by
Louise Ayer Vandiver 1928
Transcribed by Dena Whitesell
for Anderson County, South Carolina Genealogy Trails
Preface
This book is by no means a complete history of
Anderson County, nor a full record of her people. It is merely
a collection of sketches. The material has been gathered
through a number of years; at first with no idea of publication,
merely because the collector like to hear the old people tell what
they knew, or in their early days had heard from their elders about
what went on in that long past day when other vanished people lived
here, people forgotten except when some antiquarian became
reminiscent.
Number of men and women deserve mention of whom
the narrator chanced to glean no information.
Most of the
persons from whom the old-time gossip came have passed on
themselves. Among them were Mr. T. J. Webb, who talked often
and long to an interested listener; Mrs. Julia Daniels, Mrs. Lucy
Langston, Dr. R. E. Thompson, Dr. R. F. Divver, Mrs. R. C. Hoyt,
Misses Elizabeth and Margaret Morris, Miss Nellie Brown, Mr. C. W.
Webb, Mr. J. B. Leverett, Mr. A. A. Dean, Colonel J. N. Brown, Dr.
W. J. King, Mr. J. B. Lewis, Miss Jemima Nevett, Colonel Lewis
Campbell, Mr. and Mrs. B. B. Breazeale, Reverend Mike McGee, Mr.
John M. Hubbard, Miss Nora Hubbard, Mr. L. P. Smith, Miss Bettie
Earle, Mr. J. Pink Reed, Mr. D. H. Russell, Miss Mattie McCarley,
Mrs. Eliza Skelton, Mr. O. B. Horton, of Atlanta; Mrs. Kate Maxwell,
Mrs. Margaret Van Wyck, Mrs. E. M. Rucker, Mr. R. E. Belcher and
others. Among the notes from which the book has been written,
there are some whose source is entirely forgotten.
General C.
A. Reed had a most valuable bound volume of the old Highland
Sentinel and The Anderson Gazette which he lent several times to the
collector. Also the Public Library was most indulgent in
allowing a thorough study fo the bound volumes of The
Intelligencer.
To the help and interest of Miss J. Lois
Watson more is due than can ever be adequately acknowledged.
For years she has brought to the collector of Anderson county data
every item of history or interest that she found or learned, and in
these last hurried days, she has replied promptly and fully to
several S.O.S. calls, never failing to get in the quickest possible
time the required information and sending it
immediately.
Miss Carrie Pearman also has been a valuable
assistant and has taken the toruble to furnish many interesting
items, especially about Broadaway Township, which without her help
would not have been included in the history of the county.
To
Mrs. J. M. Paget, too, the writer is indebted for much that is
interesting and important.
Without the help and sympathy in
the undertaking of these friends, the collection could never have
been made.
And after all the long years of accumulation, at last
the book has been hastily thrown together. The hope of
publication had been abandoned, and the material consisted of
unarranged notes, when Mr. Wilton E. Hall, editor of The Anderson
Independent, wrote asking that the manuscript be sent him, he would
have it published as a part of Anderson's Centenary - and he asked
to have it in two week's time.
The two weeks was impossible,
but it has been put together by a slow typist in less than a month,
and it show it. The writer realizes that it is very faulty,
but there is no time for revision; and such as it is, it is offered
to the people of Anderson with the sincere love of the writer for
the home of her best years.
Contents
Chapter I - The
Days of the Indians.........................1
Chapter II -
Formation of Anderson County and beginning of the
City.........................10
Chapter III - Some of the
Pioneer People and Their Social
Life.........................18
Chapter IV - The
Churches.........................32
Chapter V - The
Revolutionary War.........................64
Chapter VI -
Newspapers and Writers.........................64
Chapter VII -
Some of the Early Industries.........................91
Chapter
VIII - In Schoolroom Walls - The
County.........................95
Chapter IX - In Schoolroom
Walls - The Town.........................110
Chapter X - Some of the Early
Citizens and Homes.........................130
Chapter XI -
Some of the
Forefathers.........................137
Chapter XII - Andersonville and Some
Early Settlers.........................161
Chapter XIII -
Waters and Graveyards.........................170
Chapter XIV -
Railroads.........................180
Chapter XV -
Townships.........................223
Chapter XVI - War Between
the States.........................237
Chapter XVIII -
Reconstruciton and the
Aftermath.........................249
Chapter XIX - The Middle
Years.........................257
Chapter XX - Some Public
Buildings.........................277
Chapter XXI - The Spanish
War.........................286
Chapter XXII - Manufactories,
Mills and Other Industries.........................290
Chapter
XXIII - Highways and Byways, People and
Things.........................303
Chapter XXIV - Later
Times.........................312