USA > South Carolina > Spartanburg County > A history of Spartanburg county > Part 5
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Mineral Pacolet Springs seems to have been the first of the mineral Springs springs of the county to attain note. The stagecoach tables show that it was a stop in the 1790's on the route from York- ville to Spartanburg. John Drayton mentioned it in 1802. Before 1825 it became Poole's Spring, and in 1855 R. C. Poole was operating there a hotel for forty to sixty boarders in "plain, decent country style." He advertised "a number of common summer log cabins for rent," and stated that these springs had been "resorted to for the last century or more by those afflicted with most kinds of diseases." Pat- terson's Spring, less known than Pacolet Springs, was in the same vicinity, and almost immediately across the Pacolet River.
In the early part of the century, Willson Nesbitt, of the Nazareth settlement, bought thousands of acres of land along Cherokee Creek and Broad River with the purpose of developing iron works. On one ยท of his tracts was a spring known as Nesbitt's Limekiln Spring. Later named Limestone Springs, this and an adjacent freestone spring be- came the nucleus of one of the first villages in the old Spartan Dis- trict. In 1835 a stock company built there one of the handsomest hotels in the entire country, surrounded it with cottages, and employed landscape artists to beautify the grounds. Within ten years the hotel
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A HISTORY OF SPARTANBURG COUNTY
was closed, and the property bought at forced sale for use as a girl's school. The village remained a popular resort for years, many wealthy families owning summer homes there. Boarding houses were oper- ated after the hotel was closed.
The first white traders learned from the Indians, tradition says, of the remarkable qualities of a spring on the Means plantation. They said the deer resorted to it first and that the Indians learned by acci- dent of its medicinal virtues. Revolutionary soldiers found that bath- ing in its waters cured "itch" and that drinking it relieved intestinal disorders. The spring became so popular and visitors in the Means home so numerous that, in 1816, Means sold the spring and the land surrounding it to John B. Glenn, who bought it with the purpose of erecting a boarding house. Soon what had been the "Sulphur Spring," or the "Powder Spring," took the name of Glenn's Springs.
Before the Revolution a bold spring was locally known, because of its color, as the Green Spring. This name was dropped and the spring early became the Cedar Spring. It was a community land- mark during the Revolution, and was the site of encampments and fights between Whigs and Tories. The Cedar Spring Baptist Church was in existence as an arm of Fairforest (of' Union County) before the Revolution, and was organized as an independent church in 1786. When Robert Mills described Spartanburg District, he was especially enthusiastic in his account of the flourishing village of Cedar Spring. He described it as "growing into importance," with a large Baptist meeting house, nine "small but decent dwelling houses, laid out with regularity facing the spring," a grove of oaks and hickories surround- ing it, and a "promising academy in which Latin, Greek, mathematics, and English studies are taught." It was already a popular summer resort, the water from the spring being used for drinking and bathing. Cedar Spring at this time, according to Mills, had "thirty-five whites," characterized by him as a "very select society." Lockwood, in a geography of the State published in 1832, also commended Cedar Spring.
An Official In 1826 the earliest existing statistical survey of Spar- Survey tanburg District was published, in Statistics of South Carolina, prepared by Robert Mills under the authority of the Board of Public Works.
According to the 1820 census the population was 13,655 whites, 3,308 slaves, and 26 free blacks. Twenty-seven paupers were support-
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SPARTAN DISTRICT, 1800-1825
ed by an annual tax of $835. In Mills' statistical tabulations Spar- tanburg District ranked twentieth among the twenty-eight districts in the value of its products, and twenty-third in the amount of taxes paid. The established value of marketable products was $320,000. The taxes paid in 1824 amounted to $4,176.60.
The District contained 672,000 acres of land-50,000 acres under cultivation. The staples produced for home consumption were peas, corn, and oats; and for market, cotton. Iron was the only other marketable product Mills listed, and he pronounced it of an inferior quality not fit to compete in the markets with foreign iron. Mills found in the District "three public and several private distilleries," and doubtless their products were marketable and found ready sales. Cer- tainly "the coarse cottons and woolens manufactured in the District, some for sale," should be included in the list of marketable pro- ducts. Rather lightly, with the comment that "two cotton factories on Tyger do very good business," did Robert Mills pass over what was in truth the most significant industrial enterprise he saw.
Mills condemned the lack of an agricultural society in the Dis- trict, and found agriculture "deplorably deficient," no fertilizer used, and no proper management of timber. He distinguished by special mention Daniel White, Esq., whom he described as an enterprising ex- perimental farmer with vision. Prices of farm products, in 1825, may be compared to present-day prices : Corn brought from 37c to $1 per bushel ; wheat, $1 to $1.25; beef sold at 31/2c per pound. Costs of labor were correspondingly low, wage hands receiving $8 to $10 a month. Board cost $50 to $100 a year.
During the quarter century after 1800, the problem of transpor- tation absorbed much public attention. In 1816 the Spartanburg Grand Jury presented as a grievance the fact "that Tyger and Enoree rivers were not made navigable for boats as well as other rivers, inasmuch as their being made navigable would tend greatly to facilitate the trans- portation of our produce to market, inhance the price of lands, tend to the conveniences of the citizens generally, and the great internal improvements of our State."
Robert Mills, too, was impressed with the belief that Spartanburg suffered because of its distance from markets and lack of facilities for transportation. It had productive soil and a favorable climate ; but despite these advantages little agriculture beyond what was necessary
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A HISTORY OF SPARTANBURG COUNTY
to supply local needs was practicable on account of the cost and diffi- culty of getting crops to market.
In his eagerness to see a network of canals over the entire State, Mills professed to see no reason why the Tygers, the Enoree, and the Pacolet should not be made navigable. He even thought it advisable that Spartanburg plan a system of navigation by way of Lawson's Fork, the Pacolet, and the Broad rivers, to the markets at and below Columbia.
The Map The Atlas which accompanied the Statistics of South
of 1825
Carolina is one of the most valuable sources of infor- mation on the early history of the State. It presents a picture of the development of each of the twenty-eight districts of which it treats that cannot be elsewhere duplicated. Its map of Spartanburg District indicates the quality of the land in different parts of its area ; the loca- tion of natural resources-iron ore, limestone, marble, soapstone ; the location of mills, post offices, taverns, dwellings of important citizens, and churches ; the names and directions of roads, and several points of historic interest. The nine post offices tell their own story, indi- cating the general distribution of population. Nearly fifty mills are shown on the map. It is possible, by checking county court records, to find when the nineteen taverns were licensed, and by whom they were kept. The general distribution of travel may be estimated from their locations. They were thickest on the Buncombe Road, the Blackstock Road, the Georgia Road, and the Rutherfordton Road. Along these roads the traders and drovers passed to and from market.
The roads of the county Mills pronounced "in pretty good re- pair," with the principal river-crossings bridged-six bridges over the Tygers, three over Fairforest, and "several" across South Pacolet. The roads marked Ballenger's Road and Tolleson's Road are signifi- cant. Certain energetic men owned and managed trains of wagons, with which they conducted lucrative transportation enterprises. Such men undertook the maintenance of roads, and were sometimes per- mitted to place toll gates on them to help with the cost of their up- keep. These roads often bore the names of their promoters or sponsors.
Prospects Such is the general picture of the District forty years after its creation-handicapped by its remoteness from markets, but inhabited by enterprising men and women who already had laid the
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SPARTAN DISTRICT, 1800-1825
basis for expansion. The years to follow were to show the evolution of the shabby little courthouse village into a thriving town ; the estab- lishment throughout the District of churches and schools of real im- portance ; the development of the iron industry to such an extent that for many years Spartanburg was to hold first place in the State in the value of manufactured products ; the building of cotton factories which were destined to transcend in importance the iron works. These achievements were, in the decade before the Civil War, to win for the District a place of honor and influence throughout the State.
CHAPTER FIVE The Courthouse Village
Early Citizens and Activities
The indications are that the courthouse village grew very slowly. As late as 1802 John Drayton in his survey of the State included in his list of forty-two villages only two in the Up Country: Greenville and Pinckneyville. He wrote: ". .. a few houses and stores are erected in every district, in the vicinity of the courthouses belonging to the same." A plat showing the "courthouse village of Spartanburgh" of 1802 bears out this ac- count.
The growth of the county's needs soon necessitated a larger public square, and in 1825 H. H. Thomson sold the northeast lot across from Brannon's to the State of South Carolina for $900, and on it was erected the second courthouse. The new jail had already been built on what became known as Jail Street (now Wall Street). There was now more space for the public and private activities of salesday, and for the drovers and traders.
Appearance of the Courthouse Village The traditions of later years delighted to por- tray the young courthouse village as a sort of "Wild West" frontier settlement, to which, on salesdays and court days, men resorted to drink, gamble, fight, and race horses; not a place for establishing a home or rearing a family. No doubt the old men who told some of the tales of those wild days enjoyed shocking their hearers and exaggerated a bit. One tale often repeated was to the effect that in 1793 two young attorneys from Charleston came to Spartanburg to plead a case in court. When bedtime came they were horrified to see from their window what seemed to be hundreds of men fighting and scuffling on the Public Ground by the illumination of pinewood torches. The scene was so barbaric that the next day-the story runs-they placed their affairs in the hands of local attorneys and hastened back to civilization.
For its first fifty years the town of Spartanburgh had a shifting and adventurous population. Well-to-do Spartans of that era showed no aspiration for village life, but acquired extensive tracts of land and mill sites and lived such lives as the country squires enjoyed in the old world. Those first residents of the village were there to operate shops and stores and taverns, or to practice medicine and law; and 54
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THE COURTHOUSE VILLAGE
most of them owned plantations or mills in the county. Few of them built handsome homes in the village.
As an old man, General B. B. Foster, who was born in 1817, re- called the village as being, in his boyhood, hardly more than a cluster of buildings in the backwoods, surrounded by chinquapin thickets and uncleared woodland. It had the "handsome jail" commended by Mills, and a new courthouse; otherwise its buildings were largely of logs or frame structures. Jesse Cleveland's cow pasture extended from the heart of the present city to Wofford College; and what is now Main Street, between Liberty and Pine streets, had but a few scattered houses along it, and was a race-path over which, on public days, men tried out their horses. As late as April 13, 1838, the town council decreed : "Be it ordained by the Intendent and Wardens of the town of Spartanburgh in council assembled that if any person or persons run horses or be engaged in running horse races in any street or public road within the corporate limits of this town, he shall be fined for each and every offense against this ordinance, ten dollars."
General Foster recalled the sight of Jesse Cleveland mounted on the flea-bitten horse which he always rode when he hunted deer or traveled, setting out for Baltimore or Philadelphia to buy goods for his store. He was preceded by a train of wagons and slaves to load and bring home his purchases. Once, about 1812, according to the remi- niscences of a son of his partner, Benson, Jesse Cleveland drove a four-horse wagon to Philadelphia loaded with rabbit skins and gin- seng, and returned at the exact hour set. On this occasion a group of his friends met him at Dick Thomson's Mill (now White's Mill) and celebrated his return in accordance with the custom of the period.
The Second A new courthouse was authorized by the General As- Courthouse sembly in 1825, begun in 1826, and occupied in 1827. It was of whitewashed stone. The lower floor contained offices, and the upper story was devoted to the jury rooms and the court room. In the cornerstone were placed three dimes and a seven-pence, a copy of the "Masonic Mirror," and some other mementos. On the cornerstone a silver tablet, 5x7 inches in size, bore the date 1826. Engraved on this tablet were the names of national and state officials, and of the men who participated in the erection of the court- house. The inscription on the middle column bore local names and read :
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A HISTORY OF SPARTANBURG COUNTY
BUILT BY ACT OF THE ASSEMBLY OF 1825 CORNER STONE LAID IN DUE FORM AND ORDER AT THE RE- QUEST OF THE SPARTANBURG BRETHREN, BY THE WORSHIP- FUL MASTER AND BRETHREN OF LODGE NO. 43 AT UNION, C. H. ON THE 13TH DAY OF SEPTEMBER, IN THE YEAR OF MASONRY, 5826. DOCT. T. M. BRAGG, W. MASTER.
BUILDERS : C. HUMPHREYS, ARCHITECT ; A. BEARD, B. JOHN- SON, JOHN WILBANKS, J. MAYS, W. PERRY, J. J. FULLER, MASTER WORKMEN ; THOMAS POOLE, A. FOSTER, JESSE CLEVE- LAND, COMMISSIONERS OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
Village Statistics According to the survey of Robert Mills the population of the village in 1825 was 800. Possibly Mills wrote the figure 3 and it was mistaken for 8. Even 300 seems a liberal estimate. Mills reported that the village contained 26 houses, including a tailor's shop, a saddler's, 3 stores, and 3 houses of entertainment. The next available statistical account of the village is to be found in a census taken by order of the town council in 1836. David W. Moore, Esq., was the sole "Censor" and he was paid $3 for the job. His report follows : Whites: Total 312-under 10 years 55 males, 46 females ; from 10 to 20 years 48 males, 35 females; from 20 to 50 years 73 males, 42 females; over 50 years, 5 males and 5 females. Blacks : Total 158-under 10 years 31 males, 22 females ; from 10 to 20 years 13 males, 20 females ; from 20 to 50 years 31 males, 32 females ; over 50 years 3 males and 5 females ; ministers of the gospel, 3; doctors, 4; lawyers, 8; merchants, 13; merchants' clerks, 5; students at school, 68; school masters, 2; school mistresses, 1; carpenters, 10; tanners, 2 ; tailors, 10; shoe makers, 5; blacksmiths, 5; tavern keepers, 2; brick masons, 3; tinners, 1; saddlers, 2; carriage makers, 7.
Incorporation of the Village of Spartanburgh "The village of Spartanburgh" was incorporated by a legislative act passed December 17, 1831, with limits extending one mile in every direction from the courthouse. Its charter provided for a town council consisting of an intendant and four wardens to be elected annually on the first Monday in September. These officers had to take prescribed oathis, but received no salaries. Their duties were: to appoint constables, to establish all rules and by-laws and ordinances respecting streets, ways, and markets; to preserve health and order, peace and good government. They were authorized to collect taxes and apply moneys to the corporation, and to impose and use fines. They could apply to
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THE COURTHOUSE VILLAGE
the needs of the town money secured from licensing billiard tables, taverns, and retailers of spirituous liquors. They could regulate the working and improving of the streets and "compound," according to their judgment, with citizens liable for street duty. They could not impose any fine of more than $25; and from any fine of more than $10 a citizen had the right to appeal to the higher court.
The Town The oath of office was administered, June 27, 1832, to Council the first council: Thomas Poole, Intendant; William Trimmier, R. M. Young, James E. Henry, and J. V. Miller, Wardens. For some years the council deemed four regular meetings a year sufficient for attending to the affairs of the village. They met in the office of the clerk of court in the courthouse on the first Saturday in January, April, July, and October ; and on whatever other occasions a meeting might be called. The minutes indicate that they really met whenever they had some business to transact, and not otherwise; and that they were constantly changing the time of meeting. They had various duties, besides those they entrusted to the clerk and treasurer and the marshal. It was their job to try cases of assault and battery, which were surprisingly frequent among the leading citizens, as well as others. They had no jurisdiction over any case for which a penalty of more than $10 seemed indicated, but turned such cases over to the court of sessions. They adopted ordinances fixing patrol duties, road work, the opening, closing, or changing of streets, the licensing of taverns and shows. The minutes are filled during the thirties and early forties with such matters, and contain nothing that indicates any civic interest in education. The council was preoccupied with penaliz- ing drunkenness, promoting road improvement, and regulating the movements of slaves. The earliest expense account recorded in the minutes of the town council was H. H. Thomson's report in 1834. As intendant he received during the year $201.20 and paid out $158.88.
The chief public outlays were for working the roads. Every citizen between the ages of 15 and 50 had to work 12 days on the road each year, or pay a commutation tax of $2 for himself and every male slave he owned. In the course of time practically everybody paid the tax, and the roads were worked by contract. According to the standards of the thirties and even the fifties, a mile of road could be satisfactorily worked for from $15 to $30. The limits were a mile from the courthouse, and the roads were worked that one mile. There the county commissioners took over the job.
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A HISTORY OF SPARTANBURG COUNTY
The intendant and four wardens were not paid for serving the municipality ; but they employed a marshal, who was bonded at $500. He must enforce the laws, preserve order, and report evasions of legal obligations to the council. One of his principal duties was to whip slaves convicted of drunkenness, or other misdemeanors, and for each such service he was paid fifty cents by the owner of the slave. The marshal's income was thus determined by his efficiency. Every citi- zen must take his turn at patrol duty, the village being divided in half, and each division furnishing three patrols. In the thirties a patrol consisted of a captain and four men ; its service lasted one month ; and it had to patrol at least twice a week, and report to the council through its captain. For each failure to patrol, the council fined an offender $1. The marshal received at first $10 a year for tolling the academy bell ten minutes each night, beginning at the stroke of nine. All slaves, un- less provided with "passes," must be at home when it ceased to ring, or the patrol would arrest them and the marshal would cowhide them. Everybody has heard
"Run, nigger, run, de pader-roller'll git yuh ! Won't git me, git dat nigger 'hin' dat tree !"
The barrooms also stopped business at nine, or the patrol or marshal got them. Such was the early police system of the town.
As the village grew, the hazard of fire provided the council with one of its most important problems. One of the first ordinances passed in 1832 required every householder and storekeeper to have a ladder at least fifteen feet long for use in case of fire. A fire alarm called out every citizen with his bucket.
The treasurer served without compensation until 1836, when he was allowed a commission of 5 per cent on all moneys handled by him. It is noteworthy that Joseph M. Elford was elected town clerk and treasurer in 1856 and served without a break for 51 years-a record never even approached by any other public servant in the history of the city.
In September, 1838, James E. Henry became the first Town Solicitor-at what remuneration is not clear, but later Simpson Bobo was granted tax exemptions in return for the service. About that time the council met oftener, usually in Henry and Bobo's office.
The First Churches The first organized congregation in the court-
in the Village house village, the Baptists, arranged for the Reverend J. G. Landrum to preach to them regularly. This group
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THE COURTHOUSE VILLAGE
was officially "constituted" in 1839 by a Presbytery consisting of Reverends Samuel Gibson, Elias Rogers, and J. G. Landrum. The Baptists erected their first building on the site now occupied by the county jail, Richard Thomson having deeded for the purpose six- tenths of an acre of ground to John W. Lewis, August 19, 1836, "in trust for the use and in behalf of the Baptist denomination of Chris- tians, attached to the Tyger River Association." The consideration was $300, and Thomson remitted $200 as a gift.
Meanwhile the Methodist Society had been organized into a station of the Spartanburg Circuit of the Lincolnton District; in 1836 this group, which seems to have been meeting regularly for prayer-meet- ings in the home of Miss Elizabeth Wright, "the first Methodist in Spartanburg," built the first church in Spartanburg. Nearly $1,200 was raised for the erection of this church, largely through the in- strumentality of the Reverend Thomas Hutchings, one of the most versatile characters in the early history of the county, active equally in church work and cotton factory promotion. He obtained gifts from Charleston and Savannah and elsewhere. A flimsy little weather- boarded structure was erected on land deeded by George Jones, one of the charter members. The site on which this first building stood has been used by the congregation ever since, and is today occupied by Central Methodist Church, on North Church Street. Major A. H. Kirby, one of the leading citizens of a later day, in his old age, re- called the village as he remembered it from his boyhood. He moved to Spartanburg in 1837, when he was eight years old, and one of his most vivid impressions was his first view of the steeple of the Metho- dist Church-which he was later to join. It was the first church he had seen with a steeple. Although it was painted, it had neither ceil- ing nor plastering, and its pews were but rough benches. It had a high box pulpit, in which the minister was almost invisible when seated.
There was no organized Presbyterian congregation in the village before 1843. However, in the early thirties, the Reverend Michael Dickson, the Reverend Zelotes Lee Holmes, and others, preached at intervals in the courthouse; and for several years before 1839 the Reverend J. L. Boggs sometimes held preaching services. Assisted by his wife and daughters and the teachers in the Seminary, he made it a practice to hold Sunday Schools.
The Presbyterian Church of Spartanburg village was organized
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A HISTORY OF SPARTANBURG COUNTY
on the fifth Sunday in August, 1843, the Reverend S. B. Lewers offici- ating. The first elders were T. B. Collins and A. C. Jackson. Within a few months Samuel Farrow was added to this number. There were only eight charter members, but the church grew; and, June 5, 1844, a contract was signed for the erection of a church building to cost $1,820. The parties to this contract were: John Poole, J. C. Judd, and T. O. P. Vernon, Trustees Presbyterian Church Spartanburg Village, and Thomas L. Badget. The specifications called for the use of the best hard-burned brick, "the front to be finished with pressed brick," and for a porch "ten feet in the clear, and four brick columns to support the roof." The dimensions were 62 feet 4 inches in length, 42 feet 4 inches in width, 20 feet from floor to ceiling. This building was erected in a grove of oak trees on the north side of East Main Street between Liberty and Converse streets, on a tract purchased from Richard Thomson.
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