Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 26.djvu/44

 34 broad piazzas, commanded several fine views of the Broad river and the beautiful Port Royal region. It was here that he was a planter of sea island cotton.

Colonel Colcock had a good school education, but was not a collegian; he was of an observant and suggestive mind and was full of plans and projects of both private and public character.

In those days there was only one daily steamboat connection between Charleston and Savannah, and great inconvenience was felt in the intervening tide-water section, for want of more direct transportation facilities. At an entertainment given to a number of gentlemen at his home, in 1853, he proposed the building of a railroad between the two cities, and he had the honor and credit of projecting and assisting to construct this railroad line, which proved afterwards to be the military backbone of our coast defence, and which later in life he greatly distinguished himself in successfully defending, through the years of the war, with his brave and self-sacrificing regiment.

Colonel Colcock was a director of the Bank of the State, a director of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, and he was also one of the proprietors and stockholders of the "Foot Point Land Company," the purpose then being to build up a new city and port at the land-locked junction of Port Royal harbor and the Colleton river, with all the great advantages of deep water; a project participated in by many other leading citizens of Charleston and foiled by the adverse results of war.

After the war ended the other stockholders in this company apparently lost all interest in their land property, and Colonel Colcock, having faith in the future development of the place, based on his knowledge of its great advantages as a deep water port, resolved to protect the interests of the company, and during about twenty-four years paid from his personal means the taxes on the property.

About one year before his death it was rumored that a syndicate had been formed to buy up "Foot Point" to make it the terminus of a railroad, which would make the company lands very valuable. A few outsiders then purchased the interests of one or two stock-holders, and got a receiver appointed for the entire property in opposition to Colonel Colcock's efforts and those of a majority of the stockholders to hold on to the property and prevent its sacrifice.

An incident of his life, which illustrates his fidelity to the South and its cause, grew out of the suggestion made to him, during the progress of the "war between the States," to sell certain property