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| ISBN-13: | 9781496968173 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 03/09/2015 |
| Pages: | 362 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.81(d) |
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Three Iron Horses and a Butterfly
By Arthur H. Bolden
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2015 Arthur H. BoldenAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4969-6818-0
CHAPTER 1
DARLINGTON AND SOUTH CAROLINA HISTORY
It is well documented that the slave trade made South Carolina the powerhouse that it is today in agriculture. The state was built on the backs of many remarkable individuals, both black and white, and it is clear that the strong, courageous African-American Bacote and Kelly families made exceptional contributions to the development of Darlington County, South Carolina. With the never ending forest, majestic pine trees, billowing oaks and vast swampland that we have here, it must have been a monumental task just clearing the land to develop thousands of acreage for crops.
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, noted Charles Town lawyer, planter and politician put it very succinctly when he stated at the Constitutional Convention, "while there remained one acre of swamp land uncleared in South Carolina, I would raise my voice against restricting the importation of negroes." He boldly continued this exploitive diatribe, declaring "I am ... thoroughly convinced ... that the nature of the climate, and the flat, swampy situation of our country obliges us to cultivate our lands with negroes and that without them South Carolina would soon be a desert waste."
From the earliest settlements, Kelly and Bacote ancestors [shown in Figures 1, 2, and 2A] served on the primary workforces for that task and many other labor intensive endeavors. They grew cotton and tobacco in the historic Cotton Belt and the "Back Swamp" of South Carolina during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Sometimes when I close my eyes and let my mind freely roam, I can visualize them out there working diligently in the hot fields of Mechanicsville or at scenic Lourdes Lake, fishing, singing and just having a good ole time. I see them casually walking through the woods, engulfing the serenity of the forest, sweating yet being cooled by the shade of the unspoiled massive oak and longleaf pine trees.
One cannot fully comprehend the plight, accomplishments and history of ancestral Kelly and Bacote family members without an appreciation of the history, topography and geography of Darlington County as it relates to the State of South Carolina and indeed America at large. This is the terrain they traversed daily for over 200 years, that we have documentation of. They traveled along narrow, newly made, muddy paths and crude roads, when the only light was the light of the moon above, not the state of the art, well lit, ten lane interstates, turnpikes and toll roads that exist today.
Before these ancestors or the first European settlers came to Darlington County in 1736-1737, northeastern South Carolina was occupied by the Cheraw, Pee Dee, and Waccamaw Indian tribes. The Cheraw, a Sioux speaking tribe, were located along the banks of the Great Pee Dee River near the present town of Cheraw. They lived in small round dwellings constructed of sapling trees covered with bark and animal skins.
During 1711, they fought against the Tuscarora alongside the British and Catawba Indians. From 1715 to 1716, they united with other Native American tribes to fight against the colonists and traders in the Yemassee War. In the 1730s many Cheraw Indians united with the Catawba, while others merged with other Sioux speaking tribes in North Carolina, as their lands were being overrun by the settlers from across the ocean, compromising their safety and survival. They reasoned there was greater security and safety in numbers.
In 1759, small pox, an eastern disease which the European settlers brought to America, and to which the Indians had no immunity, killed many of the remaining independent Cheraw in South Carolina. In 1600, there were an estimated 2,000 Cheraw in the state, today they are almost entirely extinct.
English settlements in Charles Town date back to 1670. Charles Town, now called Charleston, situated between the Ashley and Cooper Rivers was a center of vigorous export and import activity and served as the seat of the provincial government. Since law, order, stability and continuity was very crucial to the success of the early settlements, South Carolina was divided into eight circuit judicial court districts, shown in Figure 3, to handle legal matters such as settlers, immigration, relocation etc.
However it would be sixty years later before the Europeans ventured deep into the "Back Swamp Country," as it was called, into Cheraw Indian territory shown in Figure 4 and Figure 5. In order to encourage settlements in this area of South Carolina, the Colonial Government in 1736 set aside two large grants of land extending along both sides of the Pee Dee River. The entire length of Darlington County as it exists today lies within these two royal grants. The Welsh were the first to come and they settled at the bend of the Pee Dee River near Society Hill. A few decades later they were followed by German, English, Scottish, Irish and French settlers.
These early pioneers in South Carolina were very determined and committed individuals. At a Circuit Court held on November 15, 1774, more than a year before the Declaration of Independence, the Grand Jury of the Cheraw District denied the right of Parliament to levy taxes on them and declared that they were ready to defend with their lives and fortunes the right to honor only the laws set forth by their own elected representatives. They were a feisty bunch.
During the Revolutionary War, the Darlington County area was the site of numerous small battles between the Tories and the Whigs. After the war, in 1783, the Cheraw District was subdivided into three counties, including Darlington County, each no larger than forty square miles. Thus Darlington County was officially created on March 12, 1785.
The Welsh were the first to bring in slaves like their neighbors farther downstream. They tried to justify that slavery was in agreement with the scripture. For these early settlers in America their language of freedom was a fraud. Their warped mindset was that there was work to be done, timber to be cut, land to be cleared, a state to be built, an economy to be developed and the enslaved were best suited for this labor because the summer sun was better borne by black skin. By 1770, sixty percent of South Carolina's population consisted of African slaves. It was the only state in the Union where blacks outnumbered whites. First, the money crops like cotton, indigo and rice were planted as the settlers capitalized on the large investment in their imported labor force. In addition, numerous food crops were also planted as many of the large plantations were essentially self-sustaining.
The settlers spoke in stirring terms of liberty, justice and religious freedom, but these privileges were attainable for the privileged settlers and never quite within reach of their enslaved labor force for generation after generation.
The European Rogers, Bacots, Kelleys and Brockintons were early settlers in the middle to late 1700s in the "Back Swamp Country." By 1820 numerous villages had arisen throughout the area. Among these was Kelly Town, located near Black Creek in the northwestern portion of the county, Springville which was more of a summer resort area than a village, and the historic Colfax/Mechanicsville area, located about fifteen miles south of Society Hill. Each of these areas played a significant role in Kelly and Bacote history as outlined in this treatise.
The early settlers were primarily farmers who raised cattle and hogs and grew rice and indigo. Most of the plantations were vast, as large as 400-4,000 acres, and most of the lands are still inhabited by descendants of the original owners. [See Figures 4 and 7.]
Africans from the West African rice-producing nations of Senegambia, Angola, Ghana, Gambia and Sierra Leone arrived in the "Back Swamp" with vast knowledge and experience in growing rice and indigo, an asset that would later prove to be very valuable to the landowners. An article on the history of Mechanicsville penned by Chapman J. Milling relates that the slaves in Mechanicsville, "for the most part were tall, dark brown people, many of whom had the regular features of the north-central African. Some were from the West Coast, West Africans and Guinea Negroes, who were looked down upon with disdain by the taller, lighter colored Africans. Many spoke with a Gullah accent, having been brought up the river from Charleston or Georgetown, but not the classical Gullah of the sea island and tidewater slaves."
Indigo was a huge export product for South Carolina that made many early settlers wealthy. With the ever-expanding acreage of farmland devoted to the cotton industry and the labor of the enslaved labor force, the overall wealth of the area grew considerably during the first half of the nineteenth century. Evidence that there was a lot of wealth in that area, can be observed by taking a tour of Cheraw, Society Hill and Darlington and noticing the numerous old streets lined with huge majestic mansions and palatial homes still standing from the Colonial and Antebellum periods.
The Pee Dee River played a very important role in the early development of Darlington County as some of the very earliest settlers established themselves as traders on the river, which served as a shipping venue for exports and imports via the port at Charles Town. Flat barges propelled by enslaved Africans pushing them with long poles were commonplace along the river. They hauled cotton to the coast and returned with coffee, sugar, spices, and manufactured goods. Later small steamboats used the river, stopping at locations like Roseville Plantation, and other plantations bounded by the river, to exchange cargo and goods, until the early 1900s.
The river actually begins as the Yadkin River in the western mountains of North Carolina, where it is presently utilized in the production of hydroelectric power and also as a drinking water reservoir. From North Carolina it meanders through the mature bottomland hardwood forest, longleaf pine sand hills and floodplain forest of South Carolina, along the northeastern border of Darlington County and connects with the Little Pee Dee River in Marion County.
In 1809, the Darlington District was almost enlarged via annexation with the Marion District, but the petition was denied. Darlington was incorporated in 1835, and Society Hill in 1880. Nearly eighty years later Marion County was finally formed and it included a portion of the lower part of old Darlington County.
In 1868, under the South Carolina Constitution, the Darlington District became Darlington County, and was divided into 21 townships under the New England Plan. None ever operated as a bona fide political entity, the move was purely for geographical identification. The names were changed again in 1878 to some present day names like Timmonsville, Hartsville and Darlington townships as shown in Figure 5.
The industrious city of Florence was formed in the 1850s as a stop for the Wilmington & Manchester Railroad and was home of a confederate prison camp during the Civil War. It was incorporated in 1888 and also took about one-third of the original old Darlington County territory. In 1901, the county lost an additional fifty square miles of territory in the new formation of Lee County.
The Mechanicsville section of Darlington County was once called Colfax Township as shown under the New England Plan [see Figure 6] and then Riverdale later in its historical development. This beautiful area, which also essentially connected Florence County and the Pee Dee River, is a sportsman's paradise. It contains Louthers Lake [sometimes written Lowthers Lake, and shown in Figure 4] known for its assortment of great, fresh water fish such as wide mouth bass, sunfish, bream, carp, catfish and eel. Of the 36 lakes in Darlington County, Louthers is one of the most popular and I am certain along with the Pee Dee River served as a favorite recreational area for many of the ancestors cited herein.
Scenic Witherspoon Island, shown in Figure 4 and Figure 7, which features a fifty foot elevation, is also located there. A.J. Howard and William Howard were among the early land owners on Witherspoon Island. Richard Howard, a distinguished timber and forestry expert currently in Darlington County, who has performed timber and forestry work for numerous Bacotes in Mechanicsville, is a direct descendant of these two pioneers. Much of the island is currently residentially developed and features large estate homes and manors. It does not contain any commercial enterprises and has retained much of its natural beauty, eco-system and wild life.
During the Colonial and Antebellum Periods the primary route from Cheraw to Georgetown went through the "Back Swamp" via old Georgetown Road (sometimes also referred to as "Kings Highway") where early Kelly ancestors resided. [See Figures 4, 5, 7] Ancient live oaks cast rugged shadows on the spanish moss laden trees that lined this beautiful old, red clay, stagecoach route or lane. Kelly Place, the post slavery home of some Kelly ancestors covered in this treatise was located at what is presently 557 Georgetown Road. Georgetown Road is highlighted in yellow in Figure 7.
Figure 7, a 1955 rendition of a section of the Darlington County map, is a very important as well as informative source in terms of the information discussed throughout this treatise. Many references will be made regarding sites located therein. The highlighted names represent post-slavery Bacote and Kelly ancestors and the location of their homesteads. The location of Alligator Branch is highlighted. Cashua Ferry Road, also known as Route 34 or Mechanicsville Road is highlighted. Black Creek is shown as it meanders through the southwestern section of the County. The well-known Pocket Road and Georgetown Road, formerly known as Old Georgetown Road, are highlighted.
The Pocket Road, named for its passage to McCall Pocket Landing at the Pee Dee River, was a primary road through the Back Swamp. This important port was used for importing and exporting via Charles Town. The intersection of the Pocket Road and Old Georgetown Road was called Clarke's Crossroads. The old McCown Clarke Company which served that area was located at this crossroad. This route was extensively traveled to get from Darlington to the Pee Dee River during that time. Many of the post-slavery Bacote ancestors, as shown in Figure 7, settled in that area of Darlington County.
The State of South Carolina seceded from the Union on December 24, 1860 due to ideological clashes with the government. Its mantra was: "Slavery is our king. Slavery is our truth. Slavery is our divine right." They strongly believed slavery should be legal in America. Within months six other states in the Deep South followed suit, and together they formed a new nation called the Confederate States of America (CSA). These events were forerunners of confrontations between the CSA and the Union Army and ultimately the Civil War which began on April 12, 1861.
Men from Darlington County were among the first soldiers from the CSA to volunteer to fight in the war. They began as the Darlington Guards and while training in Suffolk, Virginia during the winter of 1861-62 the unit was reorganized as Company D, First South Carolina Regiment. They were a light artillery battery and were also known as the Pee Dee Light Artillery Unit. This unit participated in the noted Second Battle of Bull Run, also called Second Manassas, from August 28-30, 1862.
Near the end of the Civil War General Sherman marched triumphantly through South Carolina from January 15 to March 9, 1865 delivering almost two months of hell, leaving in the wake a swath of total destruction 100 miles wide and extending the entire state. Darlington County escaped the wrath of Sherman's torch as cabins and palatial mansions were left intact. Darlington was not in the direct line of his advance through the state. No battles were fought here, only minor skirmishes. Detachments of the Union Army passed through Kelly Town and New Market and in the process executed a former slave on the Public Square in Darlington for what they called insurrection. After the war, Darlington was occupied by federal troops until 1871.
After the Civil War ended and the era of bondage was abolished, South Carolina, and indeed America at large, sought to provide relief and assistance to the newly freed in their quest for self-sufficiency.
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, also known as the Freedmen's Bureau was established in the U.S. War Department by an act of Congress on March 3, 1865. This was the Federal Government agency that aided the freedmen, freedwomen and white refugees after the war and during the Reconstruction Era. A branch of this much needed agency was headquartered in Darlington County and operated from 1865 to 1872. It was responsible for supervision and management in issues involving housing, employment, medical care, and rations in the county. It also assisted in the re-uniting of displaced families and served as legal advocates at both the local and national level.
This Bureau is also widely recognized for its efforts in developing educational opportunities for the newly freed who, not surprisingly, demonstrated a strong thirst for knowledge. It partnered with missionary and aid societies to provide much needed opportunities at the elementary, high school and college levels not only in South Carolina, but throughout the South.
An enduring product of this initiative emerged not far away in the bordering state of Georgia. In 1867, the nation's first historically black college for men was founded as Augusta Institute in the basement of Augusta, Georgia's Springfield Baptist Church. It eventually became known as Morehouse College, named in honor of Henry Morehouse, a white, liberal minister and secretary of the Northern Baptist Home Mission Society. This important institution would profoundly shape the lives of newly freedmen and their prodigy for generations.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Three Iron Horses and a Butterfly by Arthur H. Bolden. Copyright © 2015 Arthur H. Bolden. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgements, 6,Preface, 10,
Chapter One: Darlington And South Carolina History, 24,
Chapter Two: Elias Bacote, 40,
Chapter Three: The Bacote Side, 108,
Chapter Four: The Kelly Side, 152,
Chapter Five: Shadrack Kelly, 242,
Chapter Six: Shadrack Kelly/John Carolina, 274,
Chapter Seven: Evelyn Kelly Bolden Brown, 296,
Epilog, 330,
Sources Of Information, 340,
Appendix, 344,
Index, 347,