Anderson-Oconee-Pickens County SC Historical Roadside Markers

SC Historical Roadside Markers

Florence to Hampton Counties

Compiled by: Paul M. Kankula NN8NN

S. Charleston Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 21-35), just N of Cecil Rd., N of I-95 between Exits 164 and 169,

Born in Darlington District in 1845, this Confederate War veteran witnessed the firing attack on the Union steamer "Star of the West" as it attempted to reinforce Ft. Sumter Jan. 9, 1861. He participated in skirmishes at Tullifinny River near Yemassee Dec. 1864. Owner of this plantation, "Idylwild," he died in 1928, and is buried in Florence, S.C.

Erected by Governor Robert Gibbes Chapter, National Society Colonial Dames XVII Century, 1975

W. Palmetto St. (U.S. Hwy. 76) at its junction with S. Cashua Dr., 5 mi. W of Florence,

A veteran of the Revolution, William Gee served as a private with the Continental Line of N.C. and moved to this area before 1797. He was one of the original members of the Washington Society, organized in 1803 to establish an academy on Jeffries Creek at Ebenezer. His grave is located about 250 feet southwest of here.

Kingsburg Hwy. (S.C. Hwy. 51/41) between American Legion Hut # 144 and Odell Venters Landing, just N of Johnsonville

(Front) In use during the American Revolution, Witherspoon's Ferry was the site where Francis Marion accepted command of the Williamsburg Militia in 1780. Ownership of the ferry lands passed from Robert to John Witherspoon in 1787; in 1802 John bequeathed the land to Aimwell Presbyterian Church. The church had closed by 1820.

In 1819, former South Carolina Governor David R. Williams, son-in-law of John Witherspoon, obtained these ferry lands. In 1842 William Johnson acquired the land and in 1843 a post office, named Johnsonville, was established near here.

Kingsburg Hwy. (S.C. Hwy. 41/ 51), Kingsburg vicinityabout 3 mi. N of Johnsonville

(Front) Port's Ferry, 3 miles NE on the Pee Dee, was owned and operated by Frances Port (c. 1725-1812), widow of Thomas Port, who was a member of the Provincial Congress from Prince Frederick's Parish. This was a strategic crossing for Francis Marion, who fortified and used it frequently in his fall campaign of 1780 against British and Tories.

During his journeys in S.C. from 1801 on, Methodist Bishop Francis Asbury often used the ferry and stayed at the homes of friends nearby. In 1811, the year before Frances Port's death, Asbury "found mother Port keeping house at eighty-seven." His last crossing was in January 1816, a few weeks before his own death.

524 S. Ebenezer Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 21-112), about 1.2 mi. N of U.S. Hwy. 76, Ebenezer vicinity

(Front) In January of 1778 Ebenezer Baptist Church was constituted by pioneer minister Evan Pugh and Richard Furman, for whom Furman University is named. Admitted to the Charleston Baptist Association in 1778, the church was incorporated in 1791 as "The Baptist Church, Ebenezer, Jeffries's Creek." Timothy Dargan was an early minister, who served the church until his death in 1783.

(Reverse) Through the years, this church has supported evangelism, missions, and education. One member, Neale C. Young, served 42 years as a missionary to Nigeria. Another, Ruth Pettigrew, was a missionary to China and Hong Kong for 39 years. Miss Young is buried in Ebenezer Cemetery and Miss Pettigrew in Hong Kong, where she chose to spend her last days.

W. Palmetto St. (U.S. Hwy. 76), about 1.5 mi. W of Florence and just S of I-95 Exit 157,

In 1925 U.S. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, later U.S. president, inspected Fred Young's dairy farm following recognition of one of its Jerseys, Sensation's Mikado's Millie, as a world

champion butter-fat producer. The house here, built c. 1877 according to family tradition, was remodeled 1968 by Edward L. Young, S.C. House member 1958-60, U.S. Congressman 1972-74.

Near intersection of River Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 21-40) and Old River Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 21-57),

(Front) Located about ½ mile east, this bluff, part of a Royal landgrant to Edward Crofts in 1740, was named for the DeWitt family, who settled nearby prior to 1767. This area of Prince Frederick Parish was known as Queensborough Township, one of 11 such townships planned by the British Crown in 1730 to foster settlement and protect the interior of the province.

(Reverse) The bluff named for the DeWitt family who settled in this area before 1767 is located about ½ mile east of here. By 1840, an adjacent landing for steamboats plying the Pee Dee River was named for the bluff. Members of the DeWitt family served in the Revolution and in the War Between the States; the family still owns land in this area.

at Hopewell Presbyterian Church, 5314 Old River Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 21-57), just E of the intersection of S.C. Sec. Rd. 21-57 & S.C. Sec. Rd. 21- 327, Florence vicinity

President of Wilmington & Manchester Railroad and a founder of the city of Florence, Harllee (1812-1897) was also a general in the SC Militia, signer of Ordinance of Secession, Lt. Governor (1860-62), member of the General Assembly, and president of the SC Bar Association. Both he and his daughter, from whom Florence takes its name, are buried here in Hopewell Cemetery.

at the Browntown Museum, 3114 Johnsonville Hwy. (U.S. Hwy. 341), about 10 mi. E of Lake City and 5 mi. W of Prospect Crossroads

This area is part of several royal landgrants to Moses Brown in 1768-69 which developed into a family community known as Browntown. Family holdings here eventually comprised over 8,000 acres. Many indications of pioneering ingenuity and farm-related industry remain, including a notable cotton gin with wooden gears which continued operating through the late 19th century.

(Front) First organized as a chapel in 1843 by the Rev. N.P. Tillinghast of Trinity Church, Society Hill, this church was formally established as Christ Church, Mars Bluff, in 1856. The Rev. Augustus Moore, who took over the chapel in 1854, became the first rector of Christ Church and served until 1876. This sanctuary, on land donated by Dr. Edward Porcher, was consecrated in 1859.

(Reverse) By the 1890s Christ Church became a mission church rather than a parish church, but continued monthly services until they were suspended in 1918. The church began an annual homecoming service in 1927 and held special services such as baptisms and weddings during the 1930s and 1940s; it was officially reorganized as a mission church in 1950.

Erected by the Pee Dee Committee, National Society of Colonial Dames of America in the

ATTACKS UPON GEORGETOWN

U.S. Hwy. 17, E of Georgetown, near the Hobcaw Point Fishing & Observation Pier, on the peninsula between the Pee Dee and Waccamaw Rivers

On January 24, 1781, Capts. Carnes and Rudulph, by orders from Gen. Marion and Col. Lee, surprised the British garrison at Georgetown and captured Col. Campbell. Upon Gen. Marion's second approach, June 6, 1781, the British evacuated the town. Gen. Marion seized the stores, demolished the works, and retired.

[Erected by the Georgetown Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, 11 November 1938]

Georgetown, the third oldest town in the state, was laid out in 1729 by Elisha Screven on land granted to John and Edward Perrie, Sept. 15, 1705, and deeded by him, Jan. 16, 1734, to George Pawley, William Swinton, and Daniel LaRoche, trustees. It was made a port of entry in 1732.

U.S. Hwy. 17/701 at Hopsewee Rd., just S of its junction with Powell Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 22-24), about 14 mi. S of Georgetown, North Santee vicinity

Thomas Lynch, Jr., signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born here, Aug. 5, 1749. He was elected from St. James's Parish, Santee, to 1st Provincial Congress, Dec. 19, 1774; to 2nd Provincial Congress, Aug. 7-8, 1775; to the Continental Congress, Mar. 23, 1776; Commissioned Captain, Provincial Troops, June 17, 1775; served on committee to draft constitution for South Carolina, 1776. He was lost at sea, 1779.

On his tour south to inspect the defenses of the Atlantic coast, President Monroe reached Prospect Hill, Col. Benjamin Huger's residence, April 21, 1819. During his stay, April 21-24, he was lavishly entertained by his host and by the citizens and the town council of Georgetown.

[Erected by the Georgetown County Historical Society, 1991, replacing a marker erected by the Georgetown Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution on 20 July 1940]

U.S. Hwy. 17, 0.8 mi. E of the Harrell Siau Bridge over the Waccamaw River, E of Georgetown

President George Washington on his southern tour traveled southward over this road, April 27-30, 1791. While in this vicinity the day and night of April 29, he was the guest of Captain William Alston on this plantation, Clifton, which originally was a part of the Hobcaw Barony.

[Erected by the Georgetown County Historical Society, 1991, replacing a marker erected by the Georgetown Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution in 1940]

Intersection of Highmarket St. (U.S. Hwy. 521) & White's Bridge Dr., Georgetown

When Capt. John Nelson, who was sent by Gen. Marion in Jan. 1781 to the Sampit Road to reconnoitre, met Capt. Barfield and his Tories near White's Bridge, a sharp fight ensued. Lieut. Gabriel Marion, nephew of Gen. Marion, was captured and inhumanely shot about a quarter of a mile north of here. His name was fatal to him.

In the early evening about March 20, 1781, the last skirmish between Gen. Marion and Col. Watson was fought at Sampit Bridge, one-half mile west of this spot. Col. Watson's loss was twenty men killed and a large number wounded; Gen. Marion's reputed loss was one man killed.

U.S. Hwy. 17, 0.8 mi. E of the Harrell Siau Bridge over the Waccamaw River, E of Georgetown

A lover of liberty, Lafayette left Bordeaux, France, March 26, 1777, "To conquer or perish" in the American cause, and arrived at Benjamin Huger's summer home near here, June 14, 1777, where he spent his first night in America. He rendered eminent service in our struggle for independence.

Prince George's Parish, Winyah, was created March 10, 1721, and the parish church was erected on Black River, 1726, at the present Brown's Ferry. After Prince Frederick's Parish was formed from Prince George's, April 9, 1734, the parish church was erected here, 1737-1750. The tower and chancel were added in 1824.

County Line Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd.. 22-51/41), just N of Mingo Landing Trail, 1.6 mi. N of Rhems

On Sept. 14, 1780, Gen. Francis Marion's Patriots routed a Tory force commanded by Capt. J. Coming Ball. The Tories, attacked on one flank by Capt. Thomas Waties and on the other by Col. Peter Horry, fled into Black Mingo Swamp. The short but sharply-contested action cost each side nearly one-third of its men.

Erected by the Georgetown County Historical Society, 2005, replacing a marker erected by Georgetown County in 1941

Washington Allston, "the American Titian," artist and author, was born at Brookgreen, Nov. 5, 1779. He studied in London, Paris, and Venice. He had a studio in London, 1811-1818; in Boston, 1818-1830; in Cambridge, 1830-1843, where he died, July 9, 1843. Allston was, said Coleridge, "a painter born to renew the 16th century."

Here Sgt. McDonald bayoneted the fleeing Maj. Gainey, following the defeat of the Tories under Major Gainey by the Americans under Col. Peter Horry. This bloody skirmish took place January, 1781, between the Sampit and Black River Roads.

On his southern tour in 1791 President George Washington spent the night of April 28 here at Brookgreen Plantation. He was the guest of its owner, Dr. Henry Collins Flagg, a surgeon in the Revolution, and his wife, the former Rachel Moore Allston. Washington left Brookgreen at 6 a.m. April 29 to breakfast at Clifton Plantation near Georgetown.

Joseph Alston (1779-1816) was educated at the College of Charleston and at Princeton. He inherited The Oaks Plantation and in 1801, married Theodosia, daughter of Aaron Burr. Alston was a member of the S.C. House (1802-12), its speaker for 5 years, Governor (1812-14), and Senator (1814-16). He is buried at The Oaks Cemetery about 2 miles west.

Duncan Memorial United Methodist Church, 901 Highmarket St. near Orange St., Georgetown

William Wayne, nephew of Revolutionary General Anthony Wayne, was converted here by Bishop Francis Asbury on February 24, 1785, and a Methodist congregation was formed later that year. Woolman Hickson was appointed minister. This is the site of an early cemetery, parsonage, and church (c.1833), in use until 1903 when the present nearby structure, Duncan Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, was dedicated.

Erected by The Congregation 1982 Honoring Elizabeth J. Ashford, Church Historian

Springing from the fervor for indigo, the colony's vital new crop for making blue dye, the Winyah Indigo Society was begun in 1755 and incorporated 1757 to ensure stronger financial support for the free school which it had founded. Thomas Lynch was then president of the society, which also maintained a library and served as an intellectual center. The 1857 building here was used by Union forces during the Civil War.

(Front) In the plan of Georgetown, laid out by 1730, this one acre lot was reserved for Antipedo Baptists by Elisha Screven. A brick building built before the Revolution for the Baptists, Presbyterians, and Independents, housed the area Baptists who were constituted 1794. By 1804 its congregation had built "a handsome and commodious wooden meetinghouse" on this lot, commanding a view of the whole town from the front.

Among the graves here are those of William Cuttino, Sr., treasurer and builder of the Antipedo Baptist Church; and John Waldo, minister and educator. Other early leaders buried here include the Rev. Edmund Botsford, native of England who became minister of this church in 1796; and Savage Smith, president of the church in 1805.

(Front) Ships and boats have loaded and unloaded cargo at the Sampit River near Front Street since the founding of Georgetown, ca. 1729. In 1732 Georgetown became an official port of entry, shipping naval stores, rice, indigo, pork, and animal skins. In the mid-19th century, Georgetown was the principal rice-growing area of the U.S. and exported quantities of rice, as well as lumber and cotton.

(Reverse) Brig. Gen. Francis Marion spent his early life near Georgetown and it is for him that this park is named. During the American Revolution, Marion marched his forces to Georgetown, drove the British out, and occupied the town May 28, 1781. In August 1781, much of the town was burned during a raid by the British privateer Manson. Toward the end of the Revolution, Georgetown became a valuable supply port for the American army in the South.

Erected by the Georgetown County Chamber of Commerce and the Georgetown County Historical Society, 1983

Tabor Dr., just E of the junction of S.C. Sec. Rd. 22-264 (Exodus Dr.) & U.S. Hwy. 701, about 1.5 mi. S of Yauhannah

Organized as a result of the preaching of Elder James Singleton, the Mount Tabor congregation was constituted October 21, 1832 and admitted into Welsh Neck Baptist Association the same year. Samuel Hennecy and Uriah Woodard represented Mount Tabor at the association's meeting and reported the church's membership at eighty-four people.

Winyah Indigo School District was created in 1885 to maintain public education in Georgetown. In 1887, the district assumed the existing school owned by the Winyah Indigo Society, established 1755. Completed in 1908 was a building housing grades 1-10 which still stands. Winyah High, built here in

1938, was integrated 1970. It burned in 1981. The new high school, 1985, became Georgetown High when Winyah and Howard consolidated.

After purchasing this land January 1, 1866, Georgetown Colored Academy built a school here. By 1908 the old building had been torn down and a new school built, its name changed to Howard. The elementary department moved into a new structure on Kaminski Street in 1938; the high school followed in 1949. After the 1984 graduation, predominantly black Howard merged with mostly white Winyah School to form Georgetown High School.

This African Methodist Episcopal church was the first separate black church in Georgetown County. It was established by the Rev. A. T. Carr shortly after the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation which freed the slaves. The church purchased this property Jan. 15, 1866, and remodeled the present building in 1908 when the Rev. R. W. Mance was minister. The educational building was built in 1949 under the pastorate of Rev. H. B. Butler, Jr.

Highmarket St. (U.S. Hwy. 17-A) at S.C. Sec. Rd. 22-452, about 100 yds. W of Georgetown city limits

Volunteer aide-de-camp to Gen. Beauregard in April 1861, mustered into Confederate service at White's Bridge near here on July 19, 1861, as colonel of the 10th Regiment, S.C. Infantry, promoted to Brigadier General on April 26, 1863, wounded at the Battle of Franklin Nov. 30, 1864, Gen. Manigault died Aug. 16, 1886, at his South Island Plantation.

Daughter of Aaron Burr and one of the most learned women of her era; wife of Governor Joseph Alston, who is buried west of here, with Aaron Burr Alston, their ten-year-old son; sailed from Georgetown on Dec. 30, 1812 on the schooner "Patriot" to join her father in New York and disappeared off the N.C. coast during a terrific storm.

Erected by Theodosia Burr Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, 21 January 1970

S.C. Sec. Rd. 22-6, about 1.5 mi. SE of the intersection of S.C. Hwys. 512 and 513, Union Crossroads vicinity

(Front) China Grove was the birthplace of the Reverend Jeremiah John Snow (1836-1892), a son of the third James Snow who lived here. He entered the Methodist Conference in 1863, and was a chaplain in the Third Regiment, South Carolina Troops, in the Civil War. Later he was a circuit-riding minister. His grave is at Union Church.

China Grove, located on the Old Stage Road to Indiantown near its junction with the Britton's Ferry Road, was for many years the home of the Snow family. The eighteenth century plantation house has been restored. Its construction is attributed to James Snow (1730-1793), whose grandfather, Dr. Nathaniel Snow, came to South Carolina in 1697.

Erected by Dr. Henry Woodward Chapter, South Carolina Society, Daughters of the American Colonists, 1974

at Pawley’s Island Town Hall, 321 Myrtle Ave. near its intersection with 3rd St., Pawley's Island

(Front) This island, located about ½ mile east, was used by plantation householders who lived on the seashore from May to November to escape malaria, or "summer fever." A number of houses built about 1850, and the summer academy and rectory of All Saints' Parish remain. The hurricane of 1822 destroyed most earlier homes.

Narrow strip of land from Atlantic Ocean to Waccamaw River. Rice plantations flourished by 1740. Remaining are c.1790 houses, Litchfield and Prospect Hill, and one slave chapel. All Saints Parish est. 1767. Area furnished salt for Revolutionary War. Visitors included Lafayette 1777, Washington 1791, J. Monroe 1819, Churchill 1932, F. Roosevelt 1944.

Established by and comprised of the planters of All Saints Parish, this social club was dedicated to epicurean pursuits. Although formed before 1816, the organization was probably dissolved during the Civil War. Nearby Drunken Jack Island was the first recorded of five different sites for the clubhouse.

(Front) In this cemetery is buried William Screven, first pastor of the earliest Baptist church in the South. A native of England, he ministered to the Baptists there before migrating to Maine, establishing a Baptist church in Kittery, Maine, in 1682. By 1698, he had led his church to Charleston, S.C. He later moved to Georgetown, exerting his Christian influence until his death in 1713.

Elisha Screven, founder of Georgetown, was a younger son of William, who owned and lived his final years on these Winyah lands. To promote settlement here, Elisha planned a town, to be called Georgetown, which reserved lots for Anglican, Presbyterian, and Baptist churches, as well as for a school and other public buildings. Retained in the plan was this Screven family cemetery. The town had been laid out by 1730.

Erected by First Baptist Church, City of Georgetown, Georgetown County Council, and the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce, 1980

This house stands on land owned by R. F. W. Allston, governor of SC 1856-58. His nephew Joseph Blyth Allston obtained the land in 1866 and it is thought he then moved this circa 1800 house onto his property. After Hurricane Hugo struck SC in 1989, the house was extensively altered and placed on a higher foundation. Mortise and tenon joints with pegs can still be seen under the house.

This summer residence was owned by Robert F. W. Allston (1801-1864) when the state of SC granted the marsh behind it to him in 1846. Allston was a large property and slave owner, a successful rice planter, and served as governor of SC 1856-58. The house remained in the family until 1901. After Hurricane Hugo struck SC in 1989, the house was placed on higher wooden posts.

Plowden Weston, Lt. Gov. of S.C. 1862-64, obtained land here in 1844 and by 1858 had built this beach residence. The Weston family sold the property to William St. Julien Mazyck in 1864, who sold the house to Atlantic Coast Lumber Company in 1901. The company permitted its employees to vacation here. After an ownership change some years later, the house was named The Pelican Inn.

This house, built by 1848, served as the summer parsonage for All Saints Episcopal Church for many years. Evening summer services were held here by the congregation, which included a number of rice plantation owners who spent summers at Pawleys Island. The parsonage/rectory was sold by the congregation in 1960 to its present owner.

This house, one of the oldest on Pawleys, was reputedly moved here after 1858. It stands on land once owned by area rice planter Joshua J. Ward (1800-1853), who was Lt. Gov. of SC 1850-52. The house has hand-hewn sills and joists and mortise-and-tenon joints. It remained in the Ward family until 1912, when sold to Cornelia C. Ehrich, who named it Liberty Lodge. Ownership is still in this family.

By 1842 this house was here on Pawleys Island and was owned by Robert Nesbit (1799-1848). A native of Scotland and a rice planter in this area, Nesbit also owned nearby "Caledonia" plantation. The house on Pawleys remained in the Nesbit family until after the death of Ralph Nesbit in 1938. It was then sold to Dr. Charles Norburn of Asheville, North Carolina.

This house was built between 1838 and 1848 by All Saints Academy for the summer residence of its headmaster. Robert F. W. Allston, Governor of S.C. 1856-58, actively participated in leadership of the academy. After some years, the academy's dwelling passed to private, individual ownership. It was extensively damaged by Hurricane Hugo in 1989 but has been meticulously restored.

This house, built on 10 acres of beach land by 1858, was owned by the LaBruce family, who were successful rice planters in this area of All Saints Parish. According to local tradition, two small dwellings on the property were slave cabins. The residence was purchased by Calhoun Lemon of Barnwell, South Carolina, in 1952 and still remains in this family. Additions have been made to the house through the years.

This National Historic Landmark was the family home of Joseph H. Rainey, the first African American elected to the US House of Representatives, 1870-1879. Born in Georgetown County in 1832, Rainey, it is said, made blockade-running trips during the Civil War. He was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1868, served two years in the SC Senate, and two years as internal revenue agent of SC. He died in Georgetown, SC, in 1887.

Intersection of S. Causeway Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 22-266) & Myrtle Dr. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 22-10),

This causeway was built between January 1845 and November 1846 by Robert Francis Withers Allston, who owned a summer residence on Pawleys Island. Known as Governor Allston's bank, it connected the island to the mainland. Allston was a large property and slave owner in the area, and was governor of South Carolina 1856-58. The causeway and contiguous property remained in the Allston family until 1901.

In 1711 the Lords Proprietors granted Winyah Barony to Robert Daniel, who sold it to Thomas Smith. By 1787 Retreat had been carved from the 12000-acre grant.

HOBCAW BARONY
at the entrance to the Belle W. Baruch Foundation, Hobcaw Barony, U.S. Hwy. 17, 1 mi. N of Georgetown

Organized shortly after the Civil War with Rev. Edward Rhue as its first pastor, Bethesda Baptist Church purchased this site by 1867. Construction of this sanctuary began in 1922 during the pastorate of Rev. A. W. Puller and was completed and dedicated during the pastorate of Rev. G. Going Daniels in 1927. Rev. W. A. Johnson served as Bethesda's pastor from 1956 until his death in 1995.

S.C. Hwy. 51, 1mi. from Georgetown side of Brown's Ferry Bridge, Georgetown vicinity

(Front) Early settlement in this area near the Black River, based primarily on the Indian trade and the production of naval stores, prompted the creation of Prince George Winyah Parish in 1721. When the first Anglican church to serve the parish was built in 1726 Governor Francis Nicholson made a donation toward its construction. The Rev. Thomas Morritt became the first rector of Prince George Winyah in 1728.

Within a few years successful rice production and the growth of Georgetown helped expand settlement inland and prompted the creation of a new parish. Prince Frederick's Parish included this area when it was established in 1734. A new parish church for Prince George Winyah was built in Georgetown by 1747 and the sanctuary here served Prince Frederick's Parish until a new parish church was built near the Pee Dee River in 1837.

Erected by the Georgetown Committee of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America in the State of South Carolina, 1996

(Front) This congregation, founded in 1794 and long known as Antipedo Baptist Church, was the first separate Baptist congregation in Georgetown. Baptists had worshipped in the area as early as 1710, sharing the Black Mingo Meeting House with the Presbyterians and later sharing the Old Brick Church with other denominations during the period when the Church of England was the only officially-recognized church in South Carolina.

(Reverse) Antipedo Baptist Church was located on Church St. by 1804. A later sanctuary, on Lot 130 on Highmarket St., was renamed First Baptist Church of Georgetown in 1911 and was occupied until 1915. In 1913 this lot was purchased for a new sanctuary, completed in 1915. First Baptist Church has occupied three sanctuaries on this site: the first 1915-1949, the second 1949-1996, and the present sanctuary, which was completed in 1997.

(Front) 732 Prince Street was the home of William Doyle Morgan (1853-1938), mayor 1891-1906 and the catalyst for much of Georgetown's growth and prosperity by the turn of the century. He helped give the city what one observer called "the snap and vim of twentieth century progress," such as a modern water and sewer system, electric lights, macadamized streets, sidewalks, a deepened harbor, and jetties in Winyah Bay.

(Reverse) When Morgan retired in 1906 citizens presented him a sterling silver punch bowl in recognition of his "Zeal and Energy" and "Untiring Efforts for the Improvement of the City and Her Harbor." He founded and was president of the Bank of Georgetown 1891-1927. Morgan, a devout Catholic, was also instrumental in the construction of St. Mary's Catholic Church, built in 1899-1901 and consecrated in 1902.

(Front) This cemetery, established ca. 1772, is the second oldest Jewish cemetery in the state and serves a community which has been significant here since well before the American Revolution. Abraham Cohen and Mordecai Myers, who opened stores in the town in 1762 and 1772, are buried here, as is Heiman Kaminski, who arrived in Georgetown in 1856 and was one of its most prominent businessmen by the turn of the twentieth century.

(Reverse) The Jewish community has emphasized leadership and public service from the beginning; Abraham Cohen, for example, was a member of the committee welcoming President George Washington in 1791. Three of Georgetown's six Jewish mayors are also buried here: Louis S. Ehrich (Mayor 1886-88), Harold Kaminski (1930-35), and Sylvan L. Rosen (1948-1961).

(Front) The Robert Stewart House was built between 1740 and 1770 by Robert Stewart (d. 1776), planter and militia captain; it was sold in 1787 to Daniel Tucker (d. 1797), prominent Georgetown merchant. When President George Washington arrived in Georgetown during his southern tour on April 30, 1791, a militia company and local reception committee met him at the nearby boat landing and escorted him here, where he spent the night as Tucker's guest.

(Reverse) Washington was entertained lavishly and then honored by the Masons of Prince George Lodge No. 16 and the Winyah Indigo Society. This house, the only extant brick residence in Georgetown built before the American Revolution, was later owned by Benjamin Allston, Sr. (1765-1847). It remained in the hands of his descendants, the Pyatt and Parker families, until 1979.

(Front) This courthouse, designed by prominent architect and South Carolina native Robert Mills (1781-1855), was built in 1823-24 to replace a courthouse which had been damaged by two hurricanes. Mills himself, who also designed the Washington Monument, called this courthouse "a great ornament to the town." A modern Mills scholar has described it as "the most sophisticated of his South Carolina courthouses."

(Reverse) An initial appropriation of $12,000 was approved for the new courthouse. The South Carolina Board of Commissioners for Public Buildings, including John Keith and Abraham Cohen of Georgetown, supervised its construction by contractor Russell Warren. This Mills design is an excellent example of the Classical Revival style so widely used in American public architecture during much of the nineteenth century.

(Front) This Greek Revival market and town hall was built in 1842 after a fire destroyed many of the frame buildings on Front Street. An open-air market occupied the first floor and the town hall occupied the second floor; the clock tower and belfry were added in 1845. On February 24, 1865 the town council, meeting here, surrendered Georgetown to officers of the U.S. Navy. The Rice Museum opened in this building during the S.C. Tricentennial in 1970.

This store, constructed as a two-story building for Stephen W. Rouquie in 1842, features a cast-iron facade designed by Daniel Badger. In 1869 Heiman Kaminski, who had rented the building since 1867 to house his hardware store, acquired it. Over the next 30 years H. Kaminski and Co. became one of Georgetown's most successful businesses; by 1878 a third story and rear addition were added. The building is now part of the Rice Museum.

(Front) This house, one of Georgetown's earliest, was built ca. 1737 by John and Mary Perry Cleland. Mrs. Cleland inherited the property from her father John Perry, who had been granted a large tract in 1705 including the site of present-day Georgetown. This house is a raised tidewater residence with its main entrance facing the Sampit River. It features elements of the Georgian and Federal styles.

(Reverse) In 1753 the house was purchased by the Clelands' nephew Archibald Baird. He made small additions to each end of the house and relocated the main entrance to Front Street. A porch was added there ca. 1780. Later prominent owners of the house included John Withers, Jr., Francis Withers, Dr. Joseph Blythe, and Robert F.W. Allston.

Near Reedy River Falls, stood the home, trading station, and grist mill of Col. Richard Pearis, first white settler of this section. He was a noted Indian trader and prominent Tory of the Revolution.

70 feet south of this point was erected, 1820, "the old record building," designed by Robert Mills (1781-1855), famous Charleston architect, designer of the Washington Monument. This building of classic design was county courthouse until 1855; then record building until removed, 1924. John C. Calhoun spoke from its portico on current issues.

This camp, named in honor of John Sevier, Lieutenant Colonel, N. C. Militia, 1777, Col., 1781, Brig. Gen., U. S. P. A., 1798, was approved as cantonment site May 21, 1917. The 30th Division trained here from August 28, 1917 to May 1, 1918; the 81st, from May 18, 1918 to July 16, 1918; the 20th, from August 12, 1918 to February 28, 1919.

Here along the south side of the creek to Reedy River was fought, Dec. 22, 1775, the Battle of Great Cane Brake between a force of South Carolinians under Colonel William Thomson and a band of Tories under Patrick Cuningham. The Tories were completely routed, and Cuningham himself narrowly escaped.

Erected by Behethland Butler Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, 10 May 1941

This marks the eastern boundary (present Greenville-Spartanburg county line) between the Cherokee Nation and the Province of South Carolina from the end of the Cherokee War (1759-61) until 1777. In that year the treaty of DeWitt's Corner extended the western boundary of South Carolina to the Savannah River.

Erected by the City of Greer, S.C. Dept. of Highways and Public Transportation, and Greenville County, 1979, replacing a marker erected in 1952 by the Joyce Scott Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution

One of the first stores in this section of the state stood near this spot. Its day book shows that it was in operation in 1794, three years before the founding of the town of Greenville.

Erected by Behethland Butler Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, 26 November 1956

According to tradition an ante-bellum inn with a gushing fountain in the front yard stood near here on the old stage road between Greenville and Columbia and served as a meeting place for men in the area in those stirring days. The present town chartered in 1886 is named for the old inn.

Dedicated in reverence and admiration for their courage and integrity to the five signers of the Ordinance of Secession from Greenville County, December 20, 1860/William Hans Campbell/1823-1901/Perry Emory Duncan/1800-1867/William King Easley/1825-1872/James Clement Furman/1809-1891/James Perry Harrison/1813-1871

Built by Henry Middleton on land bought from Elias Earle in 1813, Whitehall served as Middleton's summer home until 1820 when it was sold to George W. Earle, whose descendants have occupied it ever since. Henry Middleton was son of Arthur Middleton, Signer of the Declaration of Independence. He served as Governor of South Carolina from 1810 to 1812.

(Front) This was approximately the center of the many-acred estate and "seat of hospitality" of Elias Earle, pioneer Greenville settler who began acquiring property here as early as 1787. His home, "The Poplars," stood at the NE corner of Rutherford and Buist streets.

June 19, 1762-May 19, 1823/Builder of the "Great Wagon Road" across the western mountains from South Carolina to Tennessee in 1797. Elias Earle served as State Legislator 1794-1798, State Senator 1798-1804, and U. S. Congressman 1805-1807, 1811-1815, and 1817-1821. Of distinguished Virginia ancestry, his family served South Carolina well.

Erected by Behethland Butler Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, 1 October 1967

Started in 1820 as St. James' Mission, the first church built here in 1825 on land given by Vardry McBee, was consecrated in 1828 by Bishop Nathaniel Bowen as Christ Church. The present church was built 1852-54 with Rev. John D. McCollough as architect, using plans drawn by Joel R. Poinsett, and consecrated in 1854 by Bishop Thomas Davis.

(Front) 1779-1851/Born in Charleston, S. C., educated in this country and Great Britain, he travelled widely in Europe and Asia before returning to a distinguished career. He served South Carolina in the state legislature, 1816-1820; 1830-1832; and as Chairman of the Board of Public Works 1818-1820. He represented S. C. in Congress 1821-1825, was first American Minister to Mexico 1825-1829, and Secretary of War, 1837-1841.

(Reverse) Planter, Writer, Botanist/Diplomat, Statesman./Joel R. Poinsett had a summer home near here dividing his time in later life between it and his plantation on the Peedee River. He brought the lovely poinsettia to this country from Mexico. His cultural interests and scientific pursuits with this political career earned him the title "Versatile American." He died December 12, 1851, at Stateburg, S. C., and was buried there at the Church of the Holy Cross.

About 150 feet east of this point are buried some of Greenville's earliest settlers, including Elias Earle (1762-1823), State Representative and Senator and United States Congressman; George Washington Earle (1777-1821), wealthy planter and early Greenville Clerk of Court; and their immediate families.

(Reverse) Among the Earle descendants buried about 150 feet east of this point is George Earle Yancey, infant son of William Lowndes Yancey, known as the "father of secession," and Sarah Caroline Earle Yancey. In an unmarked grave is buried Elias Drayton Earle, South Carolina Superintendent of Public Works, 1847.

Erected by Behethland Butler Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, 1980, replacing a marker erected by the Behethland Butler Chapter in 1971 [Needs repainting as of June 2009, according to Brian Scott of The Historical Markers Database]

S.C. Sec. Rd. 23-38, ½ mi. SE of U.S. Hwy. 29, at entrance to Chick Springs Park, Greer vicinity

(Front) Dr. Burwell Chick opened a resort at these mineral springs in 1840. A spacious hotel and cottages accommodated a large number of summer guests. After Dr. Chick's death, the springs were operated by his sons Pettus and Reuben, and after 1857 by Franklin Talbird and John T. Henery, lowcountry developers. In the 1860s, the war ended the heyday of the resort.

(Reverse) After 1885, George Westmoreland began to reestablish the springs as a resort. In 1903, the Chick Springs Company was formed to sell water and maintain a hotel. From this time, J. A. Bull was principal developer. A military academy was located here 1916-17, and Steedly Clinic and Sanitarium 1919-32. An amusement park has been operated at Chick Springs since 1927.

Erected by Taylors Garden Club, 1972 [Missing as of June 2009, according to Brian Scott of The Historical Markers Database]

Established in 1825 by the S. C. Baptist Convention, the Furman Academy and Theological Institution opened at Edgefield, 1826, moved to Sumter District, 1829-34, and to Fairfield, 1837-50. Chartered in 1850 as Furman University, it opened in Greenville, 1851, and for over a century, 1852-1958, occupied this site purchased from Vardry McBee. In the summer of 1958, Furman moved to a new campus six miles north of town.

Established in 1854 by the S. C. Baptist Convention, this institution opened as Greenville Baptist Female College in February 1856, on this site originally donated by Vardry McBee to the Greenville Academies. Its name was changed to Greenville Woman's College in 1914. It was coordinated with Furman University in 1933, merged with Furman in 1938, and moved in 1961 to the consolidated campus six miles north of town.

Intersection of Dunklin Bridge Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 23-68) & Latimer Mill Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 23-69),

This United Methodist church was originally located about 1 ¼ miles east and named the Grove. It was visited by Bishop Francis Asbury in 1790 and 1800. Relocated about ¼ mile SW of here after the land was obtained in 1832. Present house of worship was erected in 1850's and name changed to Lebanon. Sunday School annex completed in 1951 and steeple and portico in 1955.

Latimer Mill Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 23-69), just S of the Reedy River, near the Greenville County-Laurens County line, Fork Shoals vicinity

The cemetery located about ½ mile north, marks the site of Grove Church, established prior to 1790, one of the first Methodist churches in Greenville County. The present church, renamed Lebanon, is located about 1 ¼ miles W. of here. A number of Revolutionary War soldiers and church founders are buried in this cemetery, now maintained by the church and the Sullivan family.

Renfrew Baptist Church Cemetery, 951 Greer Hwy. (U.S. Hwy. 276), about ½ mi. N of Travelers Rest

Born in 1878 about ½ mile SW, Watson was a pioneer in behavioral psychology. He graduated from Furman University, earned his Ph. D. from the University of Chicago, served as president of the American Psychological Association, and professor and director of the psychological laboratory at Johns Hopkins University for 12 years. Scientist, author, editor, teacher, he died in 1958.

126 Fairview Church Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 23-451), just S. of its intersection with Fairview Rd.

(Front) Settlers from the Nazareth area of Spartanburg County founded this Presbyterian church in 1786 on land ceded by the Cherokee Indians in the treaty of Dewitt's Corner, 1777. It is said that three buildings, two of logs and one of brick, preceded this 1858 building. The Sunday School annex was built in 1949 and the office-historical building in 1986.

The oldest graves in this cemetery are those of Margaret Alexander, d.1791, and Elizabeth Alexander, d. 1797. Soldiers of the American Revolution, War of 1812, Civil War, and World Wars I and II are buried here. A special marker denotes the area where blacks were interred.

Erected by the Congregation, 1986 [Needs repainting as of June 2009, according to Brian Scott of The Historical Markers Database]

(Front) In 1825, Wm. Bullein Johnson opened a subscription for a Baptist meetinghouse, which was soon built here. The 120 foot-square lot, which extended well into present McBee Ave., was given by Vardry McBee. After its organization in 1831, First Baptist Church occupied the building here until it moved to West McBee Ave. in 1857. The church moved to its present location on Cleveland Street in 1974.

When Southern Baptist Theological Seminary was organized in 1859, the old Baptist church building once located here was divided into two classrooms and library for the school's use. First faculty was James Petigru Boyce, John A. Broadus, Basil Manly, Jr., and William Williams. Crawford H. Toy and William H. Whitsitt joined before the seminary moved to Louisville, Ky. in 1877.

Erected by First Baptist Church and the South Carolina Baptist Historical Society, 1987

By 1820 one of the first cotton mills in Greenville County was located at these river shoals. Pelham Manufacturing Co. purchased a mill here sixty years later.

Fairfield Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 23-55), 5 mi. S of S.C. Hwy. 418, Fountain Inn vicinity

This house was built by T. C. Bolling c. 1840 near the old Indian boundary. C. B. Stewart minister of nearby Fairview Presbyterian Church lived here 1859-1890.

Jackson Grove Rd., near Jackson Grove Methodist Church, 1401 Jackson Grove Rd., Travelers Rest vicinity

(Front) William Preston Few, prominent Southern educator, was born 1.6 mi. NE in 1867. Few received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1896 and joined the faculty of Trinity College, Durham, N.C., that same year. He became Trinity's fifth president in 1910 and was instrumental in transforming the small Methodist college into a major university by cultivating the financial support of industrialist James Buchanan Duke (1856-1925).

(Reverse) Few persuaded Duke to establish the Duke Endowment in 1924, a trust which created Duke University and which still supports it and other institutions and charities in the Carolinas, including children's homes, hospitals, Davidson College and Johnson C. Smith University in N.C., and Furman University in S.C. William Preston Few was the first president of Duke University, serving from 1924 until his death.

intersection of Main St. W. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 24-24) and Twigg St. (S.C. Hwy. 10), Troy

Three miles west is site of an attack by Cherokee Indians upon settlers of Long Canes in the Cherokee War of 1759-1761. There on February 1, 1760, about 150 settlers, refugeeing to Augusta, were overtaken by 100 Cherokee warriors. Twenty-three victims left on the scene of action are there buried in one grave.

Erected by Abbeville District Historical Association, Town of Troy, McCormick County Historical Commission, 1976, replacing a marker erected 16 May 1937 by the American Legion Post # 20, Greenwood

intersection of Main St. W. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 24-24) and Twigg St. (S.C. Hwy. 10), Troy

4.5 miles northwest is Long Cane Church, organized in 1771 as Associate Presbyterian, with the Rev. William Ronaldson as first stated supply. It united with Cedar Spring, March 7, 1786, under Dr. Thos. Clark; withdrew September 15, 1803; part of congregation under the Presbyterian Church, 1813-1819; all reunited with Cedar Spring, Feb. 28, 1828; withdrew, Jan. 13, 1892. The present building was dedicated July 10, 1856.

(2 miles south) at the Ninety Six Visitors’ Center, 97 E. Main St., Ninety Six

Even before 1730 the fork in the Cherokee Path, 96 miles south of Keowee, was called Ninety Six. Here a trading post was operated, a fort was built, and a courthouse town was established. Here the first land battle of the Revolutionary War in the South was fought, Nov. 19-20, 1775; and here Gen. Nathanael Greene besieged the British in Star Fort, May 22-June 20, 1781.

Erected by Ninety Six Chamber of Commerce, 1959 [Missing as of June 2009, according to Brian Scott of The Historical Markers Database]

National attention was focused here on Oct. 3, 1856, when some 10,000 people honored Preston S. Brooks, Congressman from this district, with a public dinner in vindication of his assault on Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on the Senate floor for a speech insulting to this state. The Preston Brooks home was five miles south on Highway 246.

[Erected in 1959 or 1960; Missing as of June 2009, according to Brian Scott of The Historical Markers Database]

1000 feet east is Tabernacle Cemetery on the site of Tabernacle Methodist Church and Tabernacle Academy. Buried here are Generals M. W. Gary & N. G. Evans and other Confederate veterans. From Tabernacle Academy organized in 1820 by Stephen Olin developed Mount Ariel and Cokesbury Conference School.

Erected in 1961 by the Robert A. Waller and John McKellar Reynolds Chapters, United Daughters of the Confederacy

Site of Old Tabernacle Methodist Church. Buried here are Confederate Generals Martin Witherspoon Gary, Nathan George Evans and other Confederate officers and soldiers.

Erected in 1961 by the Robert A. Waller and John McKellar Reynolds Chapters, United Daughters of the Confederacy

Teacher, Historian, Physician/Born and reared in this house/John Henry Logan/first practiced medicine and taught school in this region before publishing in 1859 his History of Upper South Carolina. He served as a Confederate Army Surgeon and afterwards taught at Atlanta Medical College.

Physician, naturalist, versatile intellect, agricultural leader. President of Abbeville District Medical Society, 1835. Friend of Agassiz, Audubon and other major scientists; by his own advanced thinking, he outlined a theory of serial evolution and foretold airplanes and lunar trips. His home was across this road.

W side of Callison Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 24-48), 4.1 mi. S of U.S. Hwy. 221, S of Bradley

Two miles west is Powder Spring, traditional site of the town laid out for the Londonborough settlers in 1765. Abandoned by their promoter in London, some 300 German settlers were brought to South Carolina, given aid and bounty, and granted land in Londonborough Township. They settled in this area along Hard Labor and Cuffytown Creeks.

N of U.S. Hwy. 221 at its intersection with Callison Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 24-48), Bradley

His efforts brought R.R. through this town which bears his name. He was Brig. Gen. State Militia, Captain in Confederate War, Member of S.C. Legislature, Trustee of Erskine College and First President of the Augusta-Knoxville Railroad. He lived nearby and is buried in Cedar Springs Church Yard.

E. Scotch Cross Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 24-131), 3.1 mi. E of U.S. Hwy. 25, SE of Greenwood

One half mile south is the grave of John Waller, early minister of the Baptist faith in Virginia, where he is credited with founding eighteen churches. He was persecuted and imprisoned by the established church and civil authorities. In 1793, he moved to South Carolina, where he founded Bethabara and Siloam Churches.

Laurens Hwy. (S.C. Hwy. 221), Coronaca vicinity, about 3.6 mi. NE of Greenwood

This young English Jew settled near Coronaca in 1774, represented Ninety Six District in the provincial congresses of 1775-1776, and died in defense of his adopted home on Aug. 1, 1776. He was the first South Carolinian of his faith to hold an elective public office and the first to die for American independence.

Dr. Wesley C. Norwood (1806-1884), whose home was located near here, raised a storm of medical controversy in the 1850s by promoting the use of "Norwood's Tincture" as a cure for pneumonia, yellow fever, and a wide variety of other diseases. The medicine, derived from the poisonous plant veratrum viride, was a familiar sight in pharmacies until ca. 1890.

The spiritual mentor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Born here in 1894. Served as president of Morehouse College 1940-67 and as presidential advisor. Died in 1984.

Hampton County Courthouse, near the intersection of Elm St. E (U.S. Hwy. 278) & 1st St. E (S.C. Hwy. 68), Hampton

Established February 18, 1878, once a part of Beaufort District. Named in honor of WADE HAMPTON, Lieutenant General, C.S.A., Governor of South Carolina, 1876-79, United States Senator, 1879-91. Corner stone of courthouse laid by Gen. Hampton, Oct. 12, 1878.

On November 7, 1872, a post office was established in this community, named for William E. Brunson, Sr., who donated the site. Brunson was chartered in 1874. The Town Hall, built in 1906, originally stood on stilts and covered the town's artesian well. Brunson's school system traces its origin to the 1800s, to Pineville Academy and Brunson Graded & Military School.

On this site stood the home of Miles Benjamin McSweeney (1854-1909), first governor of South Carolina from Hampton County. He was founder of the Hampton County Guardian, S. C. Representative 1894-96, Lieutenant Governor 1897-99, and Governor 1899-1903. His grave is in Hampton Cemetery.

This Baptist Church, constituted in March 1775, was first situated on Pipe Creek in upper St. Peter's Parish near the Savannah River. Prior to 1836 it was moved to Lawtonville, where its building was used as a hospital by Union Forces in 1865. Pipe Creek Church became Lawtonville Church in 1884. The Church moved here in 1911 when the present building was erected.

S.C. Sec. Rd. 25-512 just E of its intersection with S.C. Sec. Rd. 25-315, about 3 mi. E of Brunson

Previously a branch of nearby Coosawhatchie Baptist Church (now Beech Branch), this church was constituted as a separate church in 1813 and takes its name from the parish in which it was located. Espousing Primitive Baptist principles, the church broke with the Savannah River Association in 1840. The present structure was erected prior to 1859.

Constructed for black students, this elementary school was built shortly after Hampton County School District purchased the land in the late 1920s. Two of the school's alumni of the 1930s and 1940s, brothers James F. and Julius C. Fields, achieved national stature as actors, dancers, and choreographers in stage, television, and motion picture productions.

S.C. Sec. Rd. 25-19 at Lawtonville Cemetery, just S of its intersection with S.C. Sec. Rd. 25-39, Lawtonville,

In old Lawtonville Community, across from this site, was the first Morrison Academy, a one-room elementary and college preparatory school. It was later moved 3.4 miles north of here on Orangeburg Road to be near the home of Rev. John Timothy Morrison, headmaster from 1865 to 1905, minister, legislator, Lt. C.S.A.

Intersection of 1st St. W (U.S. Hwy. 601) & Old Pocotaligo Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 25-68),

(Front) This was a major road in the northern part of old Beaufort District for many years, appearing in Mills' Atlas of 1825. Gen. Wm. T. Sherman used this route from Savannah, Georgia, to North Carolina in February of 1865 with much of his invasion force, including 15,000 troops of the 15th Corps. These and

(Reverse) other Union soldiers fought their way through the present Hampton County countryside, against Confederates under generals Joe Wheeler and Lafayette McLaws and Colonel Charles J. Colcock. Engagements in the county occurred at Lawtonville, Hickory Hill (2.9 miles SE), Whippy Swamp, and Broxton's Bridge.

Augusta Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 25-20), about 1 mi. N of its junction with S.C. Sec. Rd. 25-62, Lawtonville

This Baptist congregation, originally known as Savannah River, Carolina Church, was constituted near here March 1, 1775, mainly by members of Coosawhatchie (Beech Branch) Church. Rev. Joshua Lewis was its first known minister. In 1786, the church changed its name to Pipe Creek and by 1836 had moved to Lawtonville. Renamed Lawtonville in 1884, the church moved to Estill, 1911. Erected 1991 by Lawtonville Baptist Church, Estill, SC

on the grounds of the Estill Correctional Institution, Federal Bureau of Prisons, just off S.C. Sec. Rd. 25-35, about 1.5 mi. S of its intersection with S.C. Sec. Rd. 25-208 Estill vicinity

This plantation was owned by large land owner Geo. Rhodes (1802-1881) who signed Ordinance of Secession in 1860. Tradition holds house was burned in 1865 during Civil War.

Florence County

3636 N. Williston Rd. (Old Georgetown Rd./S.C. Hwy. 327), just N of its intersection with I-95 Exit 170, Florence vicinity

(Front) Roseville Plantation was established by a royal grant before the American Revolution and a house was built here ca. 1771 for the Dewitt family. Richard Brockinton (d. ca. 1843), planter and state representative, purchased Roseville in 1821. Most of the house burned ca. 1832, and a second house was built on the original foundation for Brockinton and his wife Mary Hart about 1835.

(Reverse) In the 1850s the plantation passed to the Brockintons' nephew Peter Samuel Bacot (1810-1864), a planter, whose daughter Ada White Bacot Clarke (1832-1911) was born here and was later a Confederate nurse and diarist. The Clarkes remodeled the house ca. 1885 and ca. 1910. Roseville was restored by the Tucker family and listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

Erected by the Ellison Capers Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy, 1998

(Front) This Greek Revival house was built ca. 1854 for William R. Johnson, (1813-1893), physician, planter, and legislator in what was then Marion District. Johnson, an 1838 graduate of the Medical College of S.C., later served in the S.C. House of Representatives 1852-55 and the S.C. Senate 1860-63; he died here in 1893 and is buried at nearby Hopewell Presbyterian Church.

After Walter L. Rankin of N.C. acquired the house in 1902, Mrs. Rankin named it "The Columns"; it is still owned by his descendants. It has been called "Carolina Hall" since 1934, when it was the model for the plantation house in the movie Carolina, starring Janet Gaynor and Lionel Barrymore. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

Erected by the Pee Dee Committee, The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of South Carolina, 2000

E. Pocket Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 21-26), just W of its junction with Rogers Ct., Back Swamp community, Florence vicinity

(Front) About 1843 Robert Rogers (1808-1882), a planter at "Blooming Grove" in the Back Swamp community of what was then Darlington District, built a plantation schoolhouse and hired Peter Stuart Ney (d. 1846) to teach his children. The original building, moved here in 1870, was later the library for Back Swamp School (1921-1950). In 1970 it was moved to the home of Evander McIver Ervin.

This school, the second on the site, was built in 1921 by Back Swamp residents. An elementary school sometimes known as St. Winifred's, it boasted as many as two teachers and sixty students in some years. When it closed in 1950 its students were transferred to Florence schools; it has since served as the Back Swamp Community Center.

(Front) This school, built in 1925, was the first public school for African American students in the Mars Bluff community. One of more than 5000 schools in the South funded in part by the Julius Rosenwald Foundation, it features a standard two-classroom plan typical of the rural schools built by the foundation between 1917 and 1932.
(Reverse) The first school here, a private school built by Mt. Zion Methodist Church in 1870, burned in the early 1920s. Mt. Zion Rosenwald School usually operated on a four- or five-month calendar in which two or three teachers taught grades 1-6. It closed in 1952 when a new Mars Bluff Consolidated School opened. This school was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

E. Palmetto St. /Christopher James Yahnis Hwy. (U.S. Hwy. 301/76) at Wallace Woods Rd., on the Francis Marion University Campus, Mars Bluff

(Front) The African Americans who built the two hewn-timber cabins that stand 200 yds. S on Wallace Woods Road were brought to Mars Bluff as slaves in 1836. They lived in these cabins on the cotton plantation of J. Eli Gregg, in what was then Marion District. These cabins are the last two of eight that originally stood in a cotton field at what is now the center of the university campus.

(Reverse) The cabins, built of 4”x9” hand-hewn timbers, feature precise full-dovetail joints and pine plank floors. They were enlarged after the Civil War. Freedmen and later tenant farmers lived in these houses until the 1950s. Relocated several times, one cabin was moved to this site in 1980, the other in 1990. They were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

(Front) This church was founded in 1883 by a Rev. Hill and twenty-five charter members. Early services were held in a member’s house on E. Main Street. The congregation purchased a lot at the corner of Lake and N. Church Streets in 1885 and built its first sanctuary, a frame building, that year. That church was renovated and enlarged in 1917. It was further renovated, adding a steeple, in 1948-50.
(Reverse) In 1951 Rev. J.A. DeLaine (1898-1974) was transferred from Pine Grove A.M.E. Church in Summerton after playing a leading role in Briggs v. Elliott, the Clarendon County school desegregation case that led to Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Unknown persons burned the church in October 1955. Rev. G. Lee Baylor was the pastor when a new sanctuary, named Greater St. James, was dedicated here in 1957.

(Front) This church, founded in 1868 with Rev. James Wesley Johnson as its first minister, held its early services in a brush arbor. In 1870 trustees purchased this 1 ¾ acre tract to build a “Negro Schoolhouse” sponsored by the church, the first in the Mars Bluff community. This sanctuary, originally a frame building, was built in 1875 on a tract purchased from the school.

(Reverse) The sanctuary was extensively remodeled and covered in brick veneer in 1970. The cemetery nearby, established in 1876, includes the graves of such early church leaders as Anthony H. Howard (1840-1908), a former slave who served in the S.C. House of Representatives during Reconstruction. Howard was also one of several black farmers who grew rice here after the Civil War.

near Roseville Plantation, 3636 N. Williston Rd. (Old Georgetown Rd./S.C. Hwy. 327), just N of its intersection with I-95 Exit 170, Florence vicinity

(Front) This was originally the slave cemetery for Roseville Plantation. Roseville, established about 1771 by the Dewitt family, was later owned by the Brockinton, Bacot, and Clarke families from the 1820s through the Civil War. A 1200-acre plantation, it had more than 100 slaves living and planting cotton here by 1850.

This cemetery is sometimes called “the Clarke Cemetery” after the family that owned Roseville from Reconstruction until 1948. It is about 150 ft. square, and though it contains relatively few gravemarkers it includes at least 150 and as many as 250 or more graves. Slaves, freedmen, and their descendants were buried here for two hundred years, from the 1770s to the 1970s.

(Front) The original depot named Florence was built here in 1852, where the Wilmington & Manchester RR crossed present-day Hoffmeyer Rd. It was named for Florence Harllee (1848-1927), daughter of the railroad's president, William W. Harllee (1812-1897). In 1855 a new depot was built 2 mi. E where the railroad crossed Coit St., the Cheraw & Darlington RR, and the North Eastern RR.
(Reverse)

The 1855 depot became the center of the city of Florence, incorporated in 1871. The Wilmington & Manchester RR, chartered in 1846, began operating in 1853 and ran from Eagle Island, N.C., to Manchester, S.C., passing within 10 mi. of Darlington, S.C. In 1870 it was reorganized as the Wilmington, Columbia, & Augusta RR. It became part of the Atlantic Coast Line RR in 1898.

(Front) Hannah, named for the Hannah/Hanna family, was known as Cane Branch or Lynches River before a post office was opened here in 1887. William S. Hannah (1807-1876), a farmer and merchant, built his house nearby in 1847 and also ran a general store here; he later dropped the final "h" from the family name. This area was part of Marion County until Florence County was created in 1888.

(Reverse) The Hannah Post Office, open from 1887 to 1917, served a community of two churches, two general stores, a cotton gin, saw mill, grist mill, and cane mill. William S. Hanna's store, built ca. 1850, operated for more than 135 years, passing to his son Ervin (1840-1924), grandson Davis (1892-1978), and great-grandson Murdock (1920-1986). The old store was replaced in the 1960s.

WILLIAM H. JOHNSON BIRTHPLACE
E. Palmetto St., just W of Kemp St., Florence

(Front) William Henry Johnson (1901-1970), one of the most important African-American artists of the 20^th century, was born nearby on Cox Street. His family later lived on the corner of Cheves and Kemp Streets. In 1918, at the age of 17, Johnson moved to New York City. Johnson studied at the National Academy of Design and the Cape Cod School of Art, won several prizes, and studied art in Europe 1926-29.
(Reverse) Johnson, back in America in 1929-31, had paintings in several exhibitions and a one-day show at the Florence Y.M.C.A. Visits to Florence inspired paintings of local people and places. In 1931 he married Danish artist Holcha Krake, living in Europe before returning to New York in 1938. After Johnson’s wife died in 1944 his health declined; he was institutionalized in New York in 1947 and died there in 1970.

21-22
JAMESTOWN
Jamestown community, S.C. Hwy. 24 near its intersection with Jamestown Rd., Mars Bluff vicinity

(Front) This African American community, which flourished here for 70 years, has its origins in a 105-acre tract bought in 1870 by former slave Ervin James (1815-1872). James, determined to own his own farm instead of being dependent on sharecropping or tenant farming, bought the tract from Eli McKissick and Mary Poston. His five sons and a son-in-law later divided the tract into individual farms.

(Reverse) Between 1870 and 1940 Ervin James’s descendants and other area families purchased additional land, creating a rural community of about 250 residents. Among its institutions were the Jamestown Cemetery, dating from its earliest days; the Summerville Methodist Church (renamed Bowers Chapel), established about 1880; and the Summerville Elementary School, built in 1926.

(Front) This church, founded in 1806 in what was Darlington District until Florence County was founded in 1888, grew out of an early Methodist “Society.” Rev. Thomas Humphries (d. 1820), who served this and other area circuits, conducted the first service. In 1813 Dempsey Russell donated an acre to the congregation, which soon built a frame building here as its first permanent church.

(Reverse) The church, often called “Russell’s Meeting House” or “Russell’s Church” for Dempsey Russell, changed its name to Pisgah Methodist Church in 1840. It moved to a site a few miles west after the Civil War but soon returned to this site and built a larger frame church in 1878-79. The present church, built in 1914, is a fine example of the Carpenter Gothic architectural style.

Intersection of W. John Paul Jones Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 21-35) and W. Cummings Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 21-848), vicinity of Peniel Crossroads, NW of Effingham

(Front) Alfred Rush (d. 1876), a black state representative for two terms during Reconstruction, was assassinated near here, about 1/2 mi. from his home, on May 13, 1876. Rush, who represented what was then Darlington County in the S.C. House 1868-70 and 1874-76, was also a deacon at Savannah Grove Baptist Church.
(Reverse) Rush and his wife, returning from a picnic at Mt. Carmel Church near Timmonsville, were ambushed by an unknown gunman. Alfred Rush was killed instantly. Several black Darlington County officials wrote Gov. D.H. Chamberlain, “this was a cold blooded murder and our people are very much excited over it.”

(Front) This church, organized ca. 1770, is the first Presbyterian church in what is now Florence County. Many of its founding families came to S.C. from Scotland and Ireland. The first church here, a frame building, stood across Old River Road with the church cemetery around it, but burned soon after it was completed.
(Reverse) The second church was replaced by this Greek Revival church in 1842, with its two-story portico, gallery, and original pews. Darlington (1827), Florence First (1861), and Effingham (1906) are daughter churches of Hopewell. The church and cemetery were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.

E. Marion Hwy. (U.S. Hwy. 301/76) near the Francis Marion University Campus, Mars Bluff

(Front) In 1958, in the midst of the Cold War, the U.S. Air Force accidentally dropped an atomic bomb near here. The unarmed 7,600-lb., 10’8”-long bomb was aboard a B-47E bomber on a training mission headed for England. Its high-explosive trigger detonated on impact, making a crater as large as 35 feet deep and 70 feet wide.
(Reverse) The bomb landed in the woods behind the asbestos-shingle-sided home of railroad conductor Walter “Bill” Gregg (b. 1921). Gregg, his wife, their three children, and a niece were injured by the concussion, which destroyed the house and outbuildings and did slight damage to buildings within a 5 mile radius.

Francis Marion Rd. (S.C. Hwy. 327), .5 mi. S of Liberty Chapel Rd., approximately 3 mi. E of Florence

(Front) This house was built in 1846 for Evander A. Gregg (1818-1874), a planter in what was Marion District. Its high masonry basement and porch form, indigenous to northeastern S.C., make it a fine example of a raised Carolina cottage. It was acquired by R.L. Singletary (1830-1910) in 1867 and by J.W. Wallace (1861-1928) in 1912. The plantation was named Red Doe in the 1930s.
(Reverse) “Red Doe” refers to an incident during the Revolution when Patriot scout Andrew Hunter escaped on “Red Doe,” the horse of Loyalist Col. David Fanning. Red Doe, restored by Chisolm and Annie Wallace in 1940, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. In 2006 Robert P. Wilkins donated it to a nonprofit group for preservation.
Erected by the Florence City and County Historical Commission, 2009

LAKE CITY
at the corner of Main St. (U.S. Hwy. 378 & S.C. Hwy. 341) & Church St., Lake City

(Front) This area, in what was then Williamsburg Township, was settled as early as 1754 by members of the Dick, Graham, McAllister, Scott, and other families. Several residents served under Francis Marion during the Revolution. By the 1820s this community was sometimes called “the crossroads” for the intersection of two major roads (one from Georgetown to Camden, the other from Charleston to Cheraw), now Main and Church Streets.
(Reverse) This area was known as “Graham’s Crossroads” for Aaron Graham, who built a house here ca. 1830. The post office opened here in 1848 was named “Lynches Lake.” The town grew after the Northeastern RR was completed in 1857 and was chartered as Graham in 1874. Renamed Lake City in 1883, it was in Williamsburg County until 1912. Its tobacco market, opened in 1899, was among the largest in S.C. Its bean market, opened in 1936, was once the largest in the world.

(Front) This post, organized in May 1919 and chartered by national headquarters in June 1919, was the first American Legion post in S.C. Florence County veterans J.D. Smyser, R.B. Fulton, and N.S. Lachicotte represented S.C. at the first national caucus. The American Legion of S.C. held its first state caucus in Florence in July 1919. A monument to Florence County WWI veterans was erected here in 1928.

American Legion Post #1 is named for 2nd Lieutenant Fred H. Sexton (1890-1918), killed in France in World War I. Sexton, a native of Union, moved to Florence in 1911. He enlisted in the S.C. National Guard and was promoted to 2nd lt., 113th Infantry, 29th Division, in 1918. He was killed in the Meuse-Argonne in Oct. 1918 and posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest American military honor.

Erected by the Fred H. Sexton Post # 1, American Legion, Department of South Carolina, 2010

(Front) This house, built as a one-room tenant house ca. 1890 and later enlarged several times, features a narrow front porch and rear shed addition typical of many tenant houses on plantations and farms in the post-Civil War South. Like the families who lived here, most tenants were African American.
(Reverse) From 1890 to 1999 members of the Williams, Waiters, Frazier, Martin, and Gregg families lived here, working as wage laborers or sharecroppers, on land owned by the Gregg and Wallace families. This tenant house was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.
Erected by the Florence City and County Historical Commission, 2010

WILSON SCHOOL
corner of Palmetto & Dargan Sts., Florence
(Front) Wilson School, later Wilson High School, was the first public school in Florence, and stood here from 1866 to 1906. At first a private school for black children, it was established by the New England Branch of the Freedmen’s Union Commission and operated by the Freedmen’s Bureau. Thomas C. Cox, its first principal, later served as Darlington County sheriff. The school became a public school after the S.C. Constitution of 1868 authorized a system of free public schools.

Rev. Joshua E. Wilson (1844-1915), a Methodist minister, was an early principal of what was long called “the Colored Graded School.” It was most likely named Wilson School for him. The school on this site, a frame building, was torn down in 1906 to make was for Central School. A new Wilson School was built on Athens Street. Wilson High School was on Athens Street 1906-1956 and on North Irby Street 1956-1982. It has been on Old Marion Highway since 1982.

(Front) This Art Moderne house, completed in 1939 for Joseph Maner Lawton, has housed the Florence Museum since 1953. It was designed by Sanborn Chase, then an engineering student influenced by Moderne architecture in France and later a prominent local businessman. The house features curved streamlined forms, a semicircular glass block entrance bay, and black glass bands just below the roofline. When completed it was described as “the talk of Florence.”

FLORENCE MUSEUM
(Reverse) The Florence Museum, chartered in 1936, was founded by the Florence Museum Committee, a group of civic-minded women who had organized as the Blue Bird Tea Room Committee during World War I. It was housed in the basement of the Florence Public Library from 1939 to 1952, when the museum board acquired this house. Its collection of fine art, archaelogical and historical artifacts, and natural science exhibits was opened to the public here in 1953.

This Folk Victorian house, with pierced brackets and fretwork on its two-tiered porch, was built ca. 1895 for William Thomas Askins (1859-1932). Askins, a merchant and farmer, built and operated five stores here beginning in the 1890s, including the general store W.T. Askins and Sons. He and three sons also owned several tobacco and truck farms on the outskirts of Lake City. This house was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.

MARS BLUFF
near the intersection of Fore Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 21-89) & Hunt Rd., Mars Bluff

(Front) This is the center of Mars Bluff, a rural community 8 mi. across in both directions, bounded by the Great Pee Dee River, Black Creek, & Jefferies Creek. A ferry across the Great Pee Dee began operation in 1767. Patriot and Loyalist militia later clashed in the area during the Revolution. Mars Bluff grew in both size and significance after the Wilmington & Manchester RR arrived in the 1850s.
(Reverse) By the 1830s J. Eli Gregg (1805-1873) ran a general store south of here. He built a new store on this site, across from the depot, when the railroad was completed in 1853. A blacksmith shop, cotton gin, grist mill, and saw mill made this the focus of Mars Bluff life for many years. Gregg’s original store burned by 1930, but a store operated on this site until the 1950s.
Sponsored by the Samuel Bacot Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, 2013

JOSHUA BRAVEBOY PLANTATION
Ron E. McNair Blvd. (U.S. Hwy. 52) at the Lynches Lake Bridge, Lake City

This site was part of the 150-acre plantation of Joshua Braveboy (1740-fl. 1820), a free black who served in the S.C. militia during the American Revolution. Braveboy, a native of N.C., came to S.C. in 1771 and received a grant on Two Mile Branch at Lynches Creek. He served under Gen. Francis Marion in 1780-81, and in another militia unit in 1782. He spent the rest of his life here, in what was then Williamsburg Co.

Georgetown County

(Front) This house, probably built between 1750 and 1800, was for many years the home of Harold Kaminski (1886-1951), Georgetown County commissioner, mayor 1930-35, and U.S. Navy officer, and his wife Julia Bossard Pyatt (d. 1972). The house was originally owned by members of the Trapier and Keith families, including John Keith (d. ca. 1823), first intendant, or mayor, of Georgetown in 1806. It then passed through a succession of owners from 1853 to 1931.

(Reverse) The Kaminski House, originally a single house with a central stairhall between two rooms, was significantly enlarged in the 1890s by George R. Congdon (1834-1909), also mayor in 1872, and in the 1930s and 1940s by Harold and Julia Kaminski. The house and its furnishings, including antiques from the 18th to the 20th centuries, was bequeathed to the City of Georgetown by Julia Pyatt Kaminski and has been open to the public as a house museum since 1973. Erected by the Georgetown County Historical Society, 1998

U.S. Hwy. 17 N, Georgetown vicinity, near the entrance to the plantation on the North

The Oaks Plantation was established on the Santee River in 1705 by a grant from the Lords Proprietors to John Sauseau, a French Huguenot settler. It passed through several owners in the prominent Buchanan and Withers families before 1793, when brothers Isaac and William Mazyck acquired a tract of more than 1,000 acres and began producing rice here on the rich Santee River delta.

Pleasant Hill Consolidated School opened in 1938 as an elementary and high school. It also included a cannery and a home economics/farm-shop building. Pleasant Hill housed a middle and high school 1970-1985 and closed in 2000 as Pleasant Hill Middle School. An excellent example of New Deal-era school architecture, it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

at the chapel ruins, Plantersville Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 22-52), 4 mi. E of U.S. Hwy. 701, Plantersville

(Front) The first church on this site, known as Prince Frederick's Chapel, Pee Dee, was built in 1848 on a site donated by the Rev. Hugh Fraser in 1834. Most of its parishioners were rice planters along the Pee Dee River. These ruins are of the second church here, approved by a committee of R.F.W. Allston, Davison McDowell and Francis Weston and begun in 1859 but interrupted by the Civil War.
(Reverse) This Gothic Revival church designed by Louis J. Barbot was completed in 1876 with a gift of $1700 by John Earle Allston. With the decline of rice planting the church gradually fell into disrepair and was eventually deemed unsafe. It was demolished in 1966, leaving only the front wall and tower. The ruins were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

Erected by the Georgetown Committee of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of South Carolina, 2001

Chicora Wood Ave., approximately 2 mi. SE of the intersection of Plantersville Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 22-52) and Exodus Dr., Plantersville

(Front) This plantation, with its origins in several grants to John Allson in 1732, 1734, and later, was in the hands of his grandson Benjamin, Jr., of Brookgreen, by 1806. The property passed first to Benjamin's widow Charlotte and then after her death in 1824 to her son Robert F.W. Allston (1801-1864), rice planter, state representative and senator 1828-56, and governor 1856-58.
(Reverse) This house was completed in 1838 by Robert F.W. Allston and his wife Adele Petigru. Their daughter Elizabeth Allston Pringle (1845-1921) continued to plant rice here for 40 years after her father died in 1864 and wrote of life at Chicora Wood in A Woman Rice Planter (1913) and Chronicles of Chicora Wood (1922). She died here in 1921.

Erected by the Georgetown Committee of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of South Carolina, 2001

All Saints Parish, Waccamaw, Episcopal Church, 10172 Ocean Hwy. (U.S. Hwy. 17), Pawleys Island vicinity

(Front) Anglican services were held on Waccamaw Neck by 1737, with a chapel built on land purchased by Percival Pawley. All Saints Parish, Waccamaw, created out of Prince George Winyah Parish in 1767, was the third Anglican parish created in present-day Georgetown County. Though the parish declined somewhat after the American Revolution it was revived soon afterwards.
(Reverse)

The parish church of All Saints Parish, Waccamaw, has stood on this site since 1737. A brick Greek Revival sanctuary built in 1843 burned in 1915 and was replaced in 1917 by a church replicating that design on a smaller scale and which was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. The present sanctuary was built in 1988.

Erected by the Peedee Chapter, National Society Colonial Dames XVII Century, 2001

(Front) This church was founded in 1866 by Rev. James Smalls, its pastor for many years. The congregation, which built its sanctuary here on land owned by the Gospel Harp Society, grew to more than one hundred members by 1903. In 1914 trustees S.B. Belin, Neptune Boyd, Siward Dunmore, Joseph Gibson, I.J. McCottree, W.M. Salters, and Samuel White, Jr., purchased this property from the trustees of the Gospel Harp Society.
(Reverse) The first church here, a frame building, was replaced by this brick sanctuary in 1920. Built during the pastorate of Rev. T.O. Mills, it features elaborate stained glass windows. Mt. Olive was also one of several Georgetown churches hosting graduation exercises for Howard High School in the 1940s.

(Front) This church, formally organized in 1839, had its origins in a slave mission begun in 1786 on Gov. Thomas Boone’s plantation, 3 miles SE. Rev. P.A.M. Williams became its first minister in 1840. The first church, a frame building built the same year, stood 1.5 miles S. The present sanctuary was built on a 5-acre plot donated to the church in 1887 by Benjamin D. Bourne, a member and trustee.

(Reverse) The present sanctuary, built by the time the congregation acquired this site in 1887, was originally a frame church. It was extensively renovated in 1959-60 and completely covered in brick in 1975-76. Three members of the church later became Methodist ministers: Revs. C.D. Huggins, Jack D. Watts, and John Paul Watts, Sr. Sampit is also the mother church of Oak Grove Methodist Church, founded in 1890.

HOBCAW BARONY
at the entrance to the Belle W. Baruch Foundation, Hobcaw Barony, U.S. Hwy. 17, 1 mi. N of Georgetown

(Front) In 1718 the Lords Proprietors granted 12,000 acres on Hobcaw Point, the southern portion of Waccamaw Neck, to John, Lord Carteret. The barony was subdivided beginning in 1766, creating several large rice plantations which flourished until the Civil War. In 1905-07 Bernard M. Baruch (1870-1965), Camden native and Wall Street financier, acquired these tracts for a winter retreat.

(Reverse) Bernard Baruch was an advisor to presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Harry S. Truman. Belle Baruch (1900-1965), the oldest of his three children, was a sailor, pilot, and equestrian who shared her father’s passion for the outdoors. She bought the property from him and created a trust devoted to research and education in forestry, wildlife, and marine biology by S.C. universities.

Erected by the Belle W. Baruch Foundation, 2008, replacing a marker erected in 1995

(Front) In early 1865 the USS Harvest Moon, a 193-foot, 5-gun side-wheel steamer, was the flagship of Adm. John A. Dahlgren of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, U.S. Navy. It arrived off Georgetown and anchored nearby on February 26th. Confederate Capt. Thomas W. Daggett, in charge of coastal defenses from Little River to Georgetown, made plans to sink the Harvest Moon with a “torpedo,” or mine.
(Reverse) Daggett, working on the 2nd floor of S.W. Rouquie’s store here at 633 Front Street, built a keg torpedo and floated it out as the Harvest Moon steamed down the bay early on March 1, 1865. The blast blew a hole in the starboard quarter and main deck, and the ship sank in five minutes, with only one sailor killed. The smokestack of the Harvest Moon can still be seen at low tide in Winyah Bay, near Battery White.
Erected by the Arthur M. Manigault Chapter #63, United Daughters of the Confederacy, and the Battery White Camp #1568, Sons of Confederate Veterans, 2011

DISSENTER MEETING HOUSE AND CEMETERY
(Front) This is the site of a “Dissenter” meeting house, built ca. 1726 by one of the first Baptist congregations in S.C. outside of Charleston. It was founded by Rev. Elisha Screven (d. 1754), son of Rev. William Screven (d. 1713). The elder Screven had founded a Baptist congregation in Charleston as early as 1696.
(Reverse) Presbyterians and other “Dissenters” who did not belong to the Anglican church were also allowed to hold services here. Presbyterians soon outnumbered the rest. By about 1742 they built a new church 7 mi. N and named it Black Mingo Presbyterian Church. The historic cemetery here has lost most of its gravestones.
Sponsored by the First Baptist Church of Georgetown, 2012

Greenville County

(Front) This house, built in 1834, first stood a few blocks south on East North St. It was built by Fountain Fox Beattie (1807‑1863), a textile merchant, for his new bride Emily Edgeworth Hamlin. Their son Hamlin Beattie (1835‑1914), who founded the National Bank of Greenville in 1872, added wings and elaborate Italianate ornamentation. The house was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

The house remained in the Beattie family until 1946, when the city bought the property to widen Church St. When the house was moved to Beattie Place in 1948 it was leased to the women's organizations of Greenville. The Greenville Woman's Club officially opened in 1949. The house was moved a second time in 1983 to make room for downtown expansion. Member clubs maintain the house and gardens.

Campbell Bridge Rd., just SW of the intersection of Pleasant Hill Rd. (S.C. Sec Rd. 23-114) and S.C. Hwy. 414, SW of Gowensville

This bridge, built in 1909, is the last extant covered bridge in S.C. Built by Charles Irwin Willis (1878-1966), it was named for Alexander Lafayette Campbell (1836-1920), who owned and operated a grist mill here for many years. Measuring 35 feet long and 12 feet wide, it is an excellent example of a four-span Howe truss, featuring diagonal timbers and vertical iron rods.

Marker 2: Kodak Rd., near its intersection with Perimeter Rd., at the Donaldson Center, Greenville

(Front) Greenville Army Air Base opened on this site in 1942 and trained B-25 bomber crews during World War II. Emphasizing air transport after 1945 and renamed Donaldson Air Force Base in 1951, it was home to C-124 transports and called “The Airlift Capital of the World” for its role in the Berlin airlift, Korean War, and Cold War. Closed in 1962, it has been an industrial park since 1963.

John Owen Donaldson (1897-1930), for whom the base was named, grew up in Greenville and attended Furman University and Cornell University before joining the British Royal Air Force in World War I. He became an ace, shooting down eight enemy planes, and was decorated by the United States, Great Britain, and Belgium. Davidson was killed in a plane crash at an air show in 1930.

(Front) The Working Benevolent Society Hospital, first known as St. Luke Colored Hospital, was a two-story frame building standing here at the corner of Green Avenue and Jenkins Street. Founded in 1920, it served blacks in Greenville for twenty-eight years. The Working Benevolent Grand Lodge of S.C., at Broad and Fall Streets in Greenville, operated the hospital from 1928 until it closed in 1948.
(Reverse) The hospital, described at its opening as “one of the most modern institutions in the South for colored people,” had three wards and twenty-two beds in semi-private and private rooms. Mrs. M.H. Bright was the first superintendent. A registered nurse and a graduate of the Tuskegee Institute, she had been superintendent of the Institute hospital. Most of the superintendents after her were nurses as well.

Cooley Bridge Rd. (S.C. Hwy. 247) just NE of the Saluda River, Possum Kingdown community, NE of Belton

(Front) The original Cooley’s Bridge, built across the Saluda River in 1835-36 to replace a ferry, stood about 150 yds. above the present bridge over S.C. Hwy. 247. It was built for Hiram Cooley (ca. 1796-1864), a cotton planter who owned more than 1600 acres and operated a cotton gin and grist mill nearby. His house, built about 1830, was just NE of the present bridge; it burned in 1983.

(Reverse) This part of southwestern Greenville County was officially Dunklin Township in the late 19^th century but has long been called “Possum Kingdom.” Several bridges over the river here have been washed away by floods and replaced. A steel through truss bridge was built on the site of the original Cooley’s Bridge in 1896-97. The present concrete highway bridge was built here in 2000.

(Front) The first grist mill on Big Durbin Creek was built about 1813 for John Bruce (d. 1818), a veteran of the American Revolution, who also ran a sawmill and woolen mill here. The present mill, built by slave labor before 1860, is made of heart pine, with a granite foundation. It was built for Jesse K. Stone (1825-1899), and the mill was known as Stone's Mill until his death.

The mill complex was sold to R.B. Holland in 1899, then to the Jones family soon afterward. Walter T. Jones ground corn and wheat, ran a cotton gin, and operated a small grocery store here for many years. The grist mill, along with the shoals, rocks, and a nearby covered bridge, was a "favorite gathering place" in the vicinity until the mill shut down in the 1950s.

Erected by the Oliver Thompson Chapter # 1850, United Daughters of the Confederacy, 2005

#1: Woodruff Rd. (S.C. Hwy. 296), just E of its intersection with Scuffletown Rd., Mauldin vicinity

#2: Milacron Dr. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 418), just SW of its intersection with the I-385 ramp, Fountain Inn

(Front) In 1766-67 S.C. & N.C. negotiated with the Cherokee to establish a boundary between Indian land to the west and new settlement to the east. This north-south line ran past this point to N.C. and on to Va. In S.C. it ran north from near present-day Honea Path, crossed the Reedy River near present-day Princeton, and ended at the S.C.-N.C. line.

(Reverse) The Cherokee ceded all land east of the 1767 line to the colonies of S.C. and N.C. In 1786, when S.C. created its first counties, the line from the Reedy River to the S.C.-N.C. line south of Tryon, N.C. was the boundary for Greenville County between both Spartanburg and Laurens Counties. In 1793 the Greenville boundary shifted east to accommodate new settlers south of the Enoree River.

(Front) Textile Hall, built in 1917 to host the annual Southern Textile Exposition, stood on this side until 1992. The first exposition of the Southern Textile Association had been held in Greenville in 1915. Textile Hall, designed by J.E. Sirrine & Co. at a cost of $130,000, was a five-story Renaissance Revival building; its facade featured a limestone tablet bearing the initials “STE” for “Southern Textile Exposition” and the words “Textile Hall.”
(Reverse) When built, Textile Hall was described as “a fitting monument to . . . the proper cooperative spirit.” It hosted the Southern Textile Exposition from 1917 to 1962 and gave Greenville the title “Textile Center of the South.” It also hosted many other meetings and special events, such as the annual Southern Textile Basketball Tournament, with teams representing mills across the South. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, it was demolished in 1992.

Erected by the City of Greenville and the Hampton-Pinckney Neighborhood Association, 2006

(Front) Sterling High School stood 3/4 mi. southeast of here and served generations of African Americans in Greenville. Founded in 1896 by Rev. D.M. Minus and called Greenville Academy, it was first located in West Greenville. It moved into a new two-story brick school nearby in 1902 and was then renamed Sterling Industrial College after Mrs. E.R. Sterling, who had financed Rev. Minus’s education at Claflin University.
(Reverse) The school closed briefly but reopened in 1915 as Enoree High School, owned by the Enoree Baptist Assn. The Greenville Co. School District bought the school in 1929, made it the first black public high school in the county, and restored the name Sterling. After it burned in Sept. 1967, classes moved to Greenville Jr. High, renamed Sterling Jr.-Sr. High. It closed after the 1969-70 school year.

Erected by the Greenville County Historical Commission and the Sterling High School Association, 2007

(Front) By 1768 Indian traders and land speculators Richard Pearis (d. 1794) and Jacob Hite of Virginia acquired large tracts from the Cherokees in present-day Greenville County. Though royal authorities disputed the validity of these titles, Pearis and Hite moved their families to this area between 1768 and 1775.
(Reverse)
THE MASSACRE OF JACOB HITE

Jacob Hite settled nearby with his wife Frances Madison Hite and their family in 1775. He continued his trade with the Cherokees. In June 1776, Cherokees killed his son James. On July 1, 1776, Cherokees killed Jacob Hite and kidnapped his wife and two daughters. Frances Hite’s body was recovered, but the Hite daughters were never found.

(Front) This farm has been owned by the Hopkins family since 1834, when John Hopkins (1793-1837) purchased it from William Toney. The Greek Revival main house was built ca. 1840, with later additions ca. 1890 and ca. 1925. Hopkins’ widow Lucinda (1800-1876) managed the farm after his death, growing cotton and corn as cash crops, supplemented by subsistence crops and livestock.
(Reverse) John and Lucinda Hopkins are buried in the family cemetery nearby. The farm complex includes a cook’s house, smoke house, and corn crib built ca. 1850 as well as other outbuildings from the 1870s to the present. John Drayton Hopkins (b. 1913) took over the farm in 1939, making it a model of modern soil conservation techniques such as terracing and crop rotation.
Erected by the Greenville County Historical Commission, 2007

(Front) William Toney, prominent in business and civic affaits in early Greenville and Greenville County, ran a store here 1816-1829. The store was near the boundary established in 1767 between Cherokee land to the west and new settlement to the east. John Hopkins (1793-1837) acquired this property in 1834. His family lived in the old store while building their house, completed ca. 1840.
(Reverse)

The field adjacent to Toney’s Store, called “Toney’s Old Field,” was a militia muster ground from 1818 to the Civil War. The 15th Regiment was organized in 1794 in the lower part of Greenville County. “The Lower Regiment” was redesignated the 3rd Regiment in 1819. “The Butler Guards,” an independent company from Greenville organized in 1855, also mustered here 1855-1861.
Erected by the Greenville County Historical Commission, 2008

(Front) This church, which takes its name from a nearby salt lick, was founded in 1882. Mrs. Ellen C. Woodside (1838-1906) worked with Rev. C.L. Stewart to organize services on her farm in 1880-81. A commission from the Enoree Presbytery, including Rev. Stewart, formally established the church with 20 charter members.
(Reverse) Rev. C.L. Stewart, the first and longest-serving minister here, served this congregation 1882-1895 and 1905-1921. This church, a frame building, was constructed in 1882 and remodeled in 1943-44 and 1968. The church cemetery includes the plots of many prominent families of Lickville and Possum Kingdom.

(Front) This early twentieth century suburb takes its name from Sans Souci, the nearby house and estate of Gov. Benjamin F. Perry (1805-1886). Perry, a prominent Unionist before the Civil War, was appointed provisional governor of S.C. by President Andrew Johnson in June 1865 and served until December 1865. In 1876-77 he built an ornate Second Empire house N of this location.
(Reverse) After B.F. Perry’s death in 1886, the house was briefly a girls’ school. His heirs sold the property in 1902 and it became the Sans Souci Country Club in 1905. The club moved to Byrd Blvd. and became the Greenville Country Club in 1924. The house burned in 1927. Residential and commercial development in this area from 1911 through World War II featured the name Sans Souci.

(Front) Brutontown, an historic African-American community, grew up around the intersection of Paris Mountain Rd. and Rutherford Rd. Benjamin Bruton, a mulatto freedman, bought 1.75 acres here in 1874. He built a house and blacksmith shop, labeled “Bruton’s Shop” on Kyzer’s 1882 map of Greenville County. Other blacks, a few of them tradesmen like Bruton but most tenant farmers, soon moved to this area. By 1880 sixty African-American families lived here.
(Reverse) The community, on both sides of Rutherford Rd., was known as “Brutontown” by about 1900. In 1921 farm land was subdivided into town lots, in an are 2 blocks deep and 6 blocks wide. Bruton Temple Baptist Church, the first church here, was founded in 1921. By 1930 Brutontown numbered about 300 residents. The three-acre “Society Burial Ground” on Leo Lewis St., dating from before the Civil War, includes many graves of slaves, free blacks, and freedmen.

(Front) Tigerville got its name from early settlers who settled here shortly after the Revolution. They called bobcats they saw here “tygers,” and named the nearby Tyger River. The Head of Tyger Baptist Church, later Tyger Baptist Church, was founded about 1800. A community grew up here centered at the intersection of the State Road, built in 1820, and the Tugaloo Path, an Indian trail.
(Reverse) The first post office here opened in Lemuel Jennings’ general store in 1881, with Jennings as postmaster. Tigerville, described as “charming and romantic” in 1883, boasted several large houses, a cotton gin, a blacksmith shop, and an academy. Jennings’ store, later operated as Wood General Store for almost 90 years, still stands nearby, as does J.H. Roe & Co., built in 1904.

Augusta Rd. (U.S. Hwy. 25), Sandy Springs vicinity, next to Greenville Memorial Gardens

Pepper School, established in 1914-15, was built on land donated “for the children of my community” by William A. Pepper (1829-1914). The school, with three teachers and about 75-100 students in grades 1-7 for much of its history, closed after the 1952-53 school year. The Augusta Road Ruritan Club bought the building in 1964, preserved it for the community, and meets there now.

(Front) The Willie Earle lynching was the last recorded in S.C. and the one of the last in the South. On the night of February 15, 1947, white cabdriver Thomas W. Brown was found mortally wounded beside his cab in Pickens County. Earle, a young black man, was thought to be Brown’s last passenger. He was arrested near Liberty on February 16, accused of assault and robbery, and held in the Pickens County Jail.
(Reverse) Early on February 17, 1947, a white mob forced the Pickens Co. jailer to give Earle up. They drove Earle back to Greenville, lynched him, and left his body on Bramlett Rd. Brown died later that day. The May 12-21 trial of 31 men, rare at the time, drew national attention. Though 26 men admitted being part of the mob, an all-white jury acquitted all defendants. Outrage led to new federal civil rights policies.

GREENVILLE COUNTY COURTHOUSE
35 W. Court St., behind the old Greenville County Courthouse, Greenville

(Front) This Beaux Arts building, built in 1916-18, was the fourth Greenville County Courthouse, from 1918 to 1950. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. The largest lynching trial in U.S. history was held here May 12-21, 1947. Willie Earle, a young black man accused of assaulting white cabdriver Thomas W. Brown, had been lynched by a white mob on Bramlett Road in Greenville.

The trial of 31 whites, 28 of them cabdrivers, was rare at the time and drew national attention. Though 26 defendants admitted being part of the mob, all defendants were acquitted by an all-white jury. Rebecca West’s “Opera in Greenville,” published in The New Yorker on June 14, 1947, interpreted the trial and its aftermath. Widespread outrage over the lynching and the verdict spurred new federal civil rights policies.

(Front) This house, built in 1940, was originally 3 mi. SW at 119 E. Wilburn Ave. It was the last home of Joseph Jefferson Wofford “Shoeless Joe” Jackson (1888-1951), one of the greatest natural hitters in the history of baseball. Jackson, born in Pickens Co., moved to Greenville as a boy. He worked at the Brandon Mill, joined the mill baseball team as a teenager, and was a star long before he made the major leagues in 1908.
(Reverse) In 1911, his first full season, Jackson batted .408. He played for the Philadelphia A’s 1908-10, the Cleveland Naps 1910-15, and the Chicago White Sox 1915-20, with a lifetime average of .356. He helped the White Sox win the 1917 World Series, but he and 7 teammates were banned from baseball for fixing the 1919 Series. This house, where Jackson died in 1951, was moved here in 2006 and opened as a museum in 2008.

(Front) This house was built in 1823 by Dr. Thomas Collins Austin (1790-1883), physician and planter. Austin attended the Medical University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and practiced medicine here for sixty years. His office, just north of the house, was demolished in 1953. Austin and his wife Mary Turner James (1805-1889) raised eleven children here.
(Reverse) In 1897 the Austin family sold the house and 550 acres to Thomas Martin Vaughan (1865-1939). Vaughan, a farmer, married Ida Tyson Vaughan (1875-1952) the next year. They raised eleven children here, just as the Austins had. Their daughter Lucille Jessie Vaughan Rice (1912-2006), the last family member to live here, sold the house to the YMCA of Greenville in 2004.
Erected by the YMCA of Greenville and the Greenville County Historic Preservation Commission, 2011

FOUNTAIN INN ROSENWALD SCHOOL
Mt. Zion Dr., near Mt. Zion Baptist Church, Fountain Inn

(Front) The Fountain Inn Rosenwald School, also known as the Fountain Inn Colored School, was a complex of several buildings built here from 1928 to 1942. The first school, a frame seven-room elementary school for grades 1-7, was a Rosenwald school, one of 500 rural schools in S.C. funded in part by the Julius Rosenwald Fund from 1917 to 1932. It was built in 1928-29 at a cost of $7,200. (Reverse) The Fountain Inn Colored High School, a frame three-room high school for grades 8-11, was built in 1930. A frame teacherage was built in 1935 for principal Gerard A. Anderson, and by 1942 this complex included a library, gymnasium, and three new classrooms. The high school closed in 1954, and the elementary school closed in 1960. The 1935 teacherage is the only building standing; the rest were demolished in 2000.

Erected by the City of Fountain Inn and the Greenville County Historic Preservation Commission, 2011

(Front) This area was settled soon after the Revolution, and a community grew up here on the road from Greenville to Laurens. It was later known as Butler’s Crossroads for Willis W. Butler, who acquired a tract including the intersection of the Laurens and Reedy River roads in 1853. This community became a town after the Greenville & Laurens Railroad completed its line here in 1885 and built a frame passenger and freight depot 1/4 mi. N on Jenkins Street in 1886.
(Reverse) The new town was named for Lt. Gov. William L. Mauldin (1845-1912), president of the Greenville & Laurens Railroad 1881-85, state representative and senator, and lt. governor 1886-1890. Mauldin was first chartered in 1890, with its limits a half-mile radius from the depot. The depot was torn down in 1953. Two historic stores of note are the John S. Hill Store (ca. 1906), 1/4 mi. E on Main Street, and Massey’s General Store (1931), at Main Street and White Drive.
Erected by the City of Mauldin and the Greenville County Historical Commission, 2011

(Front) This church, established in 1882, grew out of services held by itinerant Baptist ministers in a nearby log school, encouraged by Ann Pool Neves (1809-1898) and her husband Alsey A. Neves (1814-1888). In 1884 Mrs. Neves and her son W.P.Z.F. Neves (1835-1917) deeded three acres for a church. A frame sanctuary was dedicated in 1886, with Rev. J.G. Fowler as pastor.
(Reverse) This church was covered in brick veneer in 1967. The cemetery, with early burials dating to the 1820s, includes several generations of the Neves family, including William Neves (1789-1844) and his wife, Anah Mitchell Neves (1787-1877), the first members of the family to settle in this area. Mush Creek Baptist Church was renamed Living Grace Baptist Church in 2010.

(Front) This town grew up around a stagecoach stop on the Old Stage Road from Laurens to Greenville. For many years the community was known as “Plain,” the name given to the first post office, opened in 1838 with Jesse T. Cook as postmaster. It was later named for Peter Simpson (d. 1847), who had come here from Laurens District in 1836. Silas Gilbert opened a general store here about the same time. Gilbert was postmaster in 1839-44, followed by Simpson in 1844-47.
(Reverse) Sidney J. Wilson (1854-1919) came here from N.C. about 1875 and opened a general store. In 1885-86 the Greenville & Laurens Railroad completed its line from Laurens to Greenville. Wilson had the town surveyed and city lots laid out on Main St., and soon built the first brick store here. The post office was renamed Simpsonville in 1885, and the city was incorporated in 1901. Simpsonville Cotton Mill, later a branch of Woodside Mills, operated here from 1908 to 1989.
Erected by the City of Simpsonville and the Rotary Club of Simpsonville, 2011

(Front) The town of Simpsonville grew up around a stagecoach stop nearby operated by Thomas Goldsmith (1788-1868). Goldsmith’s house, on the Old Stage Road from Laurens to Greenville, was near a crossroads where the Old Stage Road met an old Cherokee trail, later known as the Georgia Road. The road was the main route through this area ca. 1820-ca. 1870. The railroad arrived in 1885-86 when the Greenville & Laurens Railroad completed its line through the town.
(Reverse)

Main Street was laid out parallel to the tracks, and the railroad ushered in a period of rapid growth and prosperity. The G&L RR and its successor the Port Royal & Western Carolina Railway were absorbed by the Charleston & Western Carolina Railway in 1896. The Atlantic Coast Line RR took control of the C&WC in 1897 and operated it until 1959. The first passenger and freight depot here was demolished in the 1970s.

corner of South St. & W. Curtis St., Simpsonville
(Front) This mill, opened in 1908, was built after several leading men of Simpsonville asked Edward F. Woodside of the Pelzer Manufacturing Co. to help them establish a textile mill. The Simpsonville Cotton Mill, with Woodside as president and his brother John T. as secretary, opened with 8,000 spindles and 200 looms, making several kinds of cotton cloth. By 1911 it boasted 25,000 spindles and 600 looms.
(Reverse)
WOODSIDE MILL

In 1911 this mill was merged with Fountain Inn Cotton Mill and Woodside Cotton Mill in Greenville to create Woodside Cotton Mills. This branch was Simpsonville’s largest employer until after World War II, with as many as 650 employees in the 1950s and 1960s. The mill village, with four streets of mill houses, included a company store, recreation building, and baseball field. The Woodside Gym, built in 1947, is now part of the Simpsonville Senior Center.

(Front) City Hospital, founded here in 1912 and later renamed Greenville General Hospital, occupied most of the block bounded by Memminger, Mallard, and Dunbar Sts. and Arlington Ave. by the early 1950s. The Ladies Hospital Board and the Greenville Hospital Association, founded in 1896, acquired a building on this site, previously a sanitorium, in 1911. It opened as City Hospital in January 1912.

(Reverse)
GREENVILLE GENERAL HOSPITAL
The hospital was sold to the City of Greenville in 1917. Expansions from 1921 to 1953 increased capacity to more than 600 beds. Renamed Greenville General Hospital in 1935, it became a city-county hospital in 1948 and flagship of the Greenville Hospital System by the 1960s. Most services moved to the new Greenville Memorial Medical Campus on Grove Road by 1983, and the historic buildings here were demolished in 1998.

Erected by Greenville Hospital System Employees, Physicians, and Volunteers, 2012

(Front) Dunean Mill, chartered in 1911 and opened in 1912, was one of several textile mills owned by Capt. Ellison Adger Smyth (1847-1942), a national leader in the textile industry for more than 60 years. Dunean was named for the Irish village where Smyth’s Adger ancestors lived. The mill, called “the Million Dollar Mill” while it was being built by J.E. Sirrine & Company, was an all-electric mill with 50,000 spindles and 1,200 looms when it opened, making fine cotton goods.
(Reverse) The light gray brick and black mortar of this mill gives it a distinctive look unlike almost any other textile mill of its era. The Dunean Mill village included 585 houses, an elementary school, three churches, a company store, a community building, a gymnasium, and a baseball field. Its Y.W.C.A. was the first in any mill village in S.C. In 1935 the mill switched to rayon and other synthetic fibers. It was for many years a division of J.P. Stevens & Company.

(Front) According to tradition, this African-American church was organized by Rev. Tom Jones shortly after the Civil War. It held its first services in a brush arbor, then built its first permanent church here. The congregation, with a membership of about 250, built a second frame sanctuary in 1938 at a cost of $3,000. It was covered in brick veneer in 1962. The present brick church was dedicated in 1986.

The Reedy River Baptist Association built a school for the African-American children of Simpsonville and other area communities here in 1891-92, on the present site of the church. In 1923-24 the Simpsonville Rosenwald School, an eight-room elementary and high school, was built nearby. One of about 500 schools in S.C. funded in part by the Julius Rosenwald Foundation 1917-1932, it closed after the 1953-54 school year.

Sponsored by the Greenville County Council and the Greenville Hospital System, 2012

(Front) Four generations of the Suber family have owned and operated a water-powered grist mill on Princess Creek, a branch of the Enoree River, since shortly after the Civil War. James A. Suber (1826-1923) ran a sawmill and whiskey still a short distance upstream before serving in the Confederate army, and added a grist mill at that site soon after he returned to Greenville County.
(Reverse) Suber’s Mill is one of the only water-powered mills still grinding corn and selling corn meal in S.C. James Suber’s son Walter Hillary Suber (1860-1952) built this mill between 1908 and 1912; it has been in almost continuous operation since. Though occasionally run by renters, it has been run by the family since 1955, beginning with Walter H. Suber, Jr. (1915-2010).
Sponsored by Mitsubishi Polyester Film and the Greenville County Historic Preservation Commission, 2012

(Front) Fountain Inn Cotton Mill, which stood here from 1898 to 2002, was first owned and operated by brothers A.J., C.E., R.L., and W.J. Graham. Built with 5,000 spindles, it expanded to 10,000 spindles and later to 17,000 spindles, making cotton yarns and cloth. In 1906 textile mill entrepreneur John T. Woodside bought the mill from the Grahams. A few years later it was described as “among the best mills in the South.”
(Reverse)

This mill had 250 employees in 1907, with a population of 450 in a mill village of eighty houses that included a company store, recreation building, baseball field, and two churches. The two-room school operated until 1924. In 1911 this mill was merged with mills in Greenville and Simpsonville to create Woodside Cotton Mills. Sold to Dan River Mills in 1956, this mill was closed in 1983 and was demolished in 2002.
Sponsored by Brown’s Mill LLC and Palmetto Pride, 2013

(Front) This church was founded in 1868 by black members of nearby Clear Spring Baptist Church who named their new church Pilgrim Baptist Church. Rev. John Abraham, their first pastor, held services in a brush arbor until a log church was built here. It was renamed Old Pilgrim Baptist Church in 1894. A frame church built here in 1907 was covered in brick veneer in 1962. The present brick church was built in 1983.
(Reverse)
OLD PILGRIM ROSENWALD SCHOOL

Old Pilgrim Rosenwald School, named for the church, was buil tin 1930. It was one of almost 500 schools in S.C. funded in part by the Julius Rosenwald Foundation from 1917 to 1932. Built at a cost of $3,800 with local funds raised by Henry Locke and trustees of Old Pilgrim Baptist Church, it operated 1930-1954 with three teachers, teaching as many as 83 elementary school students in grades 1-7.

(Front) Woodside Cotton Mill was the first and largest textile mill owned by brothers John T. (1864-1946), J. David (1871-1945), and Edward F. Woodside (1875-1943). Built in 1902 with 11,000 spindles and 300 looms, it expanded in 1912 to 112,000 spindles and was claimed to be “the largest cotton mill under one roof” in America. The Woodside brothers also owned mills in Fountain Inn and Simpsonville, as well as Easley and Liberty in Pickens County.
(Reverse) By 1929 the 220-acre mill village housed more than 2,400 workers and their families in 442 houses. It featured gently-curving oak-lined streets, a company store, two schools, a Baptist church (1910) and Methodist church (1921), a baseball field, and a YMCA building. The mill sold 10 acres for Parker High School, built in 1924 to serve several area mill villages. Woodside Mill and its village were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

(Front) This is the oldest black Baptist congregation in downtown Greenville. It was founded in 1867 by members of Greenville Baptist Church (now First Baptist Church), which had been a combined congregation of whites and blacks before the Civil War. Rev. Gabriel Poole, known as “Father Gabriel,” was its first pastor. The new church worshipped in First Baptist Church until it built its own church here in 1872.
(Reverse) The congregation purchased this site from the estate of Vardry McBee in 1871 and completed its first church, a frame building later covered in brick veneer, in 1872. That church was replaced by a brick Gothic Revival church in 1959. Springfield Baptist Church hosted many significant meetings during the Civil Rights Movement. The 1959 church burned in 1972 and was replaced by the present church in 1976.
Sponsored by the Congregation, 2013

Greenwood County

intersection of Maxwell Ave. (S.C. Hwy. 10) and S.C. Hwy. 225 By‑Pass, in front of the Connie Maxwell Children’s Home, Greenwood

Louis Booker Wright (1899‑1984), scholar of American colonial history and Elizabethan culture, was born in the Phoenix community and spent his early years at Maxwellton near this site. A prolific author, he was educated at Wofford College and received the M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of N.C. He was director of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C. 1948‑68.

SILOAM BAPTIST CHURCH
2409 Siloam Church Rd. (S.C. Sec. Rd. 24-29), Ninety Six vicinity

This church was organized in 1799 by Rev. John Waller, Rev. David Lilly, William Chiles, and Meshec Overby, with 32 charter members. Waller, its first minister, served until his death in 1802. Other notable pastors included Revs. John Broadus, Basil Manley, and W.H. Biers. The first sanctuary on this site, built in 1836, was demolished in 1984. The present sanctuary was built in 1977.

(Front) This church, originally known as Rocky Creek Presbyterian Church, was founded in 1770 by ministers sent to upper S.C. from the Synods of New York and Philadelphia. The first church here, a frame sanctuary, was replaced in 1815 by a larger frame church built by John and Adam Blake. The church, incorporated in 1844, was renamed Rock Presbyterian Church by the S.C. Presbytery in 1845.

(Reverse) Rev. John McLees (d. 1882) was minister here 1847-1882 and father of Greenwood First Presbyterian Church, which had its origins as a chapel in the 1850s and was formally organized from this congregation in 1883. Rock Presbyterian Church, inactive in 1892, reorganized in 1956. This stone sanctuary, built in 1959-60, replaced the 1815 church, which had burned in 1959.

GOOD HOPE BAPTIST CHURCH
U.S. Hwy. 25, just S of its intersection with N. Riley Rd., Hodges

(Front) This church, founded about 1870, has its origins in Walnut Grove Baptist Church, founded in 1820. Walnut Grove included both white and black members before the Civil War, but after the war black members asked for letters of dismissal to organize a new church. Good Hope was founded by David Agnew, Doc McIntosh, Henry Moon, Wesley Posey, and others, with Rev. W.L. Evans as its first pastor.
(Reverse) Good Hope Baptist Church grew to more than 250 members by 1900 under its first two ministers, Revs. W.L. Evans and H. Donaldson. The first church here was a frame building constructed soon after 1870; it was destroyed by arson in 1966. The present church, a brick building, was constructed in 1967-68 during the pastorate of Rev. M.B. Norman.
Erected by the Congregation, 2006

S.C. Sec. Rd. 24-112 at its intersection with Cedar Springs Rd., Bradley vicinity, Greenwood County

(Front) This church was organized 1779-1780 by Dr. Thomas Clark (d. 1791), who had emigrated from Ireland to N.Y. in 1764. Clark moved to this area permanently about 1786, preaching here, at Long Cane (now Lower Long Cane), and at Little Run. He is the father of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in the South.

(Reverse) The first church, then called Cedar Creek, was a log building 2 mi. SE. The congregation was renamed Cedar Springs in 1790. It moved here and built a frame church in 1791. The cemetery includes graves of several ministers, including Thomas Clark, and many early members. The present brick church was built in 1853.

Erected by the Members and Friends of the Church, 2006, replacing a marker erected in 1947

BENJAMIN E. MAYS BIRTHPLACE
at the Mays House Museum, 237 N. Hospital St., Greenwood

(Front) This house, originally 14 mi. SE on U.S. Hwy. 178 in the Epworth community, was the birthplace of Dr. Benjamin E. Mays (1894-1984), Baptist minister, college president, author, and civil rights pioneer. Mays was the eighth child of Hezekiah and Louvenia Mays, both born into slavery. In 1911 he left the tenant farm where this house stood to attend high school at S.C. State College in Orangeburg.
(Reverse) Mays, a graduate of Bates College and the University of Chicago, was an early and forceful opponent of segregation. Best known as president of Morehouse College, in Atlanta, 1940-1967, Mays was described by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as his “spiritual mentor.” Mays’s inspiring memoir Born To Rebel (1971) is a civil rights classic. This house was moved here, renovated, and dedicated as a museum in 2011.
Sponsored by the Mays House Museum, 2012

Hampton County

(Front) This church, founded by 1869 with Rev. G.D. Kinard as its first pastor and 22 charter members, was admitted to the Barnwell Association that year. The congregation first met in a brush arbor, then built a log church near this site. That building also housed the Hickory Grove School for many years.

(Reverse) Hickory Grove became a member of the Savannah River Association in 1904 and helped form the Allendale-Hampton Association in 1958. The present frame church, built in 1885, was moved across the road in 1953, with renovations completed in 1954. The cemetery nearby includes the plots of many early church families.

(Front) This house, built between 1878 and 1885, was the home of James Washington Moore (1837-1912), lawyer, Confederate officer, state legislator, and militia officer. Moore, a native of Gillisonville, was educated at the University of Ga. and returned to S.C. in 1859 to practice law. He was a sergeant in the Hampton Legion Cavalry, then 1st lt. and adjutant of the 2nd S.C. Cavalry, and was wounded in 1863.

(Reverse) Moore represented Beaufort District in the S.C. House 1866-67, and moved to Hampton when Hampton County was created in 1878. He was Hampton County’s first state senator, serving 1878-1894 and 1901-02. Moore was also chairman of the senate military committee and an officer in the militia, retiring as a major general in 1891. He is buried at Gillisonville Baptist Church, in what is

This African-American church, a congregation of the Disciples of Christ, was founded in 1855 by members of Three Mile Creek Christian Church. A Rev. Ervin was its first pastor, and it met in a brush arbor before building its first sanctuary here. The present brick church was built in 2002.

(Front) German prisoners of war were held in a camp on this site from September 1943 to the spring of 1946. This camp, one of 21 in S.C., was a sub-camp of Fort Jackson, in Columbia. 250 prisoners captured in North Africa were the first held here; later arrivals were captured in Italy and France. The camp averaged about 250 prisoners at any time. POWs lived in tents with wooden floors or in wooden barracks.

(Reverse) The Hampton Armory across Hoover Street was headquarters for the U.S. Army officers in charge. POWs worked 8-10 hours a day, harvesting peanuts, cutting pulpwood or lumber, or at the Plywoods-Plastics Corporation. They were paid 25 to 80 cents a day in scrip, which they spent at the camp store. When not working prisoners often tended small flower or vegetable gardens, or put on Sunday concerts.
Erected by the Hampton Museum & Visitors’ Center, 2010

(Front) The Bank of Hampton, built in 1892, was the first bank organized in Hampton and an important part of the rapid growth and development of the county seat from the 1890s to the mid-1920s. It was designed by Vincent Joseph Fontaine, a French-born architect who moved to S.C. after the Civil War. This two-story building, with its raised brickwork, segmental arches, and stepped parapet, is a good example of the Italianate influence in commercial buildings of the period.

(Reverse) This building housed the Bank of Hampton on the first floor and law offices on the second floor for more than thirty years. Though the bank closed in 1926, the second floor housed law offices into the 1960s. The building was donated to the Town of Hampton in 1987, and a town museum opened here in 1989. Now home of the Hampton Museum & Visitors’ Center, it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

(Front) This 1933 cypress-log hut is the headquarters of American Legion Post #108. Legionnaires and other local citizens cut cypress trees for it, designed it, and built it, with funding from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, a Depression-era federal program. State Senator George Warren donated this one-acre site to the Town of Hampton, which deeded it to American Legion Post #108 in 1940.
(Reverse) This building, described at its opening as “one of the most beautiful in the state,” hosted Friday night dances for many years. During World War II it was a dining hall for German prisoners of war held nearby. The hut, a fine example of vernacular log construction and long a center of social and cultural events in Hampton County, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.
Erected by the American Legion Post #108, 2010

(Front) This area, called Whippy Swamp Cross Roads, was in Beaufort District before Hampton County was created in 1878. In 1840 the Whippy Swamp Guards of the 12th S.C. Militia built their “militia house” nearby. It hosted inspections, drills, picnics, and political speeches. Two Confederate companies formed in 1861-62 were made up of men of the antebellum Guards: Co. D, 11th S.C. Infantry, and Co. D, 24th S.C. Infantry.
(Reverse) Other members of the antebellum Whippy Swamp Guards served in several Confederate units from this area. On October 22, 1862, at the Battle of Pocotaligo, the silk flag of the Whippy Swamp Guards was captured by the 48th N.Y. Infantry. Maj. John J. Harrison of the 11th S.C., former captain of the Guards, was killed. The militia house was torn down shortly after the Civil War.

(Front) This complex, opened in 1942 as Plywoods-Plastics Corporation, has been significant in the industry and economy of Hampton and the lowcountry ever since. In 1941 Plywood Products Corporation bought this site from the town and the Hampton & Branchville RR. It moved its operations here from Michigan to make plywood and laminated plastics for building construction and various household applications.
(Reverse)

Westinghouse bought this plant in 1951 as a branch of its Micarta Division. Until 1995 the Decorative Division made countertops and furniture while the Industrial Division made components for the U.S. Navy and NASA, among other clients. The plant, which employed 1200 at its peak, was sold to International Paper in 1995, then to Kohlberg & Co. in 2002, making laminates under the brand name Nevamar.
Sponsored by the Hampton Museum & Visitors Center, 2012