Williamsburg County, South Carolina - Chapter 25: Transportation, 1830-1860, 1923

Men called the ways over which they travelled in Wil¬ liamsburg during this period roads. It is strange that men of their intelligence and their patriotic impulses and unlimited quantities of slave labor built no highways, but continued to worry along with ways over which they might go only at certain seasons of the year. The roads of this period wound in and out and around about the swamps. Much of the time they were half covered with water and boggy to an impassable degree. Perhaps these men of the prewar period had on their plantations about everything they wanted and did not see the necessity for roads.

With the slave labor at the command of Williamsburg during this period, and without effecting its production of cotton one bale, the district could have constructed roads that would have lasted like Indian mounds and have been for the good of a hundred generations. These planters usually had small boats that carried their cotton down the winding Wee Nee River to Georgetown. They seemed not to care that the courses these boats had to follow were a hundred miles. They could have, with a minimum amount of cost, straightened the river and made the distance less than half. Xor did they ever make any effective attempts to dredge the river. It is true that sometimes they would cut long pine trees that had fallen into the river and had become serious menaces to their sloops and flat boats, but this was about all that they did to improve the navigability of this natural highway. Black River has run by Kingstree for two hundred years without any businesslike effort undertaken to make its use valuable to the district.

The planters of Williamsburg marketed their cotton and tobacco at Georgetown since they could float these products down the river. Bringing back things up the river was a more difficult task and possibly this was a factor in the increasing wealth of the Williamsburg Dis¬ trict during this period. It was much easier to carry things to market than to bring things from the market home. Always, except in emergencies, Williamsburg has chosen the easier way.

Some of the planters of Williamsburg lived at such a distance from the river that they transported their cotton and tobacco overland, crossing Black River at Brown's Ferry. A few marketed their products in Charleston, crossing the Santee at Murray's and Lenud's Ferries. All the district north of Williamsburg as far as North Caro* lina used the Murray's Ferry road through Kingstree and crossed the Santee there in going to Charleston and re¬ turning. Murray's Ferry was for a century one of the most important points in South Carolina. Usually in history rivers proved great blessings to the communities through which they flowed, but not so the Santee. It is a treacherous river, uncertain and dangerous. It was a barrier to eastern South Carolina for two centuries. Often passengers could not cross it at Murray's Ferry, and had to wait until its floods subsided. Sometimes when a crossing could not be effected at Murray's Ferry, it could be accomplished at Lenud's Ferry forty miles down the river. Lenud's Ferry was not used, however, from 1830 to 1860 so much as Murray's Ferry.

In 1856, the Northeastern Railway was built from Charleston northward through the Williamsburg Dis¬ trict. The building of this railroad proved at once that it was an enormous factor in the life of Williamsburg Dis¬ trict. On this railroad, planters could ship their prod¬ uce and could go themselves in a few hours over the same distance that theretofore had required several laborious days. Very soon, the greater part of the busi¬ ness of Williamsburg was done in Charleston, and George¬ town ceased to be the trading seat of this district. Plant¬ ers from Williamsburg shipped their cotton to factors in Charleston every fall. These factors sold their cotton and accepted their drafts from time to time. All of the cotton was thrown on the market about the same time and sold at such prices as the factors determined.

Planters of Williamsburg secured their supplies from merchants in Charleston almost entirely after the build¬ ing of the Northeastern Railroad. These planters knew and were known to certain merchants in Charleston who filled the orders of the planters all during the year. If the cotton crop had been a good one, these merchants ac¬ cepted their pay about November first. Nobody ever thought of paying bills oftener than once a year. If the Williamsburg planter had failed to make a good crop, the merchant permitted him to postpone payment until the following November. It was so easy to buy on order and pay days were so far away that just about the begin¬ ning of the War between the Sections, Williamsburg was enjoying a season of riotous living.

Bridging the Santee and completing the railroad through Williamsburg District was a tremendous task in those days when practically all labor was done by man power. Such engineering projects were also attended with great danger and several men lost their lives while this work was being done. Railroading was extremely hazard¬ ous in that experimental stage and often railroad men were killed in accidents. The supervising constructor of the Santee trestle, Mr. Littlefield, lost his life before com¬ pleting his task. The first bridge built there in 1856 was a wooden structure and manv miles of trestle work were required before the embankments were placed many years later. The first section boss was killed on this trestle

The first train that ran through Williamsburg County is remembered distinctly by many persons now living. Celebrations were staged at its several stopping points in the district and multitudes of people, brass bands, and barbecue feasts greeted the day the locomotive whistle first startled the denizens of these swamps. Dr. D. C. Scott, then a six-year old boy living in the Cedar Swamp community, was brought by his father to see the first rail¬ road train come into Kingstree. Dr. Scott's father had bought him a hobby horse in Kingstree that day and as the train was approaching, his father cautioned him to hold his horse or the train would frighten him. Every real horse in Kingstree that day was securely tied far away from the railroad.

At that time, people in Kingstree enjoyed seeing the trains pass. Some built their houses on Railroad Avenue for the purpose of witnessing railroad trains pass morn¬ ing and evening. Seventy-five years later, when the great Atlantic Coast Line Railroad runs almost a continuous line of trains over its double tracks along Railroad Avenue in Kingstree, the descendants of these same people, who live in the houses which they built, are much disturbed by the passing of so many trains.

Up to this time, probably no other event in the history of Williamsburg, save the War of the Revolution, had such an immediate and far-reaching influence on the district as did the building of this Northeastern Railroad. The innkeepers in Kingstree and at Murray's Ferry and the ferrymen viewed the situation with alarm. All at once the line of travel from the North ceased coming through Kingstree and passing over Murray's Ferry, and it was not many years before the last ferry boat on the Santee had sunken and the ferryman's song forever hushed.

The building of the Northeastern Railway inflicted a serious blow on Georgetown. Up to that time, a consider¬ able part of its trade had come from Williamsburg. This trade moved to Charleston almost at once after the rail¬ road service began. Henceforth, Charleston and not Georgetown was the center of the commercial interest of Williamsburg.

Immediately after the Northeastern Railway was built through Williamsburg, there came "down here from North Carolina" a multitude of turpentine workers and dis¬ tillers who began to develop the lumber and naval stores industries. These immigrants for the most part were a vigorous, hardy, and energetic people. They were about the first white people whom that generation in Williams¬ burg had ever seen who worked with their hands as well as their heads. This working of white people with their hands produced uncertain and conflicting opinions of them in Williamsburg. Some regarded these turpentine workers simply as "poor white trash" unworthy of notice. Others were not so sure. Williamsburg sold them turpen¬ tine rights at first for a song, but soon learned from the fortunes being made by these turpentine workers the value of a pine tree.

Richard H. Kellahan came into Kingstree without a dollar in the world. He was a likely looking youngster. M. J. Hirsch, Esq., a lawyer in Kingstree, took a fancy to him, bought him a pair of shoes and an axe and grub¬ staked him for three days. Mr. Kellahan went into the woods and chipped turpentine trees until he became a millionaire. Ferney Rhem "came down here from North Carolina" about 1847, settled on the Georgetown-Williamsburg County line and began to work turpentine. A few years later, he had a small empire in that section. When he died, he was one of the largest land owners in South Carolina and his descendants have been contin¬ uously adding to their estate. There were many others

Among these "Tar Heels" who came to Williamsburg, Dr. McGill mentions J. F. Carraway, P. H. Bufkin, Isham Hinson, R. P. Hinnant, Augustus Haddock, John, James, and Edwin Harper, James, William, and Walter Bryan, James E. David, Thomas Edwards, Edward and Henry B. Johnson, S. B. Newsom, S. W. Mills, Hardy Hallimer, Samuel Moore, W. Lee, R. H. Kellahan, N. G. Pitman, Augustus Perkins, E. J. Parker, Jessie Turner, F. Rhem, W. T. Willoughby, Cicero and Hagard Whitfield, and W. K. Lane.