I got an inquiry from reader “Aaron O.” recently and it immediately interested me. That’s because he sparked my Wolf Island visit during the Riverboat Adventure the last time we corresponded. He was a county counter like many of us on 12MC including myself, and he’d encountered a curious coincidence during his collections.
An Odd Pattern Emerges
Jasper County bordered Newton County in Texas. Fine, nothing special there. Then he concentrated on Mississippi this year, and once again he noticed a Jasper County bordered a Newton County. Then he consulting a map. He observed that Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Indiana and Missouri each had a Jasper County and a Newton County sharing a common border.
So, I built on Aaron’s efforts as I began my research. I saw that two states, Illinois and Iowa, also had a Jasper County (with no corresponding Newton County). Both of those placed their local seat of government in a town called Newton. What was going on?
I’d never noticed the pattern before and I didn’t understand the connection. However it happened too frequently to be completely coincidental. The nexus must have been obvious to someone living in the United States two centuries ago. It took some Internet sleuthing but I finally figured it out.
Jasper and Newton referred to Sergeants William Jasper and John Newton, historical figures from the American Revolutionary War.(¹) Jasper was genuinely valiant. Newton was a nobody, elevated in stature through creative fiction that included the alleged connection between the two men.
William Jasper
It was still early during the American Revolution and American harbors lay vulnerable. Thus, Colonel William Moultrie wanted to protect the harbor at Charleston, South Carolina (map). He hastily constructed and never quite completed an earthen fort reinforced with palmetto logs on Sullivan’s Island. Then in June of 1776, British forces attacked his position.
Attack on Fort Moultrie
Palmetto, as it occurred, served as an excellent defensive material. The spongy wood and sandy soil absorbed the impact of incoming cannonballs with ease. Incoming ordinance bounced and deflected with minimal harm to fortification walls. Meanwhile American artillery returned fire, pounding and damaging the British fleet. British forces retreated after a full day of futile bombardment and wouldn’t return to Charleston for another four years.
On the official flag of South Carolina, “The palmetto tree symbolized Colonel Moultrie’s heroic defense of the palmetto-log fort on Sullivan’s Island against the attack of the British fleet…“
Jasper’s Heroism
William Jasper served under Col. Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island as part of the defensive forces preventing a British invasion. The Americans raised their flag, the “Moultrie Flag” — essentially the current South Carolina flag minus the palmetto tree — above a parapet. Then the battle commenced.
A British shell shattered the flagstaff during the fight, knocking the Moultrie Flag to the ground. Jasper grabbed the flag, attached it to a makeshift flagstaff, climbed atop a parapet and held it in place. His actions became a rallying point for American defenders during the siege and his bravery became well-known afterwards.
Jasper Did It Again
Jasper tried a similar feat at the siege of Savannah, Georgia in 1779. Once more he found himself in a position to race to the top of a parapet and affix a flag. This time, however, the British shot and killed him although not before he finish his task. Naturally, this cemented his legacy with a new nation looking for heroes. He transformed instantly into a revered figure with numerous posthumous honors. The residents of Savannah erected a statue, and eight U.S. states named a Jasper County in his honor.
John Newton and the William Jasper Connection
John Newton benefited from a largely-fictionalized revisionist history courtesy of Parson Mason Locke Weems. Parson Weems wrote highly romanticized accounts of early American history at the beginning of 19th Century. Modern standards would probably characterize this genre as “historical fiction” if being generous. However, back then they simply called it history and presented it as such. He listened to or concocted fanciful tales and presented them as fact.
Most famously, this included the allegorical account of George Washington and the cherry tree. Weems said he’d heard the story from an elderly woman who claimed a distant relationship to Washington.(²) But Weems never let silly things like facts interfere with his research.
Weems wrote immensely popular and influential “biographies” of the founding fathers. So he featured people like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, William Penn, and more importantly to this account, Francis Marion. General Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox” served originally under Moultrie at Sullivan’s Island and then at the Siege of Savannah. Later he led an unconventional force that bedeviled British troops throughout South Carolina. Historians often credit him as integral to the development of modern guerrilla warfare. [UPDATE: 12MC followed the trail of the Swamp Fox].
Marion’s “Biography”
So what Weems did for Washington, he also did for Marion. Chapter VI of “The life of General Francis Marion, a celebrated partisan officer” presented an account of Jasper and Newton.
In this story, William Jasper had a loyalist brother who served in the British army at the Ebenezer garrison (map), near Savannah. Jasper would secretly visit his brother undetected for days at a time then report his findings back to the Americans. He brought John Newton along on his final trip behind enemy lines.
They spotted the arrival a group of American prisoners at the garrison, recently captured in Savannah. The captives seemed destined for execution, included a young woman and her child. Then the British marched the group away from the garrison presumably to hang them. So Jasper and Newton waited at a nearby spring where they guessed the group would relax before completing their march. Jasper and Newton caught the resting guards by surprise and overpowered them. Then they led the prisoners back across the Savannah River to freedom.
The heroic story struck a chord with American audiences.
Go ahead and read the original story. It won’t take more than a few minutes and it will provide a good indication of Weems’ fanciful, over-the-top style. I dare you to read it without rolling your eyes.
Too Bad it Wasn’t True
No similar account ever made it into written records on either side of the conflict at the time. The Revolutionaries already revered Jasper for his bravery. Thus, it seemed unlikely that his peers wouldn’t have noticed him slipping behind enemy lines and returning with freed prisoners. Weems either heard an after-the-fact friend-of-a-friend tale like the Washington cherry tree story or he completely made it up on his own.
Nonetheless, the story linked Jasper to Newton inextricably in the American psyche during the first half of the 19th Century. Weems’ publications were so influential that fiction became fact. This coincided with a rapid expansion of the U.S. population and ongoing formation of county structures. Although historians largely discount Weems today, he had enough sway during his time to influence several states to create both a Jasper County and a Newton County adjacent to each other.
12MC Loves Footnotes!
(¹) Newton County, Mississippi claimed they named it for Sir Isaac Newton. While I don’t have evidence, I suspect they really named it for John Newton like all of the others. I think they changed the rationale at a later date. This would be similar to King County, Washington named originally for William Rufus King. Later they changed it to Martin Luther King, Jr.
(²) This tale is widely known to anyone raised in the United States. I doubt the same folklore applies elsewhere so I’ll briefly summarize. George Washington as a small child, according to Weems, received a hatchet as a gift and started chopping on various objects like any small child would want to do. This included his father’s prized cherry tree. When confronted he alleged responded, “I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.” Weems used this as an object lesson to convey Washington’s moral fiber, that even when wrong he would confess his mistakes and deal with the consequences rather than deceive or hide the truth.
My father, the king of bad puns used to tell a joke that I’ll presume was popular in the 1940’s, with the punchline “I cannot tell a lie. Popeye did it.“
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