The final target for the day was much better documented, though less of it remains. The ghost town of Totness was a resort town established in the late 1700s but ultimately destroyed by Sherman’s troops in the Civil War. Because it was frequented by white plantation owners its name appears in the newspapers, as opposed to the black congregation of Mount Nebo. Totness was incorporated as a town in 1850, but it never had a post office.
I found a timeline of Calhoun County history in a 1983 edition of the Orangeburg Times and Democrat. It gives the following dates for Totness.
- 1830 – Summer village of Totness prospers
- 1850 – Totness incorporated
- 1865 – Sherman’s Invasion, Yankees burn Totness and many other homes, Confederate Calvary attack Union troops encamped near Savannah Hunt Creek
According to the timeline Totness predates Fort Motte as a town. On a side note, this article also lists 1866 as “‘Reconstruction’ evils beginning”. I found the language odd for a paper as late as 1983.
Totness shows up on several early maps, including Robert Mills’s 1825 Atlas map of Orangeburgh District.

Another map shows Totness in relation to colonial land grants nearby. This is actually a somewhat modern map compiled from early maps.

The name also shows up on an 1845 Morse map of South Carolina.

A hundred years later a 1948 USGS map of the St. Matthews quadrangle also shows Totness.

Totness was never a large settlement. It wasn’t on any of the main transportation routes. Its main appeal was that it was on a higher bluff away from the Congaree, which meant away from mosquitoes and malaria. A 1986 Times and Democrat article quoted several family histories that described the village.
…a “bathing house’ had been built into which troughs brought icy spring water. At certain hours the ladies and children took over the bath house, and here many children received their first swimming lessons… Totness was built only for comfort and coolness.” There were “over-hanging roofs and broad piazzas to ward off the fierce rays of the sun.”
The land had been bought by several gentlemen and only relatives and descendants could live there…. In addition to the bathhouses, there were 10-pin alleys available…. No vegetables were planted but twice weekly a four-horse wagon would arrive “loaded with fruit, vegetables, butter, chickens, etc. — enough for a dozen families.
So it truly was a resort for rich plantation owners. The aforementioned family histories also mentioned that “servants”, ie African American slaves, attended to the families in attendance. A 1937 article from The State newspaper mentions a nearby gold mine.
The spring water was considered most healthful as a tonic and also there was a swimming pool by the spring that was used by the health seekers who proclaimed the waters had healing properties.

The same article says that the spring flowed through a cannon barrel that supposedly was a captured British cannon.
The village became known for its race track for horse racing. Eventually there was a hotel, a small Episcopal chapel, and even a school known as Totness Academy. I found several old newspaper announcements about the opening of the school, such as this one in The Charleston Mercury from 1834.

I was unable to find any other information about the hotel, the church, or the school. In 1865 Sherman’s troops came through and burned the village, including these institutions. The village never recovered and was never rebuilt.
I found the location for Totness marked in my GPS. From the road there were a few rural homes, but no indication of the former resort village. A sign had been erected commemorating the existence of the village from 1775 to 1865.

A couple of miles from Totness are several cabins tentatively identified as the Totness Cabins. This is actually where I first came across the name of the village. We drove around to these and found them as described. These were simple structures that may have housed a tenant farmer or have been outbuildings for one of the larger plantations.



Not much is known about these, but they seem to be the only physical remnants of the time Totness may have been active.
It was getting late in the afternoon. We drove Dwight back to his house, then Alan and I made the trek back to Greenville. It had been an excellent MLK Day ramble and we were happy to have found some new places. More important than these discoveries, though, was just a day spent with two good friends.
It’s funny to me that I’ve tracked your blog enough that last Monday, I actually wondered where you were exploring on that MLK day. Looks like a successful excursion.