USA > South Carolina > Spartanburg County > A history of Spartanburg county > Part 4
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THE MAKING OF SPARTAN COUNTY
wine" cost four shillings eight pence a bottle. At least a dozen varieties of wine, besides draught, English bottled, and domestic ale, were listed. In those first years the number of licenses issued for "Keeping House of Public Entertainment and Retailing Spirituous Liquors" is truly astonishing, and indicates a considerable amount of travel and apparently unquenchable thirst. The fees paid for these licenses seem to have formed a sort of contingent fund for the use of the court.
According to the first Bill of Sale recorded in the county, "William Neel of Spartan County sold to Daniel Jackson of Union County for 200 pounds sterling (cash), 3 negroes-a woman named Sue, a girl named River (?), a boy named Limas, 1 feather bed and furniture thereto belonging, 1 wagon and gears, 1 white horse, Sept. 20, 1785, at Spartanburgh. Witnesses John Motlow and William Prince."
Several entries show citizens registering "marks" for their cattle. Detailed rulings were recorded as to "estrays"-hogs, cows, and horses-what was to be paid for their keep, how they were to be dis- posed of, and so forth.
Taxes have always caused agitation. At the September court, 1788, the grand jury argued that the time of collection be prolonged "so that those liable to pay the said tax may have time to carry their produce to market to enable them to pay the said tax." The court prolonged the time until December. At the March term, 1789, the court ruled that, "whereas experience hath proved the inconvenience of holding court in this county at the June term, the inhabitance of the county being generally engaged at that period with their harvest," jurors should be drawn for September ; and a notice was posted that certain cases would be carried over from the March to the September term.
Punishments Some of the modes and degrees of punishment com- mon in the early courts astonish twentieth-century Spartans. For example, an attorney at law convicted of petit larceny was, July 15, 1791, after a month in jail, sentenced to be "taken from the said jail to the public whipping post of this county, and between the hours of twelve and two o'clock, to receive on his bare back, five lashes well laid on by the sheriff." He was also "forever hereafter silenced from prac- ticing as an attorney at law in this court." Further, because he had uttered threats of vengeance against two fellow-citizens, he was re- quired to furnish a bond of one thousand pounds with sufficient se-
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A HISTORY OF SPARTANBURG COUNTY
curity that he "peaceably behave" before he could be "admitted to liberty."
The court, in 1785, fined a man who "called on God to damn the grand jurors" fourteen shillings and costs. A citizen, in April 1810, was fined one cent upon being convicted of libel. A constable, in November 1814, was fined ten dollars for "having suffered spirits to be carried into the room" in which witnesses were held. In 1823 an "illiterate and ignorant man," convicted of passing counterfeit money, was recommended to mercy.
No mercy was shown horse stealing. Convicted horse thieves were hanged by the neck at the place of public execution. In 1821 the grand jury recommended that the punishment for horse stealing be lightened. Property seems to have been dearer in the eyes of the law than human life, for in November 1827, a convicted murderer was sentenced to six months imprisonment and to be branded in the brow or thumb with the letter M. On May 27, 1808, a forger was "hung by the neck at the place of public execution."
Cases of assault and battery were frequent. In January 1796, a citizen who had had a large piece of his left ear bitten out in a fight petitioned the court that the matter be entered upon the records "as a manifestation to the world that it happened not by corporal punish- ment by the laws of the land." At the October 1804 term of court a citizen was found guilty of biting off another's nose.
Some Amusing Grand At the second court, September 1785, the first
Jury Presentments grand jury was drawn. Its members were: William Bensong, George Bratton, William Thomson, David Lewis, Charles James, John Head, William Lipscomb, James Oliphant, Cap- tain William Smith, Charles Moore, Zadock Ford, Andrew Barry, William Poole (Taylor), John Carrick, Thomas Jackson, Edward Mitchison, Obediah Tremia, Israel Morris, Robert Goodlett, John Barry, David Goodlett, Daniel McClam, Vachel Dillingham, and William Prince.
Year after year the grand juries surveyed the condition of the county and presented for the attention of the courts true bills against offenders and "grievances" which demanded redress. Some of the presentments provide amusing reading. For example, in October 1803, the presentment attacked the evils of capitalistic monopoly in the following breathless utterance :
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THE MAKING OF SPARTAN COUNTY
We, the Grand Jury, present as a Great Grievance that the people who are compelled to attend the court of this District in the capacities of Jurors, suitors, witnesses and otherwise can not find accommodations for themselves and their horses at the Court House more because one fellow citizen who owns the land all around the Court House chooses to monopolize for his own family and connections all the profit arising from Tavern Keeping in consequence of which no house of entertainment is kept here ex- cept one kept by his own Son-in-law and the one kept in the jail by the jailer no competition can take place for the improvement or in- crease for these accommodations because he will not sell any Lott to any one who will keep a house of entertainment in order to in- duce the commissioners from erecting the Public Buildings to place them where they now are he promised to sell out some Lotts which evaded the object of the Commissioners by selling at vendue only four having them bought in by himself, his son and his two sons- in-law, we, therefore, recommend that the Legislature shall ap- point certain commissioners to value some given quantity of land near the Court House at its just and reasonable value and that the State should pay for it at that rate and that the Commissioners should then lay it out by a fixed place into convenient lots and sell out those lots at private sale to such as will buy them under such regulations as will prevent a repetition of this oppressive monopoly and the proceeds of those sales shall be paid into the Public Treasury to reimburse the State and we request that our members in the Legislature will use their influence to have this recommen- dation carried into effect.
Year after year the grand jury complained that the grand jurors were required to serve without recompense. In April 1811, they lamented piteously the plight of the grand juror who, "driven to the woods for a pillow to relieve his weary head upon draws his biscuit from his napsack to satiate his hungry appetite." Not only were they unpaid, but some presentments pointed out that jurors were not made decently comfortable, that the jury rooms were "not furnished with tables," that the "Grand Jury Box" was not large enough.
Complaints of incompetence against public servants appeared early. The grand jury, October 1803, reported "the unfinished situation of the Court House" pointing out that nearly four years had passed since money was appropriated for erecting it, and that it was still incomplete, so that it was "unfit for the reception of the Court and the officers thereof."
The inhabitants of the county lived and dressed in a pioneer style which harmonized with their rough public buildings ; nevertheless they
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A HISTORY OF SPARTANBURG COUNTY
had a reverence for the majesty of the law, and courts were conducted with all the decorum of established legal procedure. The sheriff wore a cocked hat and a sword, and the judges wore wigs and robes. That rule of court was enforced which read: "No person who is not a member of the bar shall be allowed to sit at the table or desk designed for the use of the bar in any Court House in the State, nor shall any member of the bar be allowed to take a seat there unless he be first noted, nor to continue seated there unless he also continues in his robe, and it shall be the duty of the Sheriff to attend the execution of this rule."
County Solidarity From the establishment of the courthouse, the first Mon- day in each month was Sales Day; and neither heat nor cold, nor plowing, planting, or harvesting-and only in extreme cases "high water on the Tygers"-prevented the gathering of throngs of men on the "Public Ground" on those days. Some came at the behest of the sheriff ; some, to see what property was changing hands ; some, to get bargains. Old women in covered wagons came to sell ginger- bread, apples, and cider. Men from the remote settlements seized the opportunity to "trade," swapping knives, hogs, cows, and horses. They wrestled and played marbles and sampled each other's liquor, and exchanged the news. They held impromptu horse races.
The Act of 1798-1799, abolishing the county courts and ordaining that circuit courts should be held at all the county courthouses in accordance with a regular calendar, brought to Court Week a greater dignity and importance than had belonged to it in former days. Lawyers from other localities brought fresh viewpoints on public questions, and animated debates and discussions in the inns and streets made of court week a school of politics.
Thus the courthouse proved a focus for the life of the people of the county-the high and the low, the rich and the poor, found in it a community center and built up about it a strong sense of county solidarity.
CHAPTER FOUR Spartan District, 1800-1825
Population By the first census, taken 1790, the population of Spar- tan County was 8,800. Included in this number were twenty-seven "free persons not white," and 866 slaves. Of the 1,264 heads of households, more than one thousand owned not even one slave. In round numbers, one hundred households had two, three, or four slaves each. The number of households which owned from five to ten slaves each hardly exceeded fifty ; and not more than ten house- holds in the entire county owned more than ten slaves each. One man owned twenty-seven, another thirty-six-these two being the largest single owners in the county.
Settlement and development continued in this area during the Revolution until 1780. Many Revolutionary soldiers obtained grants and settled here after 1785. But many also left to obtain better or larger acreage in the newly opened Indian lands of the present coun- ties of Greenville, Anderson, and Pickens.
Colonel John Thomas, Sr., went into the new lands as
Loss of Noted Citizens "Commissioner of Locations for the north side of the Saluda River," and settled a place he called Milford in Greenville County. Several years later Colonel John Thomas, Jr., followed his father to Greenville County, and became the first ordinary of that county, having already been the first clerk of court and the first treasurer of Spartanburg County.
It is a matter of record that the son of that Thomas Williamson, on whose plantation the courthouse was erected in 1787, was a Pres- byterian minister in Union, and that he migrated to Ohio in 1805, "entertaining some scruples about the institution of slavery." Whole congregations of Quakers and numbers of Scotch Presbyterians joined this Ohio migration, in many instances taking their slaves with them to be set free. All these are typical illustrations of the restlessness of the period. Yet, in spite of such losses, the county grew and pros- pered. Many valuable new settlers poured in.
Governor John Drayton of Charleston, governor from 1800
Drayton's View to 1802, made a tour of the State and published in 1802 A View of South Carolina, a book that contained few specific references to Spartanburg County but many general descriptions
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A HISTORY OF SPARTANBURG COUNTY
which applied to it. In one passage he gave an interesting account of social customs in what he designated as the "upper country":
In the retired parts of the country, the amusements are few ; consisting of dancing, horse-racing, ball-playing, and rifle shoot- ing. At different places in the upper country one occasionally meets ball-alleys, which are resorted to by young men, for playing at fives. Horse-racing is more discountenanced by them than formerly ; the people having become more industrious, and atten- tive to family concerns. At rifle shooting they are particularly ex- pert ; and in some cases find it much to their advantage. Instead of articles being sold at vendue, they are often shot for, by rifle shooters, at a small price each shot; which is more useful and honorable than the raffling mode . . .. They generally shoot at a mark about the size of a dollar, and he who does not strike the center of it, or nearly so, will come in for no part of the reward.
Drayton went on to say that in this manner often one or two men went away with the whole of a beef thus put up. He said that the marksmanship of these men was such that they easily hit a deer at its utmost speed at a distance of 100 yards. He found the interest in fine horses very general, and said that it was customary for boys not older than eight years to ride to school, and, though there was not a riding master in the State, that expert riding was general.
Roads Of roads Governor Drayton wrote : ". . . at this time a carriage and four may be driven from any part of this State to the other, and from the seashore to the mountains, without any other difficulty than such as naturally arises in long journeys." He found that most of the streams in the Up Country were fordable or provided with ferries or bridges-"some few toll." Crossroads connected all the courthouses with each other, and an excellent wagon-road led from the North Fork of Saluda Road to Knoxville, Tennessee, over which wagons bearing 2,500 pounds passed easily.
Tolls Today travelers have a gasoline tax to grumble over; in the years just before and after 1800 they had tolls to pay at bridges and ferries. In some cases owners even charged them for the privi- lege of fording the streams that traversed their property. Typical of toll charges are those the legislature permitted Casper Webb to charge at a ferry over Broad River. Sheep, goats, and hogs were charged for at the rate of two cents each ; horses at four cents ; foot passengers at four cents ; passengers on horseback, seven cents ; a two-wheel carri- age with horse or horses and driver, twenty-five cents; four-wheel
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SPARTAN DISTRICT, 1800-1825
carriage ditto, fifty cents ; a hogshead of tobacco rolled, with horses and driver, twelve cents. Webb was responsible for keeping up roads opposite his ferry. It is easy to realize how expensive Spartan farmers found it to get their cattle and produce to market, and how early they were awake to the importance of improving their transpor- tation facilities.
Impression of a Charleston Visitor
A Charleston gentleman, Columbus F. Hale, visiting friends in the vicinity of Fort Prince, in- cluded in his diary an excellent description of this area in the year 1804. His journey to Fort Prince in a carriage, with an outrider, required ten days. Of the neighborhood about the present-day Enoree, he wrote: "Farms and settlements of different extent car- peted numberless acres, and although not pleasant to the eye of the lower countryman in their method of erecting their houses, being mostly built of logs, still there might be perceived a neatness within which destroyed other impressions."
This traveler was much impressed as he crossed the Enoree, by the "tumbling fury of the cataract, with sheets of foam." He ad- mired the "elegant seat of a Mr. Farrow," as he drove along. This was Samuel Farrow, an outstanding citizen, Lieutenant Governor of the State 1810-12, afterwards a member of Congress and later of the State legislature, where he earned a place in the State's roll of fame as the "Father of the Asylum." He resigned from Congress in order to enter the State legislature and urge the importance of establishing a State hospital for the treatment of mental diseases.
In crossing Middle Tyger, Hale's "chair"-a two-wheeled vehicle -got into a deep hole, and was extricated with difficulty. He spoke of the "risk" incurred in this passage. The appearance of the "Inde- pendent Church," he pronounced "respectable for these parts." Hale mentioned passing two other churches, but he did not indicate their names or comment on them. He had to ford all three Tygers and found all steep and rough.
Typical Homes Hale wrote that the section in which he was a guest of 1804 had been settled by the family of Colonel Wade Hampton. Hampton's home he described as having eight rooms and two stories, and approached by an avenue of chestnuts and walnuts. The home of Captain Peter Gray, whom Hale visited, was doubtless typical of the better class of houses in Spartanburg District at the
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A HISTORY OF SPARTANBURG COUNTY
period. "Secluded on the summit of a very high hill" it "commanded an extensive view." It was a frame dwelling of four rooms with one story, a piazza in front, and standing on pillars four feet from the ground. An "avenue of tall and stately oaks, hickory, walnut, and chestnut trees as if planted by art" led from the "broad road" to the house, a distance of two hundred yards. On the right of the house was a fourteen-acre orchard of "lovely peach, apple, and plum trees." Seventy-five acres of planting land of the 280 contained in the property had been cleared for cultivation. A barn, a "framed" house, a kitchen, stables, and negro houses of logs were clustered about the house. The neighbors impressed Hale as being "many of them respectable," but for the most part "truly ignorant and much attached to ardent spirits -many beastly so." The crops were wheat, rye, Indian corn, to- bacco, and "some little cotton of the short staple kind." The liquors, of domestic manufacture, were whiskey, peach and apple brandy, and, to a limited extent only, wine.
Hale spoke approvingly of the "hospitable plantation and home of General Thomas Moore of the Spartan District," with whom he and his wife exchanged visits. He found General Moore, with his wife and six children, living "all in the backwoods state, but on a more re- fined scale than that presented by the generality of settlers, his circum- stances being more independent."
Spartanburg Handicaps in 1804 This Charleston visitor deplored the facts that very hot weather and strain on his horses on the existing roads limited visiting. He went to the "Court House of Spar- tanburgh" on September first, and, in driving over a newly cleared road from which the stumps had not been removed, was thrown from his "chair" and broke an arm. He suffered four days before a surgeon ar- rived, and the messenger who brought this surgeon had traveled a dis- tance of one hundred and twenty miles to procure him.
Hale commented on the fact that in spite of excellent lands and a good climate, farming could not be made very profitable because of the lack of transportation facilities. He was unfavorably impressed by the prevalence of "camp meetings" and by the addiction of all classes of society to an excessive indulgence in drink.
Glimpses from
Bishop Asbury visited this section annually be-
Asbury's Journal tween 1787 and 1814, and there are many entries in his Journal which show him as in thorough agreement with Captain
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SPARTAN DISTRICT, 1800-1825
Hale on the subjects of drink and bad roads. But he thanked God for the camp meetings. Some of the entries made in his diary by this saintly founder of Methodism in South Carolina were as follows :
Feb. 20, 1788 ... Our friends here on Tyger River are very much alive to God, and have built a good chapel. We rode on to Buffington's in the evening on Fairforest Creek and were kindly entertained.
March 26, 1795 ... Crossed Pacolet River ... My body is weak, and so is my faith for this part of the vineyard ... This country improves in cultivation, wickedness, mills and stills; a prophet of strong drink would be acceptable to many of these people.
I crossed Lawson's Fork at the high shoals, a little below the Beauty Spot. I could not but admire the curosity of the people- my wig was as great a subject of speculation as some wonderful animal from Africa or India would have been. I had about one hundred people at the meeting-house, some come to look at, and others to hear me .. . After brother M. and myself had preached we passed the Cow-Pens where Morgan and Tarleton had their fray.
Nov. 2, 1803 : Preached to a lifeless congregation (at Wood's), and came off, without dining, to John Foster's twelve miles . . .
In this route I crossed the three branches of Tyger River and passed through Greenville and Spartanburg counties . . . find that the camp meetings have been conducted in good order and with great success.
Nov. 3, 1803: At Foster's Meeting House . .. In evening had a lively prayer-meeting.
Nov. 3, 1803: Recrossed branches of Tyger and Enoree, came along a crippling path to Thomas Terry's.
Dec. 2, 1810: We breakfasted with kind and attentive An- thony Foster, and continued on to Robert Haile's.
Bishop Asbury gave some vivid accounts of bad roads he en- countered in the Up Country, and of the sparseness of the population. "It is a trifle," he wrote of the Broad River Circuit in 1803, "to ride in this country thirty miles without food for man or beast." It was in a neighboring county that he made this entry: "We met people coming from a militia muster, drunk .. . Glory be to God we have our camp-meetings too !" On one journey he got out of his carriage and mounted the horse to get across the river. Often he had to retrace his way because he found the waters up and fords impassable. Once
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A HISTORY OF SPARTANBURG COUNTY
he wrote: "Then had we to cross Broad River, and pierce thru the woods, scratch and go in the by-paths-wind round the plantations- creep across the newly cleared ground by clambering over trees, boughs, and fence-rails ; thus we made our way fifteen miles."
Michael Gaffney's Descriptions Another picture of this section at the same period is found in the diary of Michael Gaffney, founder of the town of Gaffney, whose trading post and tavern at the intersection of two established trading paths came to be called Gaff- ney's Cross-Roads, later Gaffney's Old Field, later still Gaffney. In 1802 he settled in that part of Spartanburg District which is now Cherokee County. His diary has been preserved and it gives a very clear picture of his impressions as he passed from Charleston to Smith's Ford on Broad River. A native of Ireland and possessed of some means, he was disappointed, as he made his way up from Charleston, to find the interior "low and unhealthy" and the people "yellow, poor, and sickly." He had anticipated finding in the foot- hill region "a fine country, but was surprised to find it poor, sandy, rocky, and hilly." Most of the people were poor and were dressed, peasant style, in hunting shirts and trousers, home-woven of coarse cotton yarn. "Every farmer or planter," he noted, "is his own shoe- maker, tanner, tailor, carpenter, brazier, and, in fact, everything else. Everything comes by the farmer and his family. It is the business of the wife and daughter to pick cotton and have it brought home, pick it from the seed, spin it, weave it, and make it ready for your back. Some of the girls made very handsome cloth. The women in this country live the poorest lives of any people in the world. It is directly opposite to Charleston ; here they must do everything from cooking to ploughing, and after that they have no more life in them than Indian squaws. They hardly ever sit down at the table with their husbands, but wait on them like menial servants."
When this was written, about 1802, much of Spartanburg District, except along the water courses and the two or three Indian trading paths which traversed it, was virgin forest. Gaffney's description doubtless applied to a large proportion of the scattered settlers of the Up Country, although traditions indicate that there were, here and there, families provided with slaves and equipment, whose homes, even though crude, were comfortable and tasteful; and among whom social amenities were observed and a few books were cherished. Few, in- deed, they must have been, when little Angelica Mitchell, about this
LIMESTONE SPRINGS HOTEL, BUILT IN 1835
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SPARTAN DISTRICT, 1800-1825
time, had to learn her letters from Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding and learned to write by the use of a sharp stick on sandy ground.
Boiling Springs Traditions Local tradition runs that Boiling Springs was a trading center and crossroads point of such im- portance in the early days that it was seriously considered by the county commissioners as a location for the courthouse. It was a gathering place for drovers, being situated at the intersection of two much-traveled roads and in the heart of the cattle-raising country. Lossing gathered an account of how, in the beginnings of the country, small communities grew up from the activities of those men who kept cows. During the summers they made butter and cheese for market and trained the steers as beasts of burden, using them to secure and haul lumber. In the fall they drove to market those animals ready for sale as beef or draft animals. These activities demanded the work of a good many men, and soon taverns, trading posts, and churches, grew out of their needs. When such a community had the added asset of a remarkable spring, it soon became outstanding.
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