USA > South Carolina > Spartanburg County > A history of Spartanburg county > Part 19
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THE TILLMAN ERA
Gantt's Idyllic Gantt lived outside town, on a place he named Pictures of Rural "Hungry Hill." One weekly feature of his paper Conditions was the Hungry Hill Letter. A policy of his was to visit over the county and write, in an idyllic strain, detailed first- hand accounts of what he saw and learned, with the definite purpose of deepening local pride. While he fought editorially for Tillman and his policies, and lost no opportunity to send shafts of ridicule through vulnerable spots in the Conservatives' armor, he was far more valuable as a constructive agricultural leader than as a political wheelhorse.
Revulsion Against In June 1901, Gantt pronounced himself sick of
Tillmanism the twelve years of wrangling that had embittered the people of the State, with no results but easy jobs for a few poli- ticians. With taxes higher, he criticised the facts that the farmer and the working man had not a cent more in pocket, and that the women had to toil as laboriously as before all the agitation. "All of those roseate promises," he lamented, "have proven like Dead Sea apples, but ashes in the mouths of the people." He also noted that the same men had been in office since 1890, in spite of their clamor for rotation in office.
The county of Spartanburg was the heaviest voting county in the State, and was coveted territory for both sides during the pro- longed period of Tillman's domination. Gantt's paper continued its support of the dispensary system, even after the editor came to a realization that the men who had got into office on the Tillman wave as champions of the rights of the farmers were still in office and the farmers were still in trouble. In 1906, however, there was a revul- sion sufficient to sweep out the Dispensary. Spartanburg had never been strongly pro-Dispensary, and in the primary elections, September 13, 1906, gave the local option candidate, Martin Ansel, 4,095 votes, and Manning, his opponent, 1,587. Three subjects had been empha- sized in the campaign speeches: Dispensary, the Good Roads Move- ment, and Education. With the Dispensary a dead issue, the way was clear for closer cooperation in securing better roads and schools.
D. D. Wallace's Analysis of the 1900 Agricultural Census In Popular Science Monthly, January 1904, ap- peared a scholarly study of the census figures of 1900 with regard to Southern agriculture, by D. D. Wallace, a citizen of Spartanburg. While this ar- ticle dealt with the entire Southern area, much of its illustrative
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A HISTORY OF SPARTANBURG COUNTY
material was, naturally, found at home. At the outset the writer commented : "The condition of the Southern farmer has immensely improved in the last ten years. Today he stands, for the first time since the War of Secession, in a position promising permanent bet- terment of his farming and of his social position." Wallace pithily described the lien law as having come, in its beginnings, to the farmer's assistance, but as having remained to his destruction, sometimes enabling a merchant to exact as much as 200 per cent profit on goods sold a farmer.
Three Cardinal Wallace's detailed analysis of the agricultural sit- Needs of Farmers uation as reflected in the census of 1900 led him to the conclusion: "The three cardinal needs of the Southern farmer today are education, diversification, and credit." He was emphatic in his belief that nature study, science, and practical agriculture should dominate the curricula of all rural schools and agricultural colleges.
Tillman in 1885 and Wallace a score of years later agreed that to improve agricultural conditions the education of the farming class must be improved ; and education of the proper sort was provided- with increasing efficiency year by year-through Winthrop College, Clemson College, the extension courses and activities promoted through them, and a constantly improving public school system. Ag- ricultural courses were placed in the schools in 1914, and a compul- sory education law was passed in 1921. Tillmanites and Antis equally wanted better schools and better roads, and united effort was necessary to get them. As these benefits were more widely secured, class feeling correspondingly decreased.
Exposition Prize-Winner
The Spartanburg County exhibit won the first prize of $1,000 at the South Carolina and West Indian Ex- position, held in Charleston in 1901-1902. This exhibit was pre- pared by a commission consisting of T. J. Moore, J. L. Stoppelbein, N. F. Walker, J. F. Floyd, and F. G. Harris; with Paul V. Moore agent in charge. The following description of the exhibit, prepared by T. J. Moore, appeared in the Spartanburg Almanac, 1903 :
The space occupied was that allotted to eight counties in the State building, 3,000 feet square in floor space and about the same on the wall in the rear. The exhibit was arranged on the floor with decorative description on the wall behind the eight principal divis- ions, viz : No. 1, Education and Religion ; No. 2, Mineral Waters ;
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THE TILLMAN ERA
No. 3, General Manufactures; No. 4, Agriculture; No. 5, For- estry; No. 6, Minerals; No. 7, Cotton Manufactures; No. 8, Household and Art, with artistic reception room in the center. The whole, wall surface and overhead especially, was beautifully and artistically decorated with lint cotton and hulls, yellow, white and red corn, sheafs of oats, wheat, rice, etc., the lettering on the wall being done with lint cotton on a blue background. On this wall were many beautiful legends which attracted general atten- tion. Many large and beautiful pictures and photographs illus- trative of the exhibit adorned the departments.
In Division No. 1, devoted to Education and Religion, were shown elaborate exhibits by Wofford, Converse and Reidville colleges and the city graded and county public schools. On the walls was the legend, "We will educate you morally and intel- lectually-225 schools, 15,000 pupils, 150 churches, 25,000 mem- bers."
In other departments similarly adorned were shown large quantities of granite, iron ores, building stone, gold, etc .; the products of soap, broom, cotton seed oil, apiary, reed and loom harness, fertilizers, etc .; 105 varieties of wood, and every conceiv- able work of woman's hands. A large flag bearing the inscription, "Winners of first prize, $1,000," won in competition with the other counties of the State, adorned the whole.
The Pacolet Spartanburg farmers suffered from the disastrous flood Flood of June 6, 1903, as did the cotton manufacturers ; yet the tax books in the fall-after the assessment of the cotton mills had been reduced $600,000-showed an increased valuation over the pre- ceding year of more than a million dollars. At the June term of court in 1904, the grand jury presentment said : "The agricultural interests of the county are in an excellent condition, and our county has almost recovered from the disaster of last June and now we once more take the lead in manufacture of cotton goods."
The flood of 1903 is usually called the Pacolet flood because of the heavy losses it caused in lives and property along that stream, but it caused heavy damage also in the Tyger and Enoree basins. Five days of almost constant gentle rains preceded a heavy rainfall of June 6. At midnight the machinist at Clifton Mill No. 3 noted, but not with any sense of alarm, that the Pacolet was eight feet higher than its normal level. At half-past three he became alarmed at the rapidity of the rise. By six o'clock the entire mill had been swept downstream. Shops, boilerhouses, wheel room, operatives' cottages- all went. The stream dashed this wreckage against Clifton No. 1, and
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soon it too was wrecked. Many operatives refused to heed the warn- ing to leave their homes, and as the water spread over the valley in which many of them lived, harrowing scenes were enacted. More than fifty persons were drowned, most of them women and children. Numbers of people escaped by floating down on the debris or taking refuge in trees, as they were carried close to them by the flood. Bales of cloth, masses of machinery, trees, timbers, animals, people-all were swept along, and the horror-stricken bystanders were helpless.
The loss of property-but not of life-was nearly as heavy at the Pacolet Mills Nos. 1, 2, and 3. No other mills suffered to such an extent as Clifton and Pacolet. Bridges on railways and highways were washed away, traffic was interrupted, and many industries had to be suspended. Wires and communications were out. Congressman J. T. Johnson set out on foot to establish communications with the country and ask for relief. The monetary loss alone to mill owners, farmers, and public carriers was estimated at three and a half mil- lion dollars.
"Facts About In September 1906, the Spartanburg Journal issued
Spartanburg" an "Industrial Edition," in which were tabulated "facts" culled from recent census reports, such as: "The assessed valuation of Spartanburg County farm lands was the largest of the counties of the State; its eleven cotton seed mills gave it first place in this industry in the entire United States, and the county as a whole was second in wealth only to Charleston. With 165 school buildings, 301 teachers, and 16,232 pupils in the public schools of the county, Spartanburg County led the State on all three counts."
In 1910 the county had 2,657 farm owners, and their lands were valued at more than $21,000,000. However, in that year there were 5,076 tenant farmers. Of the more than 7,000 farms in the county, there were eleven of three acres or less, 232 of from three to nine acres, 1,186 of from ten to nineteen acres. More than half-4,033 to be exact-contained from twenty to forty-nine acres. The number of farms containing from fifty through ninety-nine acres was 1,966. Fifty-six farms contained from 260 to 499 acres. Eleven had from 500 to 999 acres. There were three farms of a thousand or more acres in the county.
Restored Thirty years after the accession of B. R. Tillman to his Harmony position of agrarian leadership, these improved conditions and an increasing realization of the mutual interdependence of farm-
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THE TILLMAN ERA
ing, manufacturing, commercial, and cultural agencies had smoothed away most of the antagonisms fanned into flame in the nineties. Men in Spartanburg were still of different opinions : one school of thought held that the movement initiated in 1869 for improved agricultural education would have gone steadily forward and achieved without friction essentially the same results as had come; the other claimed that to the Tillman leadership the State owed Clemson, Winthrop, an improved public school system, home demonstration and county agents, Four-H Clubs, and all their concomitant benefits. There was no difference of opinion as to whether farm life was improved, and with it the prosperity of the county. The sore problem of the shift- ing tenant farmer and the shiftless laborer remained to vex the thrifty rural and urban citizen equally, and to challenge society for many years to follow.
CHAPTER TWENTY "Spartanburg, City of Success"
A City Today it may provoke a smile that in 1880, with a popu- Charter lation of 3,253, the little town of Spartanburg applied for a charter as a city. Possibly its citizens were intoxicated by their own phenomenal growth, for in the decade from 1870 to 1880 the population a little more than trebled itself, something which had not before happened and which has never happened again.
Spartanburg in the Seventies During this decade of growth, rapid changes took place. For a time after the war the trains were stopped, and even in the seventies there were only three trains a week each way between Spartanburg and Columbia. All of this time, after 1863, Spartanburg had telegraphic communication with the rest of the world. Although there were, by 1870, ordinances prohibiting such goings-on, letters in the paper from irate or sar- castic citizens indicate that hogs, cows, and goats roamed the streets freely, and that garbage remained on the sidewalks until these scav- engers disposed of it. In January 1870, the rows of chinaberry trees which bordered the square and some of the streets leading from it were cut down, to make the coming "railroad city" more like a city. Hitching posts were placed along the streets. The public well in the middle of the square was filled, and the well house, with its curfew bell, removed. The first street lights were installed - kerosene lamps along the square and part of Main Street-in Feb- ruary 1872. Ten years later they were replaced by gas lamps. The town had its first banks in 1871, the National Bank in June, and the Citizens' the following October. In 1872 the Express ceased publication, and in 1875 the Spartanburg Herald was established, edited by T. Stobo Farrow. "Homespun ice" was brought from Columbia by trains and described as a wonder in the Spartan of September 8, 1870. In 1882 Captain W. B. Hallett began to man- ufacture ice in Spartanburg and to deliver it from door to door, a great marvel.
Manufacturing and "Before the war not a wheel was turned by Business Progress steam within the town limits. By 1874 there were six establishments run entirely by steam-one planing, sash and blind factory ; two carriage and wagon factories; one steam saw-mill; one cotton ginning and packing establishment .. . " recorded the Carolina Spartan, July 23, 1874.
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"SPARTANBURG, CITY OF SUCCESS"
In 1880 Spartanburg had about seventy-five business houses of various types, including four drug stores, one bank, one bookstore, two hotels, and two weekly newspapers. Yet it was still essentially a country town ; its public square was a picturesque spot, especially on salesdays and Saturdays; sometimes a hundred wagons loaded with cotton or other farm produce were in it. The statue of Daniel Morgan was soon to give the square a new name and a new pride.
A Board of A Board of Trade was organized September 15,
Trade Bulletin 1885, and Charles H. Carlisle was accorded credit
for its inception. The first officers were: George Cofield, president ; Dr. C. E. Fleming, vice president; Charles H. Carlisle, secretary. Ninety-one active members were enrolled and monthly meetings were held in the Kennedy Library Building. This body promoted all sorts of civic enterprises, developed a cooperative spirit, invited distinguished guests to the town, and procured desirable publicity.
The Board of Trade issued, in 1888, a pamphlet entitled "City and County of Spartanburg. Their wonderful attractions and mar- velous advantages as a place of Settlement, and for the profitable Investment of Capital. Please read carefully and hand to a friend." The pamphlet, illustrated with quaint cuts, was printed in Spartan- burg by Cofield, Petty & Company, and its sponsors were: Joseph Walker, Mayor; George Cofield, President of the Board of Trade; and Charles P. Barry, Chairman of the County Commissioners. It set forth in detail the advantages of Spartanburg, boasting of its twenty passenger trains and thirty-five freight trains daily. A small map pictured Spartanburg as a hub with spokes radiating in various directions. Between Spartanburg and Union were stations called Glendale (later Cedar Springs, and later still Delmar), Rich Hill (later Rich, today Whitestone), and Pacolet. On the road to Char- lotte were Clifton, Mount Zion, Cowpens, Thicketty, and Gaffney City (after 1904 Gaffney). In the direction of Atlanta were sta- tions at Airline Junction, Fairforest, Wellford, Vernonsville (later Duncan), and Greer. Stations on the Asheville road were Airline Junction (later Hayne), Campton, Inman, Campobello, Landrum. On the road to Augusta were Becca (later Roebuck), Moore, Switzer, Kilgore, Woodruff, Hillsville, and Enoree.
The United States census report of 1880 showed that Spartanburg County had 23 of the 36 towns in the Piedmont region of South Carolina. The combined population of these 23 towns was 30,999.
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A HISTORY OF SPARTANBURG COUNTY
The location and size of Spartanburg made it the hub about which the life and activities of the other towns revolved. Its population of 3,253 had increased to 5,544 by 1890; and in 1900 was 11,395.
Within the first year after Spartanburg became a city, more than fifty new residences were built, some of them "stylish and hand- some." A company of nine merchants erected a beautiful hotel and named it the Merchants' Hotel. Each of the nine merchants had a store on the ground floor. There were ninety rooms on the two upper floors. The hotel was equipped with gas, and Spartans pro- claimed it the handsomest in the Up Country. The newly-created city erected a town hall, calling it "The Opera House." On the ground floor were the guardhouse and offices for the city government, and the second floor was leased for entertainments.
The Cowpens Centennial
Preparations for an event of national interest occu- pied Spartanburg in 1880. The Washington Light Infantry of Charleston, in January 1880, made the proposal to Spar- tans that it be permitted to join with them in a centennial celebra- tion of the Battle of Cowpens. Of this battle the reliable British historian, Stedman, wrote: "The defeat of his Majesty's troops at the Cowpens formed a very principal link in the chain of circum- stances which led to the independence of America." Now, a hun- dred years later, the Hon. W. A. Courtenay, Mayor of Charleston, had the inspiration to propose the centennial of this battle as a "very principal link" for use in reuniting the alienated sections by drawing the Federal Government and the Original Thirteen States into a joint celebration of Cowpens.
The Spartanburg response to the Charleston overtures was en- thusiastic. Spartanburg agreed to cooperate in every possible way with the Washington Light Infantry in executing their plans. The committee appointed to carry out this resolution consisted of W. K. Blake, Dr. H. E. Heinitsh, Charles Petty, General J. C. Anderson, Colonel T. Stobo Farrow, Dr. J. B. O. Landrum, Captain S. S. Ross. A delegation of this committee visited Charleston as guests of the Washington Light Infantry. By July the Spartan Rifles had been reorganized in anticipation of the expected celebration, assurances of participation by contributions and delegations had been received from the Federal Government, Tennessee, and each of the Original Thirteen States. John H. Evins of Spartanburg represented
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"SPARTANBURG, CITY OF SUCCESS"
the Fourth District in Congress and he exerted himself to enlist the interest of the National Government in the undertaking.
The Battle of Cowpens was fought January 17, 1781, but, be- cause weather conditions at that time of year would be unfavorable, the celebration was set forward into the spring. W. K. Blake, point- ing out the inaccessibility of the battle ground, proposed that Spar- tanburg request the honor of erecting the proposed monument "in the center of her public ground" and assume the responsibility of providing a suitable base. This suggestion was adopted, and the city council appropriated $500 for the purpose. Committees were ap- pointed to care for all necessary arrangements. The cornerstone was laid with elaborate Masonic ceremonies, October 7, 1880, many of the participants having just come from the Kings Mountain Cen- tennial Celebration held that day. To insure their presence, the ceremonies were conducted in the evening.
Courtenay devoted himself unstintedly to the centennial prepa- rations-from January 1880, when he accepted the chairmanship of the committee on arrangements, until May 11, 1881, the day on which the Cowpens monument was unveiled. On that day Spartanburg entertained a crowd that the lowest estimates placed at 18,000, while one reporter said it numbered 25,000. The President of the United States, James A. Garfield, after accepting an invitation to be present, had been forced by the illness of his wife to cancel the engagement. The chief orator of the day was South Carolina's former Governor, Senator Wade Hampton, who personally con- veyed the President's regrets at his absence. T. W. Higginson of Massachusetts, who had commanded a Negro regiment in the Union Army, made an eloquent address. Descendants of the commanding officers at Cowpens had conspicuous parts in the ceremonies. The invited guests included delegations from Congress, descendants of the commanders at the Battle of Cowpens, military organizations, and thousands of private citizens. The square, later named Mor- gan Square, was gorgeously decorated with bunting and flags and evergreen garlands and lined on all sides with tiers of seats. Mag- nificent floral tributes were sent from many places.
Significance of the The Morgan monument commemorates not Morgan Monument alone the Revolutionary valor of early Spar- tans at Cowpens ; it was the fruit of the first cooperative effort of all the Thirteen Original States and the Federal Government after
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a bloody civil war; and its erection was an expression of the fra- ternal spirit that united Up Country and Charleston. The base was the gift of Spartanburg, town and county, as was the labor of erec- tion. The shaft of granite and the bronze tablets were the gifts of the fourteen participating States. The superb heroic bronze statue of Daniel Morgan, commanding officer at Cowpens, was the work of the eminent sculptor, J. Q. A. Ward, and was the tribute, by unanimous vote of Congress, of the United States Government, which appropriated for it $23,000.
City Utilities: Waterworks
The adequate safeguarding of the growing town against fires and the demand for a purer and more convenient water supply required the development of a waterworks system. Water for use in case of fire was provided during the sev- enties by building large cisterns at two or three places in the town and piping into them the rain water from the roofs of the stores, or fitting them with pumps. In 1888 Spartanburg granted a fran- chise to the Home Water Supply Company, and made a contract for fifty hydrants and four public drinking fountains for man and beast. A standpipe 100 feet high and with a capacity of 216,000 gallons was erected on North Church Street. In 1907 the city pur- chased the franchise, and since that time has owned and operated its waterworks.
The first legislative act authorizing a system of sewerage in Spar- tanburg was passed December 24, 1890. In 1908 the city created a Water Works Commission to administer its water and sewerage system, and this plan has operated ever since. The twentieth century found Spartanburg owning a waterworks plant, situated twelve miles from the city, on South Pacolet River, which supplied the city itself and several industrial plants in the county with an unlimited supply of filtered water; a metropolitan sewerage system to safeguard the health of the city and its suburbs; and two standpipes with a capacity of more than two million gallons of water to insure an abundance of water under high pressure in case of fire. Besides these there is a reservoir holding three million gallons between the city and the plant.
Fire In the seventies a municipal ordinance required every
Protection family to keep at hand a ladder in case of fires. In 1867 suggestions were offered for a steam fire engine, but in vain. The fire department grew slowly, beginning with a volunteer hook
MORGAN SQUARE. 1884
THE MORGAN MONUMENT In the Background, the Opera House and the Merchants' Hotel
THE COURTHOUSE, BUILT IN 1892 Replacing the One Shown at the Right in the Picture of Morgan Square
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THE MORGAN RIFLES IN 1887
FARI IEPS
FIREMEN AND POLICEMEN OF THE EIGHTIES
THE COUNTY JAIL, BUILT IN 1823
Sold to the City in the Nineties, and Replaced by the City Hall, Below
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"SPARTANBURG, CITY OF SUCCESS"
and ladder company in 1873, adding two Negro companies in 1875, and, in 1882, getting the long desired engine. It was named The Spartan.
May 24, 1882, Moses Greenewald was elected captain, and B. B. Bishop was elected secretary and treasurer of the Spartan Fire En- gine Company, a group of public-spirited young men who paid dues of twenty-five cents a month for the privilege of risking their lives to save the lives and property of their fellow-citizens. B. B. Bishop furnished the following roster of the original company, of which he was the last surviving member: E. M. Anderson, G. G. Avant, R. Bain, Jr., S. J. Bivings, J. A. Blowers, R. E. Brewton, B. B. Bishop, A. S. Cheek, T. E. Evins, W. M. Floyd, Mose Greene- wald, William A. Law, B. M. Lee, C. H. Lenser, J. H. Land, J. M. Nicholls, D. T. Pope, O. S. Roberts, R. A. Roberson, J. K. Stuckey, C. R. Smith, P. J. O. Smith, J. T. Thompson, J. E. Vernon.
Old-time members of the early fire companies recall, with chuckles, that membership in them was a social and civic honor, and their members paid dues and supplied themselves with black breeches and boots and red shirts worn for drills and parades. The city furnished regulation firemen's helmets. The chief was paid $100 a year, in 1886, and his assistant $50. After ten years there were three paid firemen, who lived in the reel house and received $30 a month each. At that time the fire station was a two-room, dirt-floor frame building, and the chief duties of the paid men were to care for the horses and equipment. Not until after the World War were volunteer companies disbanded and the department organized on a salaried basis. On June 16, 1916, Spartanburg entertained the State Firemen's Convention consisting of 200 delegates. By that time Spartanburg had a motor truck; a hook and ladder apparatus, drawn by two horses; and two hose wagons, each with three horses. The first motor truck was bought in 1912, and the horses were given up entirely in 1923.
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