The Flood of 1828 and the Carter–Schitt Rebuilding
The Flood of 1828
The Carter–Schitt Relocation and the Marriage of Henry Ledger Schitt & Abigail Ruth Carter
The flood of 1828 was not the worst flood the region would experience. That distinction would come decades later, when the waters of 1872 overwhelmed much of the low country surrounding the ford.
For the Carter and Schitt families, however, 1828 was bad enough.
Heavy rains had fallen throughout the area, feeding both Happens Creek and Mud Creek as they drained toward the ford near Grissmiller Mill. Happens Creek absorbed much of the additional water without serious consequence.
Mud Creek did not.
The creek rose far beyond its normal banks, spreading across the lower ground with considerable force. Grissmiller Mill, deliberately constructed on higher ground, escaped serious damage. The nearby Russel homestead took on more water but survived largely intact.
The Carter and Schitt homesteads were not so fortunate.
Both families had settled on lower-lying land nearer Mud Creek. Water swept through their properties, damaging the houses, outbuildings, stored provisions and surrounding ground. As troublesome as the water itself had been, the greater problem became clear when it receded.
It left the mud behind.
Heavy deposits of silt and debris covered much of what remained. The land could eventually be reclaimed, but neither family could ignore what the flood had shown: rebuilding in the same place meant rebuilding where Mud Creek had already proven it could reach them.
By chance, two members of the families had been away when the water rose.
Henry Ledger Schitt and Abigail Ruth Carter were in town gathering supplies. What had been an ordinary errand that morning left them among the few members of either household who returned with exactly what they had taken with them.
They returned to find the lives they had left that morning considerably rearranged.
Two Families, One Decision
The Carters and Schitts now faced the same question.
They could clear the mud and rebuild near the land they already possessed or abandon the lower ground and establish new homes somewhere safer.
Suitable higher ground was not plentiful.
Land to the northwest was generally more desirable, but the families ultimately chose to move northeast, farther from the low country and toward considerably rougher terrain. Beyond Goat Ridge, past the Happens family’s apple grove and across two additional ridges, the land stood higher and offered greater protection from another rise of Mud Creek.
It was not particularly generous land.
The trees were thicker. The soil contained considerably more sand and rock than good dirt. Establishing two new homesteads there would require substantial clearing and labor before either family could begin recovering what had been lost.
But it was high. After 1828, that counted for quite a lot.
Family recollections eventually reduced the location to a remarkably simple description:
“Two ridges and an apple grove beyond Goat Ridge.”
The Carter Problem
The Carter family was close-knit and hardworking but lived sparsely even before the flood.
They possessed little excess money and had lost much of what they did have. Moving to higher ground might have been the wiser choice, but wisdom did not buy lumber, hardware, tools, seed or replacement household necessities.
The truth was uncomplicated: The Carters could not afford to rebuild.
A marriage involving a Carter daughter might ordinarily have brought discussion of a dowry. That presented another problem. There wasn’t one.
Johann Georg Schitt chose to solve both matters.
Johann Schitt
By 1828, Johann Georg had quietly allowed the Talon portion of his family name to fall from ordinary use.
His stated explanation was simple enough: he was more comfortable using the maiden name of his mother, Opulence “Fancy” Schitt, and preferred the Schitt family association.
Few people objected. There was, however, another reason.
Johann’s father had developed an unfortunate enthusiasm for card gambling, and Johann had little interest in carrying forward a name increasingly associated in his mind with that habit.
The irony was difficult to escape. Despite Johann’s disapproval of his father’s vice, his father’s gambling had nevertheless contributed to Johann’s reasonably good financial position. In 1828, that money suddenly became useful. Rather than expecting the Carters to somehow produce a dowry they did not possess, Johann offered something in the opposite direction:
Materials.
He would help provide what was necessary to establish the families on higher ground.
The Carters would contribute what they had always possessed in abundance—work.
With Quackenbush more than willing to accommodate the necessary arrangements, materials began moving northeast and the two families began again.
Henry and Abigail
The rebuilding changed Henry and Abigail as much as it changed the families.
Henry had always possessed an unusually good head for numbers. During the recovery, that ability became practical. Materials had to be bought, quantities calculated, accounts followed and expenditures remembered.
Henry kept track of the numbers.
Abigail made certain he remembered everything that belonged in them.
Abigail had what later generations repeatedly described as an extraordinary memory. She remembered conversations, quantities, agreements, names and circumstances with unnerving accuracy.
If Henry remembered twelve boards being delivered, Abigail remembered fourteen—twelve pine, two oak—and why the last two had not been charged.
Henry learned quickly to listen. The combination became remarkably effective.
As the rebuilding continued, Henry became increasingly protective of Abigail. She was neither helpless nor inclined to allow anyone to treat her as such, but the flood had exposed the financial vulnerability of the Carter family in a way difficult to conceal.
Henry understood what Abigail and her family were contributing even when that contribution could not be measured in money. And Abigail, in turn, became the person Henry trusted when he wanted to be certain that not a single penny had escaped his accounting. Somewhere among the lumber, mud, clearing, accounts and two families trying to rebuild their lives, the relationship changed.
There appears to have been no dramatic courtship. They simply became a couple.
The Marriage of 1829
When Henry Ledger Schitt and Abigail Ruth Carter married in 1829, their ages were exceptionally young even for the period.
Henry was approximately fifteen. Abigail was thirteen.
The family never tried to disguise that fact, and later accounts specifically remembered Abigail as having married very young. The events of the preceding year, however, provide considerable context.
Both had experienced the destruction of their homes. Both had taken part in the recovery. Their families had worked side by side establishing themselves in difficult new country, and Henry and Abigail had already proven an unusual ability to function together.
Johann’s assistance also removed the financial question that might otherwise have prevented the marriage. No Carter dowry was required.
The families had spent much of the previous year watching Henry and Abigail grow together under circumstances neither would have chosen. By 1829, apparently, there was little doubt where matters were headed.
Abigail Ruth Carter-Schitt
Marriage did not soften Abigail into the background of the Schitt family. Quite the opposite.
She remained close to her Carter family and carried their sparse, hardworking sensibilities throughout her life. She was gracious, composed and distinctly Southern—sweet tea Southern—but nobody appears to have mistaken graciousness for weakness more than once.
Abigail rarely needed profanity.
She could correct a man’s behavior, question his judgment and leave him reconsidering several of his recent decisions without uttering a single improper word.
More important to the surviving family history was her memory.
Abigail remembered how things happened.
Not merely the final version repeated years afterward, but who had been present, what had occurred first, what had been said, and which detail someone had conveniently altered during subsequent retellings. She was not overbearing about it. But she was absolutely not a pushover.
When family accounts drifted too far from events Abigail remembered personally, she had a quiet tendency to set the matter straight. The result was a woman whose influence reached considerably farther than the unusual circumstances of her marriage. Henry became known for never losing track of a penny. Abigail was one of the principal reasons why.
Archivist’s Note
The Flood of 1828 should not be confused with the considerably more destructive flood later recorded in 1872.
The earlier event was primarily remembered for the exceptional rise of Mud Creek, damage to the lower homesteads, and the subsequent strengthening of the ford. The later flood exceeded it substantially.
By 1872, Abigail Carter-Schitt was still alive.
She therefore belonged to a diminishing number of family members capable of remembering both events personally.
For once, when someone said:
“This is worse than last time,”
the Archives had someone available who actually remembered the last time.
Crock’s Comment
“Henry never lost track of a penny. Folks gave Henry credit for that.
Abigail remembered where every one of ’em went.”
— Crock O. Schitt