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Drawn By Spartanburg Unit, S.C. Writers' Project, WPA From A Map Based On The Survey of J. Whitten And Improved For Mills Atlas 1825
The Old Indian Field
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Street 33
Street
PLAN OF SPARTANBURGH VILLAGE - 1802
July 175 Se Fort Prince 9 July 16, 1780
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A History of Spartanburg County
Writers' program. South Cardim
A History of Spartanburg County
COMPILED BY THE Spartanburg Unit of the Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of South Carolina
American Guide Series (Illustrated)
7
SPONSORED BY THE SPARTANBURG BRANCH AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY WOMEN SOUTH CAROLINA
1940: Band & White
F291 SiWy
SOUTH CAROLINA STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, State-wide Sponsor of the South Carolina Writers' Project
FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY JOHN M. CARMODY, Administrator
WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
F. C. HARRINGTON, Commissioner FLORENCE KERR, Assistant Commissioner LAWRENCE M. PINCKNEY, State Administrator
COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.
Copyrighted 1940 by The Spartanburg Branch, American Association of University Women
All rights are reserved, including the rights to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form
F
FOREWORD
This attempt to chronicle A History of Spartanburg County has been a labor of pleasure and enthusiasm. The book is not patterned on the conventional county history ; it deals with individuals, not as persons in their own right, but only as figures in the affairs of the city or county. To compress into so brief a compass the mass of data available and to preserve proper perspective and proportion has been difficult. Despite painstaking thought and effort to guard against mistakes in fact or in judgment, some, no doubt, have crept in. For these, apologies are hereby made. A thousand pages would not hold all the data available: anecdotes, characterizations, intimate details, circumstantial accounts of battles and enterprises, customs and tra- ditions of older days and ways. But a book so filled would have to be for the few.
To gather material for this history, the workers in the Spartan- burg office of the South Carolina Writers' Project have pored tire- lessly over manuscript records in the courthouse and the city hall, and have enjoyed always the wholehearted cooperation of all officials to whom they applied for aid. They have scanned repeatedly the files of local papers in local libraries and in the Herald-Journal build- ing, and have been accorded every facility for making and checking transcripts. They have been assiduous in tracing plats and maps, and in compiling statistical summaries from census reports and official documents.
No less faithful has been the cooperation of the editorial staff of the State office. Four distinct versions of the manuscript for this history have been critically evaluated and judged.
Special thanks and acknowledgments are due from the Spartan- burg staff to Miss Mary Baugham of Kennedy Library, whose famil- iarity with local sources is encyclopedic. Many friends have read the manuscript in whole or in part, and have been generous with sugges- tions and with encouragement. Three command particular mention- Dr. Frank Dudley Jones of Clinton, Dr. James Patton of Spartan- burg, and Howard B. Carlisle, Esq., of Spartanburg. All of these have given the entire manuscript careful and constructive criticism. Mr. Carlisle, indeed, has been almost a collaborator, so unflagging has been his interest and so valuable his assistance.
The members of the Spartanburg Branch, American Association
S.R 28 82 41
of University Women, who have demonstrated their faith in this work and in the civic spirit of their fellow-citizens by assuming the respon- sibility of publishing it, have won a claim to especial gratitude. This feeling extends to the members of the county delegation who supported the judgment of the University Women by underwriting the financial responsibility involved in the publication of a county history.
This book is so short, so simple, so clear that nobody could find reading it burdensome. If the reading of this history should have on readers the same effect that its preparation has had on the staff of writers, no one will lay it down without having come to love and understand Spartanburg County better.
FRONDE KENNEDY, Supervisor, Spartanburg Unit South Carolina Writers' Project.
Spartanburg, S. C., July 22, 1940.
COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.
RECEIVED DEC 2 3 1940
COPYRIGHT OFFICE
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
FOREWORD 5
I. BLOCKHOUSES AND SETTLEMENTS 11
II. SPARTANS IN THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE. 21
III. THE MAKING OF SPARTAN COUNTY 33
IV. SPARTAN DISTRICT, 1800-1825 43
V. THE COURTHOUSE VILLAGE 54
VI. THE OLD IRON DISTRICT 66
VII. LOOMS AND SPINDLES 73
82
IX. SCHOOLS AND LEARNING
X. THE PROSPEROUS FIFTIES 104
VIII. DOCTRINES AND DOGMAS.
.........
92
XI. SOCIAL LIFE IN THE OLD DAYS 117
XII. SECESSION AND WAR YEARS 124
XIII. POLITICAL CROSS-CURRENTS-1865-1868
140
XIV. THE UNION LEAGUE AND THE KU KLUX KLAN
149
XV. THE BANNER DISTRICT OF DEMOCRACY, 1868-1876 158
XVI. RAILS AND EXPANSION 166
XVII. SOCIAL LIFE DURING RECONSTRUCTION 175
XVIII. PLOWS AND PROGRESS. 183
XIX. THE TILLMAN ERA. 192
XX. "SPARTANBURG, CITY OF SUCCESS" 204
XXI. EDUCATION AND THE ARTS. 220
XXII. PREPARATIONS FOR WAR 233
XXIII. THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DIVISION AT CAMP WADS- WORTH 242
XXIV. THE YEAR 1918. 252
XXV. DEMOBILIZATIONS AND MEMORIES. 259
XXVI. THESE LATTER DAYS 273
BIBLIOGRAPHY
286
INDEX 297
ILLUSTRATIONS
A Map of Spartanburgh District in 1825-Reproduced from Mills's Atlas with insets: A Plat of Spartanburgh Village in 1802-Col- onial and Revolutionary Sites Front End
A Map of Spartanburg County in 1925-Drawn for the Chamber of Commerce of Spartanburg Back End
Following Page
Samuel Noblit's Notebooks 32
Limestone Springs Hotel. 48
Glenn Springs Hotel. 64
The Walker House. 64
The Palmetto House. 64
An Antebellum Home 80
An Antebellum Church. 80
Three Historic Mills. 80
The Reidville Female College. 96
The State School for the Deaf and the Blind
96
Wofford College 112
112
At Airline Junction. 176
The Merchants Hotel.
176
Morgan Square in 1884
208
The Morgan Rifles in 1887
208
Fire-Fighters of the Eighties.
208
Policemen of the Eighties. 208
The Second Jail of Spartanburg County. 208
City Hall of Spartanburg. 208
The Kennedy Free Library. 224
Converse College 224
Textile Institute 224
Camp Wadsworth Scenes
256
City of Spartanburg in 1931
272
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The use of these cuts has been made possible through the courtesy of the Spartanburg Herald-Journal and the Spartanburg Chamber ·of Commerce.
The Baptist Church of the Fifties
CHAPTER ONE Blockhouses and Settlements
The Name of the County
Spartanburg alone among the forty-six counties of South Carolina bears a name based on the character of its settlers. No account exists of the circumstances at- tending the selection of this name. It appears among the records for the first time in a letter signed John Thomas, and bearing the head- ing, Spartan Regiment, September 11, 1775. Three weeks earlier, on August 21, 1775, William Henry Drayton of the Council of Safety wrote an official report of a meeting held that day on Law- son's Fork. According to tradition this meeting took place at Wof- ford's Iron Works (now Glendale). Drayton stated that here he had found, for the first time during his tour of the back country, a strong sentiment for the liberty cause; that he had advised the men present to organize themselves into companies and to form a regiment of their own, independent of Colonel Fletchall, since he seemed de- termined to adhere to the King's party. Whether Drayton also sug- gested a name for the regiment is entirely a matter of surmise. Some have thought he did. On the other hand, there were gentlemen in the regiment whose education had made them as familiar as was Drayton with ancient history, and who were as capable as he was of realizing the appropriateness of the epithet "Spartan" to men so situated. The name of the regiment was soon extended to the district.
Conditions of Settlement Many of the men who made up the Spartan Regiment had poured down the valley trails from Pennsylvania and Virginia after the French and Indian War, eager to secure grants in the rich Piedmont of Carolina. The wilderness spread itself before them-ready to be subdued and enjoyed. The map of Spartanburg County today preserves proof of how abundant were the animals whose skins were the chief wealth of the Cherokees and of the first white men who traded and settled in this section. Many streams bear the names of animals which once drank from them and inhabited their banks. There are in the county today creeks named Wolf, Bear, Buck, Elk, Buffalo, and Beaverdam. Upon read- ing that in one season a man trapped twenty beavers on Fairforest Creek one easily understands why two Spartanburg County creeks to this day bear the name Beaverdam. The animal called a tiger by the early settlers was a species of panther, and was the most dreaded
11
12
A HISTORY OF SPARTANBURG COUNTY
of all the wild creatures. It seems only logical that the three branches of the Tyger River should perpetuate its name. Herds of buffalo were seen by all the early explorers of this area. The tradition handed down from them says that the herds of buffalo had regular "runs" through the forests and tall grass, that they followed the sprouting of the young canes in spring to graze on the tender shoots, and that their paths led across the fords of the streams. According to this tradition, the Indians and Indian traders took over and de- veloped into paths the runs of the buffalo.
Stories have been handed down of the experiences of pioneers with wild beasts. As Mrs. Ford sat in the doorway of her log cabin near the old Indian field on Enoree River, a panther leaped over her shoulder into the cabin, and was shot on the hearth by her husband. Near Grindal Shoals on Pacolet River a pioneer hunter was kept in a tree all night by a pack of wolves. The first settlers made a prac- tice of hunting bears in the fall, dressing the skins for robes and rugs, and salting the flesh to be used as bacon.
The settlers lived in tents, or in their covered wagons, until they could cut down trees and erect log cabins. Then fields had to be cleared and fenced ; the Indian trails transformed into wagon roads ; new roads laid out and put in condition for neighborhood use. The streams were not of great service for the transportation of goods because they were too swift and rocky and in places shallow. The consequence was that horses were invaluable. An "old Indian field" on the Enoree River was the scene of annual meetings of men from the surrounding region where they "broke" colts, and traded or raced horses. On August 25, 1775, William Henry Drayton attended a horse race in the Upper District at Duncan's Creek.
With no maps and surveys to guide them, the first settlers from the Northern colonies followed the old Indian trading paths and pushed their way into the fertile valleys of the numerous streams. In the early grants, lands were designated as in "the Packolate set- tlement," or "the Tygar settlement," or "on the waters of Fairforest Creek," and so on. Tributary streams soon received names from the first settlers on them. Often agents of the landed proprietors organized and arranged for companies of immigrants. In the period of early settlement the approach to what is now Spartanburg County was easier from the Northern colonies than from Charleston. W. L. Trenholm wrote of these first settlers: "As these immigrants had
13
BLOCKHOUSES AND SETTLEMENTS
come with wagons and teams, there must have been practicable routes from the Alleghanies to the Southern slopes of the Saluda Moun- tains. It was not only more natural for them to maintain intercourse with the Northern settlements than with those on the coast, but was less difficult, for the whole upper country of South Carolina was a wilderness in 1750 until they were settled."
Example of an Immigrant Family
The experiences of an Irish immigrant family, as recorded in the journal of one of its members, show how some of those settlers who came by Charles Town got to the Up Country. The Chesney family left Ireland August 25, 1772, spent seven weeks and three days on the voyage to Charles Town, and then spent seven weeks and one day in quarantine because there was smallpox on the vessel. The eight-months-old baby died of the disease. The Chesney family did not stop in Charles Town ; as soon as they were released from quarantine, at Pritchard's shipyard, a few miles above the city, they bargained for transportation by wagon to the Up Country, and set out for "John Winn's old place" (now Winnsboro). They paid at the rate of one penny per pound for hauling. The diary does not indicate how much they brought.
The oldest of the eight children, Alexander, the writer of the diary, was in his seventeenth year, and was apparently his father's mainstay. He went on foot ahead of the wagons, to the home of relatives to announce his family's arrival. These relatives met the family at Winn's, took them to their home, and entertained them until they got one hundred acres of land surveyed. On it they built a cabin, and cleared some of the land. Then a letter came to them from a widowed aunt who resided on Pacolet River, "sixty miles higher up in the country," urging them to settle near her.
The diarist writes: "I proceeded on foot in a right direction for that place, there being no direct road." He had instructions to call at certain homes and obtain, at each, directions how to reach the next. He crossed Broad River in a canoe, and forded Pacolet River near Grindal Shoals. He was then within five miles of his aunt's home. He was warmly welcomed and records that the greater part of the settlers thereabout were relatives. These kinsmen soon found a desirable "vacant tract of 400 acres" and he had it surveyed for his father. Alexander Chesney recorded that in 1774 he had to go in person to Charles Town to "hurry the patent on my father's lands through the office."
14
A HISTORY OF SPARTANBURG COUNTY
Explorers, The earliest explorers and traders found no Indian Traders, Cowmen villages in the entire area between the Broad and Saluda rivers, because it was in the Cherokee hunting grounds. The white men were a long time understanding why their settlement on what seemed unoccupied ground was so resented by the Indians. The viewpoint of the Indians was expressed in a plea made in 1758 by the Lower Cherokees to the Governor of Georgia. They begged him to persuade the South Carolinians to hold themselves within certain bounds because the deer were becoming so scarce the Indians could not find food for their wives and children. But the white men pushed on.
Curosity asks who was the first white man to set foot on Spartan- burg soil ; and no exact answer can be given. It seems quite possible, however, that it was the Spanish leader Pardo, who in 1567 led an expedition from the vicinity of Parris Island to the mountains. Belief in this possibility rests on the fact that in the summer of 1934 a farmer near Inman plowed up with a tractor a stone bearing every evidence of great age and having on it marks clearly made by human hands. These marks appear to be the figures 1567 and some sort of diagram, indicative of locality or direction. The first settlers of the Tyger section heard from Indian traders of a white man who, before their coming, had started a mill near Reidville and had been killed by Indians ; and of another would-be settler, a Baptist preacher named Benjamin Peck, who had mysteriously disappeared, leaving as a memorial Ben's Creek, named for him.
The Indian traders doubtless traversed this area early. It pleases the imagination to picture a packhorse train in the 1700's making its way along the Blackstock Road to the Block House, there to exchange with the Cherokees calico, beads, fire-water, guns and ammunition, for dressed skins and furs. Every driver carried a heavy cowhide whip, and all of the horses, ranged in close Indian file, were forced to proceed at a brisk trot, as the chief driver commanded, their bells jingling and jangling, the horsemen shouting and cursing and crack- ing their whips menacingly, filling the forest and meadow with shout- ing and tumult. Sometimes such caravans had as many as twenty men and sixty horses. These packtrains usually made about twenty miles in a day, setting out soon in the morning, and pausing by mid- afternoon to make camp on some inviting plain or cane-meadow.
An Indian trader had to erect for himself a strong blockhouse in
15
BLOCKHOUSES AND SETTLEMENTS
which to keep his stores secure. About it were built the cabins and sheds required for the use of his family and helpers and live stock. Such blockhouses were not unlike the stockaded forts built by the Horse Rangers as bases from which they patrolled the Indian Line. Quite naturally the location of these strongholds influenced the first permanent settlers to select lands near them. Many Indian traders profited by their acquaintance with the country to select lands with mill sites and fertile soil, and such men became leaders among the permanent settlers.
The cowmen had a part in developing the back country, without in the beginning having any intention of establishing permanent settle- ments. They were here before any grants were made, or any clearings. At first nomadic and seasonal, many of them were transformed into householders and landowners. The clusters of cowpens and the railed enclosures for the cattle were supplemented with sturdier log houses for the women and children accompanying the cowmen to the wilds. Grain fields, gardens, orchards, trading posts followed; and what began as cowpens became settlements.
Elijah Clark, described as the "Daniel Boone of Spartanburg," is said to have led a large company of settlers in 1755 into the Pacolet Valley. A community developed from their settlement about Grindal Shoals, and was in what is now Union County, although its fringes extended up the river toward "Hurricane Shoals" (now Clifton). Clark soon moved on into Georgia and settled there.
Early The first permanent settlements in what is now Spartan-
Settlements burg County seem to have been those on the various branches of the Tyger River. In 1761 a group of Scotch-Irish Pres- byterian settlers came from Pennsylvania and chose for themselves tracts of ground along the branches of the Tyger. In this party were families bearing the names Barry, Moore, Collins, Anderson, Thomp- son, Vernon, Pearson, Dodd, Jamison, Ray, Penney, McMahon, Mil- ler, and Nicholls. Some of these names occur in James Jordan's Fort Prince accounts, kept in 1776. Within a few years another group of Scotch-Irish came through Charles Town into the Tyger area and took up lands mostly on the highlands left unclaimed by the first settlers. Among them were families bearing the names Coan, Snoddy, Peden, Alexander, Gaston, Morton, and Nesbitt. These two parties soon occupied an area nearly twenty miles square. As early as 1765 they had selected a conveniently located site and erected on it a log meeting
16
A HISTORY OF SPARTANBURG COUNTY
house, which they named Nazareth. Nazareth Church, formally or- ganized in 1772, was the first permanent organization in the county. About it cluster enough associations to fill a volume. Its people have cherished its history, and made of it a shrine of hallowed memories.
The Earle family immigrated to the North Pacolet region in the decade of 1760 and established a strong settlement, which came to be called Earlesville. Earle's Fort, their chief stronghold against the Indians, and later the Tories, was in North Carolina, just across the State line. This family sent vigorous pioneers into Greenville, Pickens, and Anderson counties, South Carolina, and Rutherford and Polk counties, North Carolina, and had an important part in the making of Spartanburg County. Bayliss Earle was one of the first County Com- missioners. The Hamptons, Jacksons, Hannons, and Princes were other influential families in the North Pacolet area.
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