The Ulster-Scots: Hospitality, morality & the Southern frontier

'On the South Carolina frontier, society was a bit rough. The Reverend Charles Woodmason, an itinerant Anglican missionary, found few people with any manners other than Joseph Kershaw of Camden. The "living and Behavior" or the "Irish Presbyterians," he wrote, were "as rude or more so than Savages." His own manners left something to be desired as he was openly contemptuous and disdainful of the people he was supposed to serve. When some offered him what limited hospitality they had, he rejected it out of hand as unworthy. In one of the rare recorded instances of lack of hospitality, a "Presbyterian tavern Keeper refused to sell Woodmason meat or drink. Given the priest's prior conduct, one wonders why he was outraged. In truth, what bothered Woodmason most was what he considered the loose moral of the backcountry folk. He roundly condemned their drinking and fornication. However, neither was confined to those who lived beyond the fall zone.'

-South Carolina: A History by Walter Edgar, University of South Carolina Press, 1998, page 186