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Freshwater Coast Region
The Four Counties of The Freshwater Coast
Greenwood County |
Abbeville County | Edgefield County |
McCormick County
Greenwood County: A Historical Sketch
The political subdivision known as Greenwood County was created
from portions of Abbeville and Edgefield counties in 1897, more
than a hundred years after South Carolina began the county-making
process. Thus, Greenwood may legitimately claim a share in the history
of both older counties,
Before the arrival of the first Spanish adventurers in South Carolina
in the sixteenth century, the area that became Greenwood County
teemed with aboriginal inhabitants. These people, about whom we
know very little except that they were a mix of several Indian tribes
when the first white men encountered them, delighted in the great
forests, broad undulating hills, numerous valleys, and hundreds
of waterways. Living was easy for these nomadic hunters; fish and
wild game of great variety provided abundant food and the mild climate
insured few starving times. The various groups were often at war
with each other, however, and always in search of safer hunting
lands.
Itinerant Indian traders, cattle drovers and hunters passed through
the region and camped along the Cherokee Path, the most direct route
from the Cherokee towns to Charleston. The first permanent European
settlers were Scotch-Irish immigrants who poured southward from
Pennsylvania into the Saluda River Valley. The region grew in importance
because of trade with the Cherokee and Creek villages and the increasing
demand for fertile land. The first land grant within Greenwood County
was recorded in 1736 and an expanding European population followed
soon after.
A planter and merchant named Robert Gouedy was one of the earliest
settlers in the county. His plantation at Ninety Six was an important
staging area during the French and Indian War. The unusual numerical
place name, Ninety Six, is generally believed to refer to the distance
from Keowee, a principal town of the Cherokees. In 1769, Ninety
Six became one of seven judicial centers established by the Commons
House of Assembly. It was the courthouse town for a district that
embraced parts of fourteen modern counties in the upstate.
During the American Revolution, Ninety Six was the location of
the first battle in the South (November 19-22, 1775) as well as
the strategic objective of a dramatic 28-day siege when the Quaker
general Nathanael Greene attempted without success to capture the
fort in the spring of 1781. Now a national park, the Ninety Six
National Historic Site contains archaeological remains of Gouedy's
plantation, the courthouse village, the British outpost, and the
post-war town of Cambridge, named to honor a "college" established
there.
The American Revolution produced many local heroes. One who deserves
special recognition is Francis Salvador, the first Jewish American
elected to a representative assembly and the first Jewish patriot
to die in the cause of independence.
Even as the area developed into a transportation center with the
arrival of the first railroad in 1852, sectional disputes between
North and South intensified. In the backcountry, slavery became
increasingly important as a source of labor in the cotton fields.
Local citizens joined the rest of the state in defending the "peculiar
institution" and the region was a hot-bed of states' rights. John
Henry Logan was credited with proposing the famous secession meeting
held in Abbeville in 1860.
In spite of what one signer of the ordinance of secession called
"the wild passions of that mad hour," the region escaped most of
the ravages of the Civil War; no battles were fought within its
boundaries and no armies plundered its town and farms. Even so,
the area figured in a dramatic episode at the very end of the war
when Jefferson Davis, who had fled from Richmond, spent the night
of May 1, 1865, at the home of General Martin W. Gary at Cokesbury.
The presidential party moved on the Abbeville the following day,
and Davis' capture at Irwinville, Georgia, occurred a week later.
Recovery from the devastation of war was a long and difficult process
for the South and Greenwood was no exception. On a positive note
there were new educational facilities for local freedmen at Brewer
Normal and Industrial School and at Paine Institute. The South Carolina
Land Commission achieved one of its few successes with the establishment
of a community of freedmen who owned property at Promised Land.
By the last decade of the century, Greenwood County was set for
a time of dynamic growth.
The populist governor, Benjamin Ryan Tillman, was anxious to increase
the legislative power of his followers. Consequently, he promoted
the creation of several new rural counties, each with a state senator
and at least one house member. Following a contentious struggle
against entrenched interests in Abbeville, Greenwood County was
formed on March 2, 1897, from territory taken from Abbeville and
Edgefield counties.
The 1890s were marked by a number of other significant developments.
The first textile factory, Greenwood Cotton Mill, opened in 1891
with 75 workers; a Baptist orphanage, built on land donated by Dr.
John Maxwell, accepted its first residents in 1892; two successful
newspapers were launched; the Oregon Hotel, a stopover for traveling
salesmen and community visitors, was constructed in 1898; a third
railroad line began service to the county.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of railroads in the
development of Greenwood County. Five lines crisscrossed the county
by the time the Georgia and Florida Railroad was completed in 1929.
The roads offered cheap transportation for passengers and commodities,
and stimulated economic growth along the rights of way. A number
of towns owe their existence to the railroads, notably Bradley,
Hodges, Troy and Verdery.
Greenwood's emergence as a textile center reflects the most significant
economic and social transition of its history. Promoted by W. L.
Durst, the first cotton mill in the county was chartered in 1889
and built the following year. The initial investment was less than
$100,000 and the enterprise employed only 75 workers, but the move
to textile manufacturing changed the county in every conceivable
way. Greenwood became the home to two titans of the industry. James
C. Self took over as president of Greenwood Cotton Mill in 1908;
by 1931, he was the foremost textile magnate in the area. In 1935,
at the depth of the Great Depression, he purchased all outstanding
stock in the company and became the sole owner of the mill. John
Pope Abney moved with his family to Greenwood in the late 1800s.
Just as Self had done, he moved smoothly from banking to textiles.
Abney Mills grew well beyond the county's borders under the leadership
of its second president, F. E. Grier. At the time of his death in
1959, twenty-seven factories, employing 15,000 people in three states,
operated under the Abney umbrella. The Abney chain no longer exists,
but Greenwood Mills continues to thrive both as a textile manufacturer
and through subsidiary corporations.
On the northern border of the county another textile center developed
at Saluda River shoals. Nathaniel Dial of Laurens County and six
other investors began construction of a textile mill to be operated
by a hydroelectric power station, but they soon encountered financial
difficulties. They persuaded Benjamin Riegel of New York to invest
in the project. Riegel moved to South Carolina, completed the mill,
and built the model town of Ware Shoals for his operatives.
The Great Depression altered the economy and landscape of Greenwood
County in fundamental ways. Local textile mills struggled to survive
and resisted union efforts to organize the workers. Agricultural
production declined and the number of farms shrank. New Deal projects
offered limited work relief for the unemployed. The major New Deal
project in the area was the construction of Buzzards' Roost dam
on Saluda River to impound Lake Greenwood. Today Lake Greenwood,
built to provide jobs and cheap electric power, offers an array
of recreational activities.
At mid-century, the chamber of commerce set out to attract nationally
known companies to the area. The local economy changed significantly
in 1959 when Chemstran (now Solutia) became the first national company
to locate in Greenwood County with a multi-million dollar nylon
plant. Other large industries have followed. In a single week in
1979, five major corporations announced plans to build facilities
in Greenwood. Very new corporate citizens of Greenwood County include
National Textiles and Fuji Photo Film, Inc.
In addition to national and international corporations, Greenwood
County is home to a unique company whose interests extend even to
outer space. George W. Park Seed Company, founded in Pennsylvania
in 1868, moved to Greenwood in 1924. It is the last major family-owned
seed company in the United States. Its research and development
program is on the cutting edge of science, including sending a selection
of seeds into space on a shuttle launch.
Thus, the history of Greenwood County extends from the colonial
frontier of the eighteenth century to the new frontier of space
research. The region has been shaped by political revolution, agricultural
growth, civil war and reconstruction, and industrial expansion.
Citizens of the county take pride in their commitment to remember
the past and to build for the future.
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Abbeville County: A Historical Sketch
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Edgefield County: A Historical Sketch
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McCormick County: A Historical Sketch
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