USA > South Carolina > Spartanburg County > A history of Spartanburg county > Part 6
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The Building of Schools The first mention of a school in the village is found in a deed of "June 31," 1829, for thirty-two acres of ground "near the village of Spartanburg on the road leading from the courthouse to McKie's old mill." This tract of land was conveyed in trust by Robert Goldthwaite to Elisha Bomar, James E. Henry, George Jones, Jesse Cleveland, James Hunt, Thomas Poole, William Trimmier, Willson Nesbitt, Andrew B. Moore, John Crawford, Rob- ert M. Young, Simpson Bobo, and Lewis Hunter, trustees of the Spar- tanburg Village Academy. The stipulation was made that as soon as practical these trustees should erect on it "a suitable building for an academy." Goldthwaite was paid $150 cash for this land. Probably no building was erected, for records show that, January 8, 1835, James E. Henry, in consideration of $1, conveyed to the trustees of the Spartanburg Male Academy of Spartanburg District, ground "on which the brick academy is now located." No records exist to prove when this building was constructed, but the site was not on the Goldth- waite tract, but on a location now intersected by Henry Street, be- tween Union and Kennedy streets. The building had one story and in dimension it measured 30x50 feet. It was divided into two rooms with a ten-foot hall separating them, and was shaded by stately oaks. The trustees in 1835 were: Simpson Bobo, Jesse Cleveland, William W. Harris, William Walker, Robert M. Young, James Hunt, George Jones, Sr., Elisha Bomar, Thomas Poole, Wilson Nesbitt, A. B. Moore, John Crawford, and John W. Lewis. The Male Academy
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had numbers of boarding pupils from other parts of the State. Its teachers included graduates of high-grade colleges-notably W. M. Irwin, of Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
The Female Seminary was founded at about the same time, and with the same motives as the Male Academy. It was established by subscription, the largest amount pledged being $150, and the total amounting to $1,300. The subscribers were: H. J. Dean, George Jones, E. Bomar, W. Walker, W. W. Harris, W. T. Jones, Jesse Cleveland, James E. Henry, R. M. Young, E. F. Smith, G. B. Brim, John Boggs.
October 5, 1835, Hosea J. Dean and Simpson Bobo sold to the trustees for $1,300 the dwelling of Dean and five acres of ground on the northwest corner of East Main and Dean streets, the present-day site of the First Baptist church. The school had a portico supported by two large columns, and was surmounted by a small belfry. A walk, bordered with jonquils, led to the front gate, and a lombardy poplar grew beside the gate. The house was "quite pretentious for a town no larger than Spartanburg." The Reverend John Boggs and his family conducted this school for four years.
Miss Phoebe Paine and Her Methods
In 1839 the trustees secured for the Female Seminary Miss Phoebe Paine, a native of Port- land, Me., and a graduate of Miss Willard's Seminary. She brought accomplished assistants with her, and under her tutelage the school reached its zenith. A twelve-year-old girl from Charleston, Eugenia C. Murrell, entered the preparatory department of this Seminary in 1839. This pupil became, in her turn, an educational leader in Cali- fornia-founding the Poston School; and, after her death, the Eu- genia Poston Club published a memorial volume in her honor contain- ing a tribute she paid to Miss Phoebe Paine: "I have never known a system better adapted to form character, to develop the crude girl into the efficient, loyal woman, than that followed in this institution." The sort of education and stimulus given here one hundred years ago to Eugenia Murrell Poston was described by her to the Poston School pupils as follows :
The system adopted in our school in California was based upon Miss Paine's, of which the principal features were the daily open- ing of the school with Bible reading and the Lord's Prayer; the respect shown by the teachers to students, consulting with them on matters of general interest to the school; the encouragement of a
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feeling of class loyalty, an altruistic, "Help one another spirit" among them; thorough teaching in elementary branches, drawing maps, etc .; provision for healthful play as well as for study, botany in the woods and on the hillsides, astronomy under star-lit skies; May-day festivals; Friday evening gatherings, at which a "Class Paper" was read once a month. In introducing each feature into our school, I had the advantage of a practical knowledge of its effects upon the girls twenty years before. And girls are girls, whether living in the first or last half of the nineteenth century.
You see here what the influence of a teacher is ; how it is trans- mitted from one generation to another. If you have derived any benefit from the Poston School, such benefit is largely due to Miss Paine-a teacher whom you never saw.
A Journey from Washington to Spartanburg Mary Owen, a young woman not quite seventeen years old, had been a pupil of Miss Phoebe Paine in Carlisle. Miss Paine visited the Owen family, in the city of Washington, and persuaded this favorite pupil to ac- company her to Spartanburg as an assistant teacher. On the morn- ing of February 28, 1839, Miss Paine, Mary Owen, and another as- sistant, Miss Webb, left Washington for Spartanburg-a distance of 500 miles. Mary Owen's account of her journey is recorded in her diary, and it exemplifies how remote Spartanburg was. These three gently reared women traveled day and night by steamboat, train, and stagecoach, reaching Spartanburg late in the afternoon of March 6. Some of the roads were snow-covered; others rutted and muddy, so that the stage passengers had to walk to lighten the load for the horses. At junction points they built fires in the open and huddled about them to get warm.
In her diary Miss Owen wrote: "The four days and nights from the time of reaching the terminus of the railroad until we reached Union, S. C., seemed like a phantasm-a horrid dream. During that time we never saw a bed or stopped a moment except to dine, breakfast, or sup. During much of the time Miss Paine and Miss Webb slept. ... I never slept."
If the writer had not been properly dressed for a journey she would have suffered more. She wore a heavy coat, over that a fur cape, and fur-lined shoes. A close-fitting lace cap kept her hair smooth, and a quilted black satin hood protected her head and neck against the cold. She carried an "immense muff."
Such was the most convenient mode of travel in the thirties and forties. Two of the brave women who endured the hardships of this
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journey married local citizens. Mary Owen became Mrs. Hosea Dean and Miss Webb married Dr. R. M. Daniel. Both have many descendants in the county.
Growth and The "handsome jail of soapstone and granite," the Improvement presumably more handsome second courthouse, the churches, and the schools, all transformed the village. During the years following its incorporation the town continued to grow stead- ily, although not spectacularly. In 1843 the council granted leave to citizens on Main Street, "toward Bomar's and Gillespie's," to lay off sidewalks four feet wide. At a meeting of the council, February 24, 1837, "it was ordered and ratified that the Clerk be required to call on one good surveyor and have the town surveyed and have a platt made of the same, showing the location, breadth, etc., of all the roads, streets and alleys within the incorporate limits Council ordered that Daniel White be employed as Surveyor." This plat, if made, has disappeared. October 2, 1838, council ordered a well dug "in the center of the Public Square." Presumably, up to this time, the spring and its branch had sufficed.
First
The town had its first newspaper in 1842, the Spartan-
Newspapers burg Journal, founded by Asa Muir. This paper con- tinued little longer than a year, but was soon followed by the Spartan, founded March 1, 1843, by Z. D. Cottrell, who came to Spartanburg from Edgefield to teach school. This weekly paper had a very cred- itable history ; it was alert in advertising the advantages of Spartan- burg, and in attempting to shape and inform public opinion; and it has preserved for posterity the most detailed picture of the town- its history and growth-in existence today.
Inns Before During the forties the Mansion House, owned by R. C. 1850 Poole, was "carried on by part of his own family in plain decent Style." It accommodated travelers and boarders at "the regular County Tavern prices." Poole especially solicited the pat- ronage of stock drovers, providing suitable lots for wagons and shelter for horses, free except at "public times," and selling corn and fodder at the lowest prices.
The Mansion House stood on the square, and was the commercial hotel of its day. The Walker House stood about where the Franklin Hotel now stands, and was especially commended to summer visitors ; for in the forties the people of the lower part of the State began to
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find in the climate of Spartanburg a delightful change in summer. Among the notables who patronized it was the family of William Gilmore Simms. Thomson's Spring, a mile and a half east of town, was a tempting objective for a walk or a buggy ride or a picnic.
Trade and The stores did much business by barter, and advertised Barter for sale lard, mountain cheese, wool, feathers, and tallow, as well as silks, leghorn straw, hoop-skirts, and other luxuries brought from the markets by enterprising local merchants. Merchants of Columbia and Charleston advertised in the columns of the Spartan; and its editor boasted that the paper served a territory which included Spartanburg and Union, and large parts of Laurensville, Greenville, and York districts, and the adjacent counties in North Carolina, and that Spartanburg was a trading center for large areas of Tennessee and Georgia.
Conventions Conventions were great occasions in the old times. In ante-bellum days private entertainment was provided locally for all delegates. In 1843 the town, although it had a population of less than 1,000, entertained the State Temperance Convention for three days- August 2-4. Dr. Landrum, writing about 1890, characterized this convention as "probably the largest body from various Districts in the State that had ever assembled in the present City of Spartan- burg." Three hundred twenty-seven delegates attended, from all parts of South Carolina, and from Henderson County and Davidson College in North Carolina. The public programs were given in the grove near the Walker House. The Spartanburg Village Washington Society erected the stand and seats. Spartanburg District had at this time twenty-four organizations.
In 1848 the Methodists entertained the Annual Conference. This appears to have been the second State-wide gathering held in Spar- tanburg. Every home shared in the pleasure and benefit of both these meetings, for every citizen kept open house on such occasions and every bed was made available, not merely in the town but in all com- munities within easy driving distance.
Court The social life of the village rose to its highest level on such Week occasions as "Court Week," which periodically brought to the town a group of the State's leading lawyers. B. F. Perry entertain- ingly described the lawyers' mode of travel from one court to another in the horse and buggy days. Usually they rode in light carriages or
GLENN SPRINGS HOTEL, BUILT IN 1836
THE WALKER HOUSE, LATER THE PIEDMONT HOUSE, BUILT IN THE EARLY FORTIES, BURNED IN 1882
FRES
THE PALMETTO HOUSE
In the early days, a sloping lawn surrounded the Palmetto House, extending to the Public Ground. On gala occasions, such as military or circus parades and public speakings, the balconies were reserved for the ladies. During Court Week this inn was the headquarters for visiting lawyers and the scene of an annual dinner to the presiding judge. In it gay May Day parties were held, and railroad banquets. It was the scene in April 1856, of a "Social Party" given by Spartans in honor of the visiting Washington Light Infantry of Charleston. It was the scene in January 1880 of the "First Leap Year Sociable of Spartanburg." This picture was made in the '80's when Becker's Oyster Saloon and Ice Cream Parlor was the social center of the city. The old inn was replaced in the early '90's with the Palmetto Building erected by the Duncan Syndicate, at North Church and East Main Streets.
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buggies, sometimes horseback, and carried lunch baskets. At the noon hour they stopped at some attractive spot on the roadside where there was a spring, unhitched their horses, and rested for an hour or so. When it was possible to do so, they planned their itinerary so as to stop in the middle of the day at an inn. Some of Perry's letters to his wife, during such trips, amusingly pictured his experiences. Repeatedly he told her how much enjoyment her gingerbread and pound cake afforded his friends, and how quickly they were consumed.
As the lawyers thus journeyed together they formed warm friend- ships, which led to interchanges of visits among their families. The circuit court system thus rendered an important service in establish- ing and strengthening social bonds which knit the courthouse towns together and promoted homogeneity within the State.
CHAPTER SIX The Old Iron District
The Old Iron District
Public speakers and newspapers began, during the thirties, to call Spartanburg The Old Iron District- a merited appellation, for the first iron works in the State were erected in it, on Lawson's Fork, in 1773 ; and forges and small furnaces were operated at several places in it, during the years immediately follow- ing the Revolution. On branches of Tyger River Michael Miller, Samuel Nesbitt, William and Solliman Hill, and the Galbraiths had forges. William and Sanford Smith had a forge on Dutchman's Creek, and were famed gunsmiths. William Clark and William Poole operated on branches of the Pacolet River. But the organiza- tion of two strong companies, in the early thirties, established the preeminence of Spartanburg in iron production. In 1856 Spartan- burg had four of the eight important furnaces in the State.
Extent and Location of Iron Area
Iron ores, limestone, forests, and water power were the essentials of iron production ; and all of these occurred close together in that section of the county which justified calling it "The Old Iron District." As a matter of fact, York was, almost equally with Spartanburg, entitled to the appel- lation. The heart of the iron beds lay within the area on each side of Broad River between the North Carolina line and Smith's Ford. Within the iron district lay a part of Union County, prac- tically all of Cherokee, a small strip of the present-day Spartan- burg, and a wide strip of York. The ores were of several varieties. In the same area were quantities of limestone for fluxing, quartz rocks and beds of fire clay for furnace-building, as well as extensive forests to furnish charcoal; and all these in combination furnished a basis for a great industry. Added to these advantages was the situa- tion on the Broad River and its tributaries, which supplied unlimited water power for operating machinery, and supplied a means for trans- porting the product to market.
Magnetic and specular ores in inexhaustible quantities were found on the west slope of Kings Mountain, extending into York, Union, and Spartanburg. The magnetic ore was commonly called "gray" ore, and made the best iron for bar iron or castings ; the hematite ore was commonly called "brown" ore, and, although somewhat inferior
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in quality, was more abundant and cheaper. It was made usually into pig iron. The ore was not mined, but was dug from the sur- face.
Wofford's In 1773 Joseph Buffington, iron master, erected Iron Works a bloomery on Lawson's Fork because he found there water power, iron ore, and abundant forest lands-all necessary to iron production. He also met with encouragement from the in- habitants, who were glad to be able to buy pots and pans and farm implements at home, and equally glad to find a cash market for their wood. Almost every farmer had a pit for burning charcoal to sell at the iron works.
The lands Buffington bought and leased for his plant lay in the region claimed by North and South Carolina before the running of the boundary line in 1772, and he had much trouble about his titles, for William Wofford had established his claim to the iron works tract on the basis of North Carolina grants. Buffington apparently operated with borrowed capital, and soon lost control of the iron works, which became known as Wofford's Iron Works, and kept that name in popular speech until burned by Bloody Bill Cunningham in November 1781. After that it was for a time called the "old iron works."
In 1776 Buffington borrowed more than 6,000 pounds from the State to complete his plant. William Henry Drayton and many local patriots of influence endorsed his request for this loan, because they knew that iron goods were necessary to the conduct of war. It is noteworthy that, at this and other iron works built later in Spartan District, weapons and ammunition were manufactured for use in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the War Between the States.
In 1778 William Wofford sold a three-fourths interest in the iron works built by Buffington to Simon and John Berwick and Charles Elliott of Charles Town, and for a brief time the name "Berwick's Iron Works" was used. The record of when the works were rebuilt and how Buffington regained control of the plant has not been found, but in 1785 an act of the legislature ordered the sale of Buffington's Iron Works, to satisfy the unpaid debt on them. Possibly at this sale William Poole acquired the works, for there can be little doubt that this same site (which is today Glendale) was that of Poole's Iron Works.
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Expansion of the Iron Industry: Graham and Black The two largest of the iron manufacturing com- panies were developed from the furnaces of two men-Moses Stroup and Willson Nesbitt. Nes- bitt was operating furnaces before Stroup, but the company which bought and developed Stroup's little furnaces into a great enterprise was organized before Nesbitt's company.
Moses Stroup built his first furnaces on Kings Creek in 1822, and two years later he built a forge on the Broad River. He sold his fur- naces two years after that to a company of well-to-do men, who or- ganized, under the leadership of Emor Graham, the corporation called E. Graham and Company. Associated with Graham were James A. Black, Jacob Deal, P. R. Brice, and David Johnson. The town of Blacksburg was named for James Black. In 1832 these men deter- mined to get a charter from the legislature, to enlarge their capital, and to change the name of their company and call it the South Caro- lina Manufacturing Company. Four years after that, they did the same thing again, this time capitalizing their company at what was a large sum for the time, $200,000, and changing their name to the Kings Mountain Iron Manufacturing Company. They built much larger furnaces and enlarged operations by building a rolling mill, as well as puddling furnaces, blast furnaces, and forges. They bought thousands of acres of land and more than a hundred slaves. They not only built iron works, but also cotton gins, sawmills, dwellings for the operatives and slaves. They owned many horses, mules, cows, and pigs, and operated company stores at their different plants.
Willson Nesbitt was operating a furnace and a
Willson Nesbitt's Operations forge near the Cowpens battleground and the Limestone Springs as early as 1811. When he saw the enterprises of Graham and Black and their associates, he determined to form a com- pany and enlarge his operations as these men were doing. So, in 1835, the Nesbitt Iron Manufacturing Company was chartered by the legislature, with a capital stock of $100,000. Willson Nesbitt, Wade Hampton, and Franklin H. Elmore were the chief stock- holders. They were three of the wealthiest men in the State, and had good credit with the State Bank. They borrowed money from it and began to enlarge their plant to rival that of the Kings Mountain Com- pany. They bought many slaves, thousands of acres of land, and costly new machinery.
One of the most interesting things they did was to build a wooden
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railroad from their furnace on the side of Thicketty Mountain to a point five miles away. In the furnace they made pig iron, which was then loaded into wagons on the wooden tramway. These wagons were drawn by mules which were so well trained that some of them could make the trip to the end of the wooden road without a driver. From the end of this road the wagons were drawn over a dirt road several more miles to the plant at Hurricane Shoals-the site today of Clifton Mill Number One. At this place the company had a puddling furnace, a foundry, and a rolling mill. The pig iron was again cooked in the puddling furnace and made into great balls of iron of a better quality than the pig iron. These balls were then melted or hammered and were used to make all sorts of tools and household implements, or were sent on to the rolling mill where they were rolled into sheet iron, or made into tacks, nails, wire, and the like.
Difficulties and But all the time both of these companies were hav-
Reorganizations ing financial difficulties. The Nesbitt Company especially had trouble because it had arranged to borrow from the Bank of the State a large sum of money, and, with the promise of this money, bought more than it was able to pay for without the loan. When in 1837 there was a financial panic, the Bank found itself unable to make the promised loans. In spite of getting some govern- ment orders for cannon balls and other supplies for the use of the Army and Navy, both companies had a hard time.
Besides money troubles, the problem of fuel, as the years passed, proved a troublesome one to all of the iron makers. They kept cutting down the trees and burning them into charcoal without planning care- fully for new growth. Even though farmers brought in charcoal by the wagonload, yet the supply was not sufficient, and prices went up on it so as to reduce the profits. One of the iron makers begged the legislature to push the building of railroads and the clearing of rivers so as to enable manufacturers to buy mineral coal and charcoal from other parts of the country.
Finally, in 1850, the Nesbitt Iron Company was sold in bankruptcy proceedings. It was bought by a company who reorganized it under a new name, The Swedish Iron Manufacturing Company. When it was sold, its inventory showed that the company had more than 10,000 acres of land valued at about $15,000; improvements, which included dwellings, buildings and machinery, valued at $75,000; 105 slaves valued at more than $100,000; and stock and supplies valued at
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about $8,000. Some of the stockholders brought a suit under a re- newed charter of the South Carolina Manufacturing Company, by which they were able to regain control of most of the Nesbitt proper- ties which had been put into the company. This South Carolina Manufacturing Company continued to operate until after the War Between the States.
The Swedish Company did not prosper, and the foreigners who operated it withdrew, chiefly because of the scarcity of fuel. They tried to mine by sinking shafts to obtain better ore, but did not find this practice profitable. Soon the Swedish Company broke up, and in 1863 its properties were bought and it was reorganized as the Magnetic Iron Company. If the war had not created a greatly in- creased market for its products, this reorganized company might also have had to close. But, as things turned out, every one of the struggling iron works had more orders than they could fill, from the Confederate government. They made shot, shell, cannon balls, tools, and all sorts of special equipment. The cupola furnace at Bivings- ville, which was one of the smaller plants, made bowie knives for Confederate soldiers.
The iron industry, which was so invaluable to the
Collapse of the Iron Industry Confederate cause, was one of the casualties of the war. The abolition of slavery destroyed fully half of the invested capital, for all of the companies owned slaves who were skilled artisans. The iron masters had been paid by the Confederate govern- ment in bonds which the outcome of the war rendered valueless. Their machinery had been worn out by four years of pressure production. The charcoal supply was rapidly diminishing. After the war there was no immediate market for iron goods because not many of the farmers and mill owners who would have been glad to be purchasers had anything with which to pay for new equipment.
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