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randomconnections · 7 years

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Ghost Towns of the Pee Dee – Part 4, Jordanville to Dalcho

I was out and about exploring the Pee Dee region of the state, searching for ghost towns. I’d already found a couple of potentials – Ella’s Grove, Centenary, and Eulonia – and I’d stopped by the Marion County Museum and had lunch on Main Street in Marion. Now it was on to a couple more remote locations, and eventually find my way back home.

Myrtle Beach is a cancer. As its popularity has increased, the traffic and tackiness has metastasized onto the major arteries leading to the coast. OK, so that is a bit harsh. I’ve had some fun times there. But that’s the way it seemed to as I drove through the communities of Rains and Aynor. First up is Sparky’s, a truly tacky gift shop and the last place (or first) to snag a souvenir from the beach. There are no less than three “official” Myrtle Beach visitors centers along this stretch, and the entirety of Highway 501 is plastered with billboards advertising the latest Dolly Parton production, Pirates.

I crossed the Little Pee Dee and entered the the historic community of Gallivants Ferry. Normally I’d stop here and look longingly at the landing, wishing I could put a kayak in the water. This time I didn’t stop, but took the next right southward onto Pee Dee Road. I drove through many miles of farmland. Mostly there were peas, but there was still the occasional field of tobacco with a forlorn tobacco barn.

Jordanville

I found out about Jordanville through a historic survey of Horry County. The study indicated several buildings in Jordanville that might qualify for listing. I figured that if there were that many, the area bore checking out.

Carolana.com shows that there was a post office here starting in 1937. The website doesn’t list an ending date, but I certainly didn’t see a post office when I arrived. What I did find was an old warehouse/store, another store across the street, a Masonic hall, and a collapsed building at an intersection. The more modern of the two stores looked like it was now home to some religious organization.

So what attracted the attention of the NRHP? This is a description of the proposed historic district from the survey:

Located near the western edge of the county by the swamps fed by Little Pee Dee River, at the junction of Secondary Roads 99 and 24, Jordanville (Sites 0148) is a former crossroads community. Richard Jordan began a store at the site in 1869, which George Holliday (1875-1941) purchased in 1910. Holliday was a wealthy landowner, tobacco farmer and businessman, with property in Galivants Ferry and in Floral Beach, later named Surfside Beach. Some of the buildings he owned now form a National Register district in Galivants Ferry, which is several miles north of Jordanville (Utterback and Utterback 1988:site form; Lewis 1998:82; Bartos and Jaeger 2000). Thirteen buildings comprise the proposed Jordanville Historic District, including two homes, one store, and ten agricultural buildings, which vary from sheds to barns and warehouses, most of which likely date to the 1940s. While one of the two residences and its surrounding barns are likely still occupied, and the former store now houses a church, Jordanville is essentially an abandoned site. The largest conglomeration of agricultural, commercial, and residential buildings found in rural parts of the survey area, Jordanville is a relatively intact example of a crossroads community dating back to the nineteenth century. One home and three small outbuildings at the northern edge of the district were destroyed or removed sometime between 1988 and 2006, but their absence does not diminish the integrity of the complex.

So it wasn’t really a town, per se. Like Ella’s Grove, there was no municipal structure. Apart from the store cum church, there is a Jordanville Church and at one time there was a school here. A 1960 issue of the Florence News features an interview with a former teacher and principal from the school. However, the school shows up in neither the GNIS database nor the SC School Insurance Collection.

Spring Branch

I had a couple of choices for my return route. I could take a southern route through Lake City and cover some unknown territory, or I could backtrack a bit and hit a couple of spots north of Marion, then return a more quicker way on I-20. I decided on the quicker route.

I bypassed Marion on US 501 north of town. This turns out to be a large four-lane divided highway that connects with I-20. My GPS led me just off of the highway into the Spring Branch community. I spotted an old brick church to my left and an older wood frame Greek Revival structure across the street. This was the old building for Spring Branch Baptist. A newer version of the church was just down the road.

I knew there was an old school around here somewhere. I circled the block and found that if I had turned left instead of right I would have spotted it immediately. The brick two-story structure was sitting on the other side of the brick church.

I was able to find a photo of the school in the School Insurance Photos.

Back on 501 and just around the corner from Spring Branch I found another old school. There had been a Rosenwald School in the community. This was replaced with an Equalization school.

Not too far from Spring Branch is the old Ebenezer Church. This was yet another wood frame Greek Revival structure. There were two entrances, both with red doors. Lutheran? There was a cemetery, but I did not get out to explore. After all, it was one of the hottest days of the year.

I drove from Ebenezer straight on into the town of Latta. As with Marion, it would have been easy to get distracted by the history of the area. Road construction forced a detour away from the downtown area, otherwise I might have had to explore a bit more. The Dillon County Museum also would have been an interesting stop, but didn’t seem to be open.

The last two targets I decided to pursue were northwest of Latta.

Dalcho

These two targets were across the street from each other just before reaching the I-20 overpass. Catfish Baptist Church is…you guessed it, a wood frame Greek Revival structure. This places the building in the late 1800’s, specifically 1883. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.

After reading the entry on the SC NRHP website I wish I had taken a bit more time to explore. The portico was added in 1970, but the arched entryway sounds quite interesting.

The façade consists of a centrally placed, stilted arch entrance with two, four-panel sliding doors which become recessed into the wall when opened.

Across the street was the true prize (for me, at least.) GNIS data had this listed Dalcho High School. It certainly looked like an old school. The two-story brick structure looked very ornate, and also looked like it had been converted into a private residence.

When I first saw the school it looked like there probably had been more windows on the front.

I did finally find a photo of the school in the School Insurance Photos. This one clearly shows the building as it is now, so there were no more windows on the front of the building.

There was a Rosenwald School to serve the segregated black students of the community. I also found the “Dalcho Colored School” in the archives.

Both of the Dalcho schools were involved in some controversy. The case of Tucker v Blease went to the South Carolina Supreme Court in 1914 and dealt with the question of what percentage of “Negro” blood must be present to require a student to attend a segregated school. I was able to find a summary of the case…

Being identified as a “negro” or as being in any way “colored” had drastic practical consequences back then, as yet another South Carolina Supreme Court decision reveals.

Tucker v. Blease was an action brought directly to the Supreme Court in its original jurisdiction — that is, without having to go before a lower court first. It sought review of a decision of the State Board of Education expelling several children from a whites-only public school in Marion County because of their race.

John Kirby was the son of Big John Godbolt. Godbolt was one-eighth African and seven-eighths European. That meant Big John was “colored” as a matter of law, as the law was written in those days. Like racial purity laws of Nazi Germany not many years later, one-eighth of the unwanted blood was the cutoff.

John Kirby’s mother was white. That meant that John Kirby and his siblings had less than one-eighth African blood and, as a consequence, these children were not “colored” under then existing law. Instead, having only one thirty-second (1/32) African blood, they were legally “white.”

One thirty-second (1/32) John Kirby grew up and married to a white woman. They had some children, all of whom were 1/64th African and of 63/64th European extraction.

The Kirby family all attended Catfish Church, an all-white congregation of mostly Baptists. They all had reputations of being decent people. The children were all well behaved in church and school. John Kirby owned more than 300 acres of land in Dillon County, making him eligible to vote without having to pass a literacy test.

Kirby’s family, economic and community status notwithstanding, John Kirby was guilty of a serious social faux pas. From time to time, he associated with “colored” people and allowed his children to do so too.

For reasons left unknown in the South Carolina Supreme Court’s opinion, John Kirby has been killed by a man named Edwards. The killer had a brother named Sam. After Kirby’s slaying, Sam Edwards carried a petition around the neighborhood saying that the Kirby children were not “clear blooded” and should be expelled from the white school they had otherwise peacefully attended for several years. Based on that petition, the Kirby children were kicked out of the school….

… the decision concluded that if the local white community wanted to kick the Kirby kids out of their school, it was all right with the court, albeit with a suggestion that other accommodations be made for the children’s education. As it turned out, those were “colored” schools funded at seven cents to the dollar compared to the school they had been attending.

Not a good day for South Carolina jurisprudence, helping cement the “One Drop Rule” for Jim Crow laws. The summary above says that the schools were in Marion County, but this is incorrect. They were in Dillon, which had only just formed as a county from part of Marion in 1910.

Apart from the schools and Catfish Creek Church there were several other references to the Dalcho Community in local news articles. Most of these were in reference to the Dalcho Masonic Lodge, which was one of the most active in the county. That lodge eventually moved to Latta. I could find no reference to a post office or any other commercial endeavor in the community, so Dalcho won’t make it onto my list of ghost towns.

Further exploration was tempting. It wasn’t that late in the afternoon. However, I had a long drive back that I had to take into consideration. I’d visited some interesting places in the Pee Dee region and gathered more information on South Carolina Ghost Towns. However, all this trip did was whet my appetite to delve deeper into the region. It may have to wait until our return from the west coast, but I will be back, next time not only with cameras but with paddling gear as well.

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randomconnections · 7 years

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Ghost Towns of the Pee Dee – Part 4, Jordanville to Dalcho

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#Cemeteries #Churches #Dalcho #Ella&039;s Grove #Ghost Towns #Jordanville #Marion County #Old Schools #Pee Dee #Photo Trek #Photography #rambling #South Carolina

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randomconnections · 7 years

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Ghost Towns of the Pee Dee – Part 3, Marion Museum

I had one day to explore the ghost towns of the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. So far I’d visited several potential locations, including Ella’s Grove, Centenary, and Eulonia. On these trips I always like to stop in at the local museum or historical society to see what additional information they might have. With that goal in mind, I set off for the Marion County Museum in downtown Marion.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve bypassed Marion. Highway 76 is the route to Myrtle Beach and it bypasses the town. I honestly don’t remember ever visiting the town. Back in the early 1980s my brother-in-law was pastor of a Baptist church in Marion. However, that was when I was in college, and I never got a chance to visit my sister and her family in the brief time that they were there. So this would be my first true visit to the town.

My prior research indicated lots of interesting old buildings in the town, several of which are on the National Register of Historic Places. I could spend the better part of a day just photographing these places.

Before visiting the museum I took a quick spin through the town. The old Marion Presbyterian Church caught my eye, but for some reason I didn’t get a photo of it. I did catch the Marion County Records Building.

Next to it is the courthouse with sweeping steps reminiscent of a Robert Mills design. I was informed later that Mills didn’t build this one. Sadly, I missed getting a photo of it, too. There was a bit of traffic and I hadn’t found a place to park and wander. Shooting from the car was problematic.

I drove through the downtown area. As with so many of these South Carolina towns there is a compelling quaintness to the old stores. There are some signs of revitalization, usually in the form of antique and/or art stores, but there are also lots of empty store fronts. It’s a constant struggle for identity and commerce.

On the other end of town I found the railroad depot and a series of old warehouses.

I circled back through some side neighborhoods and I came upon a church with the same unusual paint scheme I’d seen on the church in Centenary. The two churches must be related.

Eventually I made my way over to the Marion County Museum. The museum is housed in an old school, which is one of the reasons this was a must-see on my list.

According to a historical marker on the site, the Marion Academy is the oldest school in the county. It was chartered by the SC General Assembly in 1811. This building was constructed in 1886, and was eventually became the Marion Graded School. It served as an active public school until 1976.

Here’s a photo of the school in its academy days from the National Register:

Before I’d left on this trek I made sure that the museum would be open when I arrived. A sign on the door said they were open, and another handwritten sign said to knock for entry. I was greeted by Rosanne Black, the director/curator of the museum. She graciously gave me a tour of the museum.

Rosanne said that they were in the preliminary stages of a major renovation. Some of the woodworking details needed repair as well as interior spaces. There was a parlor with some museum pieces that also served as her office. She had blueprints and other designs set out.

There was a display honoring the first female sheriff in Marion County, along with other law enforcement officials.

The hall featured items from Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, Revolutionary War hero, and namesake of the county.

One of the items on display was a board game based on an old TV show about the life of Francis Marion. This show, based very loosely on the life of Francis Marion, starred Leslie Neilson as the Swamp Fox, and aired as part of Disney’s Wonderful World of Color in the late 1950s, early 1960s. Recently I stumbled upon an old episode online somewhere. Laura and I laughed because the settings were clearly Southern California and looked nothing like the cypress swamps of our state. I have no idea how historically accurate the game was, but the board featured a semi-accurate map of the state.

Upstairs there was a landing with a few antique artifacts.

One of the rooms upstairs was set up as a classroom. Roseanne said that the furnishings and other articles were collected from various places. She also said that a lady comes in and teaches classes on writing with a quill and ink.

The other large room upstairs featured farm equipment from the area as well as a model of a homestead.

Back downstairs one of the front rooms had been set up with tables for lunch meetings. Around the walls was a series of interviews with local residents that someone had done as part of an oral history project. There was a CD player where visitors could listen to the audio interviews. I suggested to Roseanne that this would make an excellent online exhibit.

As far as gathering more information about the ghost towns I’d visited earlier in the day, there wasn’t much in the public displays. Roseanne suggested that I visit the old records building. While I’d love to do that, I didn’t think I’d have time on this visit. She did have a photo of the old Palmer School, or, at least, a group of students in front of the school.

This photo confirms that Palmer School did serve the white population for at least part of its existence.

I thanked Roseanne for the tour and went in search of lunch. I always prefer some quirky local place to fast food, and Roseanne had made several suggestions. I had a delicious quiche and salad at a place called Raspberries and Thyme, and took a few more photos along Main Street.

Once again I found myself wanting to linger, but I had more to see and lots more driving to do. My car wasn’t racking up the miles fast enough, so I didn’t know if the old Subaru would hit 200,000 miles on this trip or not. I made a quick assessment of my targets, and decided that it was time to cross the Little Pee Dee River into Horry County.

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randomconnections · 7 years

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Ghost Towns of the Pee Dee – Part 2, Centenary

I was on a quest to visit potential ghost towns in the Pee Dee area of the state. So far I had visited Ella’s Grove and the Palmer School and Cemetery. I still had quite a bit of exploring to do. Next up was the town of Centenary and the community of Eulonia.

Centenary

The community of Centenary was a bit of a surprise. The post office here was established in 1853 and is still going strong. It’s now in a small mobile office, but there were lots of folks going in and out. On Highway 41-Alt are a couple of now-closed stores.

The residential area of the community consists of farm houses and bungalos, some of which had been under consideration for inclusion on the National Register. An active rail line runs the town, but I only saw one old commercial building and a cotton gin.

This is a far cry from what used to be here, though. A study of country stores across South Carolina indicated six general stores in the town. Also, according to an unpublished 1920 Sanborn map there were several general stores, various feed stores, a bank, and a railroad depot.

There were a couple of buildings that looked like lodges of some sort.

There seemed to be lots of churches for such a small community. There was a large, somewhat modern Baptist church, a smaller brick church on the other side of town, and one with a rather unusual color scheme.

On my map I had several schools marked. I had passed one on the main highway. GNIS has this one listed as Terrell Bay School, named for a nearby geographical feature. The building now serves as a community center with an attached playground.

I tried to find some more information about this school. The School Insurance database at the South Carolina Archives has a school named Centenary School that looks this one, but the windows are now missing and there’s an extra door on the south end. Even so, I still think it might be the same school.

On the south side of town was a less ambiguous school. This was the location of the former Terrell’s Bay High School. Now abandoned and empty, this was obviously an old Equalization School, so named because they were supposed to provide “separate, but equal” education for black students in an age of segregation. The school is listed on the SC Equalization Schools website.

So, is Centenary a ghost town? If one simply looks at the commercial aspects, it is, but there is still an active community here. I think they might say otherwise.

Eulonia

A couple of miles southwest of Ella’s Grove I had marked the former town of Eulonia. My route took me past farmlands and through wooded areas along 41-Alt. I turned onto Eulonia Road and drove until I reached the railroad and the location I had marked. There was a building next to the railroad that resembled a depot, but was a bit too modern. A sign indicated that it now served as the headquarters for a hunt club.

Apart from that, there was nothing, nada, zilch.

As with Centenary, this wasn’t always the case. The Country Stores study cited earlier indicates that there were four general stores here. Carolana.com lists an active post office from 1879 to 1921, much longer than nearby Ella’s Grove. The School Insurance collection has a very nice brick school building listed for the town.

This location certainly qualifies as a ghost town. I didn’t get out to explore the location as it was very hot and humid. Plus, large logging trucks kept whizzing by.

Centenary Methodist Church

It was getting close to lunch time and I wanted to visit the Marion County Museum. I headed back north along 41-Alt past Ella’s Grove and Centenary. On the way in I’d passed Centenary Methodist Church and made a point to stop.

According to SCIWAY.net, this Greek Revival building was built in 1853. This was also once the site of a Methodist Camp Meeting, similar to Shady Grove, Cypress, St. Paul, and Indian Field in Dorchester County. Now there is just the wood frame church and cemetery.

I strolled through the oldest part of the cemetery, but didn’t linger. I still had lots of targets in my GPS and the day was getting away from me. I had much more to see.

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