Tag: history

Rambling through Greenwood

Posted on By Tom 1 Comment on Rambling through Greenwood
Photography, Rambling

Dino Cafe Sign

I got a note from fellow explorer Mark Elbrecht the other day mentioning that they were offering tours of Cokesbury College as part of Greenwood’s Festival of Flowers. Mark was able to do the tour on Saturday, but I was off paddling Parr Shoals. My brother Houston was in town, so we stopped by to pick up my sister Glynda and headed down toward Greenwood.

The route from Gray Court to Greenwood cuts across the Laurens County countryside. Southwest of Hickory Tavern we found ourselves at Boyds Mill Pond, an impoundment on the Reed River with a small hydroelectric plant. We stopped to take a few photos.

Boyds Mill Pond Jun 24, 2012 11-039Boyds Mill Pond Jun 24, 2012 11-036

The river below the dam has several fishing access spots. One point looked like it would be an excellent place to launch a kayak, but it was very trashy. There were several folks fly-fishing downstream.

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Searching for Coopersville

Posted on By Tom 3 Comments on Searching for Coopersville
History and Genealogy, Local, Photography, Rambling

Cherokee Ford on the Broad River

About a month ago SCETV was airing an episode of Palmetto Places on Gaffney, South Carolina. I caught the tail end of a segment about the Coopersville Iron Works. I didn’t catch much of the segment, but heard enough to know that it should be a target for one of my ghost town hunts. It sounded like it would be a perfect rambling trip for this week’s Friday off.

Coopersville was one of a series of Civil War era iron furnace operations in Cherokee County. In addition to this complex, there were furnaces near Cowpens and Thicketty Mountain. Coopersville was the largest, with several factories, a post office and some stores. All of these historic iron works are on private property, and finding information about the actual location proved to be a challenge. The National Register nomination form for Coopersville was severely redacted so that no addresses were visible. Even beyond that, the name “Coopersville” didn’t show up on any GNIS listings, or on any other lists of towns that I had, historic or otherwise.

After several conversations on Google+ with my history exploring friends, Mark Elbrecht pointed me in the direction of an archeological survey done in the 1980s prior to the construction of electrical transmission lines. It contained several maps which were not redacted. I used that map as basis for my ramblings.

Predictive Modeling: An Archeolgical Assessment of Duke Power Company's Proposed Cherokee Transmission Lines

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The Unknown Tongue

Posted on By Tom 1 Comment on The Unknown Tongue
Family, History and Genealogy, Religion

Speaking in Tongs

A weird chain of events led to an interesting investigation into history tangentially related to my family. This morning I participated in a webinar on the South Carolina Digital Newspaper Program, sponsored, in part, by the University of South Carolina Libraries. One of the presenters mentioned the possibility of doing genealogy research using the archive. I decided to try a few search terms associated with my family history to see what I found. I actually didn’t find much about my family, but I did find another tale, full of conflict, misunderstandings, racism, and corruption.

The newspaper archives are hosted on the Library of Congress website as part of their Chronicling America series. The newspapers cover all states from 1836 – 1922. Any family search would have to be within those target dates.

I decided to start with my grandfather, Rev. O. E. Taylor, since he would fit within the tail end of that time frame. I restricted my search to issues of the Laurens Advertiser. Unfortunately, his name didn’t return any hits, even when I expanded it to all newspapers in the state. It did return a Rev. E. O. Taylor, who was an episcopal bishop in the state at the same time.

I changed tactics and started searching for churches where I knew my grandfather had preached, and there I hit pay dirt. The first term I tried was “Long Branch.” I grew up in Long Branch Pentecostal Church, which was founded by my grandfather and which my father later pastored. My grandmother taught at Long Branch School, and I have lots of other relatives in the area. The term returned several hits in The Laurens Advertiser, almost all of them relating to an issue of religion being taught at the public Long Branch School.

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Kingville, Kingsville

Posted on By Tom 22 Comments on Kingville, Kingsville
Geocaching and Maps, History and Genealogy

Kingville Station

I came upon Kingville quite by accident. I was looking for information on another ghost town in Google Earth when I spotted this name near the confluence of the Congaree and Wateree Rivers. When I zoomed in a bit further I saw that the the place indicated by the name was all wooded – there was no town there. Street View also showed just a wooded area, and not enough buildings to even justify keeping this as a place name. This intrigued me, so I did a bit of research, and it turned out to be an interesting ghost town location itself.

Kingville Google Earth

According to information on the Kingville Historical Foundation’s website, the town got it’s start in 1842 when a spur railroad line from Aiken was completed to Columbia. I checked Robert Mill’s 1825 atlas of the area, and the name Kingville does not appear. In 1850 a branch line was completed to Camden, and the town began to grow because it was now located at the juncture of two major railroad lines.

Research on the town was initially confusing. According to the historical marker for the site…

Kingville is thought to be named for its status as “king” of the railroad line between Charleston and Columbia and between Columbia and Camden.

However, the town was first called “Kingsville” with an “s”. For awhile I wasn’t sure if I was finding information on the same town. For example, this is an excerpt from an 1870 map of the Port Royal railroad in the southern states. It clearly shows the spelling with an “s”. The town’s name on this map makes it look almost as big as Columbia, but this is deceptive. Since this was a railroad map, the emphasis was on major junctions, rather than the actual towns.

Kingville_1870

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McCormick County Photo Trek

Posted on By Tom 14 Comments on McCormick County Photo Trek
Family, History and Genealogy, Photography

Mount Carmel Presbyterian Lomo

Houston and I had a day off in common, so it was time for one of our mid-winter photo treks. I really like exploring the area south of Abbeville, McCormick, and Edgefield. That part of the state is rather remote and rich in history, including our family history. Even though we’ve been down that way several times, I never seem to cover all of it, so it was ripe as another target.

Our exploration group was larger than usual. In addition to the two of us, Houston’s wife, Lynda, was coming along, as was our sister Glynda. The plan was to meet Houston and Lynda Sunday morning in the parking lot of Calhoun Falls Pentecostal Holiness Church. From there we would head south and see what we would find. Our route would take us past paddling venues, ghost towns, fire towers, and several important genealogy spots. It had the makings of a perfect day.

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Spirits of Springwood

Posted on By Tom 3 Comments on Spirits of Springwood
History and Genealogy, Local, Photography

Spirits of Springwood-31

This past Sunday Laura and went on the Spirits of Springwood Tour sponsored by the Upcountry History Museum. Springwood Cemetery features many historic graves and lots of interesting headstones and carvings. I’ve visited many times on photo walks, but thought it would be interesting to get an “official” tour.

There were two tours scheduled – one starting at 5:00 pm and one at 6:45 pm.  I initially wanted to do the 5:00 pm tour because the lighting would be so much better for photography.  However, Laura convinced me that the 6:45 tour with flashlights would be fun, and that this wasn’t really a photography tour.

Photography tour or not, I came prepared.  I had my DSLR with a 50mm f/1.8 lens, my trusty Nikon S70 sidearm, and the little infrared point-and-shoot I’d used on our Blue Ghost excursion.  I knew a tripod wouldn’t be appropriate for a tour, so I brought cameras that would work well (mostly) in low-light situations.

As usual, we arrived early. I took advantage of the waning afternoon light to take a few photos.

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Union County Photo Trek

Posted on By Tom 3 Comments on Union County Photo Trek
History and Genealogy, Local, Photography

Pinckneyville Panorama

It started with a cryptic e-mail which began as follows:

Hello Tom,
I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but I do know about your fascination with ghost towns.

Mark Elbrecht had contacted me through this website, and he had a proposal. Mark is a fellow Flickr photographer, and it seems that he and I have similar interests as far as subject matter is concerned. He had arranged to meet with a representative of the Union Historical Society and get access to the Pinckneyville site, a ghost town I’ve been wanting to visit for quite some time, and he invited me to come along. There was absolutely no way I was going to pass up this opportunity.

Union

My brother Houston joined me, and this past Saturday we made the trek from Greenville to Union to join up with the group. We arrived a bit early, so we wandered the main street of Union and took a few photos of the architecture, including the spectacular court house…

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