiving the education they should.

He added this room and made this into a classroom for his daughters and their friends, and the rest of the house, a comfortable dwelling for the teacher.

But that story of the school is for another day.

It's interesting that this room, originally built for education, is again used for education.

Here you see the things needed to explain to groups of schoolchildren, particularly, the way our ancestors could weave, spin, and create fabric from cotton and wool, from the different wheels to the loom, beginning with the natural fiber and the carding cards.

It's a very interesting story, the story of weaving, but that, again, is for another day.

Before we conclude our visit to this prerevolutionary home, I want you to come outside with me and let me tell you a very interesting story.

♪ In July 1780, war came to this beautiful, peaceful spot, the home of William and Martha Bratton.

Until this time, the fighting had been in the lower part of the state, where almost every man and his family had been forced to sign the compromise agreement, in which they swore they would never again lift arms against the forces of George III.

We must remember that the American Revolution really was a civil war.

By persuasion, the people were either Patriots, on the side of American independence and freedom, or they were Loyalists, or Tories, loyal to their belief in the mother country of Great Britain.

Colonel William Bratton was a very ardent Patriot.

He had been elected a colonel of militia, but just before this day in July 1780, he had resigned his post.

He preferred to join his friends as a patrol, or independent skirmisher, who would, by guerrilla fighting, contest the power of the Loyalists as they came into the Upcountry.

Just a few days before this incident occurred, Captain Christian Huck had appeared with a force of about 130 Loyalists.

He rampaged through the territory, took over the homestead of the Williamson plantation, just about 300 yards in this direction from here, made the people who lived there leave immediately, and set up headquarters within the house itself.

Colonel William Bratton and several friends were off on patrol, watching to see what Captain Huck would do.

Never did they suspect that with only women and children here, he would come to the home of William and Martha Bratton.

Christian Huck was dreadful!

He'd been a lawyer in Philadelphia.

He enjoyed battle and war, ravaging and torturing the innocent.

He threw open the door, stamped into the house.

Two small children of the Brattons were there.

He hit one, broke the child's nose, and threw him across the room.

He demanded from Martha that she tell him where was her husband.

Martha didn't know.

She knew he was on patrol but wasn't sure where, in what is now York County, he might be.

Huck demanded that she promise that he would swear the compromise, lay down his arms, and never again defend his own principles.

Martha absolutely refused.

A very sharp-tongued lady, she expressed herself well.

She told the men exactly what she thought, and Captain Huck became furious!

He grabbed a hand sickle, like this, thrust her against the house on the front porch, put the sickle around her neck, and threatened to decapitate her if she didn't tell where her husband was.

While this was going on, a black man of the family named Watt slipped away and went to find Colonel William and tell him that his wife was in great danger.

For the second time Huck pressed the sickle against Martha's neck, leaving a ring of blood.

All the time Martha was very independent and refused to cower before this dreadful man.

Just as he was at the point of seriously injuring her, Tory Captain John Adamson from Camden hit Huck's arm and knocked the sickle to the floor of the porch saying that he, Adamson, had not joined the Loyalist forces to make war on women and helpless children.

Huck was furious!

He demanded that Martha provide dinner for the officers of the Tory party.

We think that this she did.

She thought about poisoning the food, hoping to get rid of them.

But it dawned upon her, if any food was left she might have not put away, her husband and his friends might inadvertently eat it.

So she discarded that idea, served the men, and with great delight saw them finally leave, taking everything with them that they could as they went back to spend the night at Williamson's Plantation.

Colonel William did come.

With great horror he and his friends heard about the near death of his beloved Martha.

So at dawn the Patriots, 75 in the company, surrounded the Williamson homestead where Huck and his 130 Loyalist soldiers were still asleep.

As dawn broke, they descended upon the sleeping men, and the slaughter was dreadful.

Those who were not killed in the battle, as Huck was, were taken away by the various men of the patrol to be hanged later in the day.

Only one Patriot lost his life, Mr. John Armstrong.

Among the men who were to be hanged was Captain Adamson.

He was recognized as being the one man who had saved the life of Martha Bratton by even insulting his superior officer and calling attention to an error in good judgment.

However, Huck didn't kill him, and when Adamson was recognized, his life was spared.

The poor man lost all of his lands, everything he possessed, because of his belief in the Loyalist cause.

After the Revolution was over, William and Martha Bratton helped see to it that his possessions were restored to him because, although he was a Tory, he was a very good man.

We admire Martha for defending her home, for defending her children, for exhibiting a great deal of courage under a dreadful, dreadful situation.

Here in the backyard of her lovely home, I like to think about Martha... busy during the day seeing to the many things that women were forced to do to maintain life and a degree of comfort for their families.

I like to believe that when she had a moment of relaxation, she would walk among the fields and listen to the birds, watch the clouds go by, and gather a bouquet of wildflowers for her table.

♪ ["The Way We Were"] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪