Before They Became Patriots: The Forgotten Story of James Steen and John Thomas Before the American Revolution

One of the unexpected pleasures of historical research is discovering that the men who eventually became heroes first lived ordinary lives.

Before my sixth great-grandfather, James Steen, was Lieutenant Colonel of the Spartan Regiment of South Carlolina militia in the American Revolution, and before he rode with the militia through the Snow Campaign of December 1775,, the Cherokee Expedition in the summer of 1776, Hanging Rock, Musgrove Mill, in August of 1780 and the campaign that culminated at King's Mountain, on October 7, 1780, he was simply a frontier farmer and landowner trying to establish himself in the Carolina backcountry.

Many of the surviving records I have researched tell me much about those some of his years, which makes it all the more interesting when one of them suddenly appears in an unexpected place. While searching through eighteenth-century newspapers recently, I came across a brief notice published in the South-Carolina Gazette on June 28, 1768. At first look, it seemed insignificant, just a routine public notice about a disputed land transaction. Yet the more I studied it, the more I realized I was looking at the first documented connection between James Steen and another man who would become indispensable to the American Revolution in South Carolina: Colonel John Thomas of the Spartan Regiment.

John Thomas alleged that he had recently given James Steen a bond for four hundred pounds in payment for a tract of land. Afterward, according to Thomas, he learned that the property was already mortgaged to Charleston merchant Eberhart Fenner. Believing he had been wronged, Thomas publicly announced that he would not honor the bond and warned others against accepting any assignment of it.

The advertisement is unmistakably accusatory, but it also shows only one side of the controversy. No reply from James Steen has survived, nor have I found any court records explaining how the matter was resolved. That silence is an important reminder that, as a historian, I must resist the temptation to convict a man (my sixth-great-grandfather) on the basis of a single surviving document. Land ownership in colonial South Carolina was notoriously complicated. Surveys were often wacky and inaccurate, boundaries poorly defined, mortgages not always readily apparent, and competing claims were common throughout the rapidly expanding backcountry. Whether this was fraud, misunderstanding, or simply one of the many title disputes characteristic of the eighteenth-century frontier is impossible to determine with certainty. I want to believe James Steen was honorable, but I also know that he, like me and all of us, was a sinner capable of plenty of wrongdoing.

A Minister's Journal and the Birth of a Regiment

Among the most valuable surviving accounts of the Revolution's earliest days in the Carolina backcountry is the journal of the Reverend William Tennent. Commissioned by the South Carolina Council of Safety, Tennent spent the summer of 1775 riding from settlement to settlement, encouraging backcountry residents to sign the Continental Association and organize in defense of their constitutional liberties. His journal contained his daily observations as a Presbyterian minister trying to convince people, many of whom were resistant to joining the Patriot cause, and perhaps for that reason, it preserves details that no official record ever could.

On Monday, August 21, 1775, Tennent crossed the Broad River and traveled to Thicketty Creek. He recorded that among those present were "two Captains (viz.) James Steen & Colman." After preaching for nearly two hours, he urged those assembled to sign the Continental Association, the agreement adopted by the First Continental Congress the previous autumn to unite the colonies in opposition to British policy. Tennent noted with satisfaction that "the People seemed convinced," signed the Association, and departed "seeming contented."

That evening, Captain James Steen invited the minister to spend the night in his home.

Tennent's journal contains an intriguing observation that has fascinated me ever since I first read it. Speaking of my ancestor, he wrote, "Capt. Steen invited me home; find he is entirely taken off from a most horrid Scheme carrying on here." Unfortunately, Tennent never explained what that "scheme" was. Whether he referred to a local political controversy, the Loyalist sympathies that were rampant in the backcountry at that time, or some other matter now lost to history, I'll never know.

What is clear is that by August of 1775, Tennent regarded Captain James Steen as firmly committed to the Patriot movement. The following morning, before leaving Thicketty Creek, he prepared enlistment forms for volunteer rangers and continued his travels through the backcountry.

Presbyterian Minister William Tennent's journal entries from Sunday, August 21, 1775, Monday, August 22, 1775, and Tuesday August 23, 1775

The efforts of William Tennent, William Henry Drayton, and Joseph Hart in the backcountry of South Carolina to recruit Patriots in the fight for American Independence, in the days just after the end of August, would take on a much more serious and formal character.

When the South Carolina Provincial Congress completed its reorganization of the colony's militia later that month, Colonel John Thomas received command of the newly organized Spartan Regiment. James Steen was commissioned as one of its captains.

The two men, John Thomas and James Steen, whose names had appeared together in a newspaper dispute seven years earlier, now stood together in the service of American independence. Alongside Thomas Brandon, William Farr, Joseph McJunkin, William Kennedy, and many other Spartan Militia soldiers,, they laid the foundation for what would become one of the most respected militia organizations in Revolutionary South Carolina.

Dallas Reese

Hilton Head SC

July 1 2026