Murder on Main Street

It's Christmas Eve, 1912. A young, black man stands just inside the doorway of Jenkinson Brothers, a general merchandise store on Main Street in Kingstree. It's after 9 p.m., but the store and the street outside are still thronged with shoppers, revelers, and rabble-rousers. J.Z. McConnell, a special policeman on duty that night in an attempt to keep order, stands just outside the door on the sidewalk, scanning the crowds across the street at the depot. Over there, a large number of men and boys are celebrating the holiday by shooting fireworks. The noise is thunderous and incessant. Suddenly, the windows of Milhous & Jennings' grocery store, next door to Jenkinson Brothers, shatter inward as two .38-calibre slugs find their target from across the street.

Jenkinson Brothers and Milhous & Jennings on East Main Street.

Photo courtesy, Williamsburgh Historical Museum

McConnell quickly moves toward the grocery store to see if anyone is injured. Just inside Jenkinson Brothers, James Fleming, the young black man, shifts nervously from foot to foot. He arrived in Kingstree that morning on the train from Florida, and he's anxious about getting home to Workman Crossroads. As soon as he got off the train, he came to the store to see if he could get a ride tonight with Wallace McIntosh, on whose father's farm, Fleming and his siblings were born. 

Fleming's mother, Sarah, was also born on the McIntosh farm in 1858. She grew up there, married in 1877, and had nine children. Then, finding herself their sole support and hearing that many other black county residents were moving to Florida to seek a better life in the turpentine industry, she took her children to Florida probably in 1906 or 1907. However, many of these workers found that the promise of a better life turned out to be an empty one, and so they started making their way back to South Carolina around 1910. Sarah Fleming decided that she, too, needed to come home. Once back here, she scrimped and saved in order to bring her children back. Sixteen-year-old James, the second to the youngest, was the last one left in Florida, and she had worked extremely hard in order to send him money to catch the train home in time for Christmas. 

Today, the building is known as the old Marcus Building and stands empty on Main Street.

The noise, both inside and outside the store, is deafening. So Fleming is surprised when he feels a sharp pain in his left thigh. Looking down, he is even more surprised to see blood spurting from his leg. He tries to attract someone's attention, but movement is so painful, he collapses to the floor. He has been shot through the open door of the store. A number of bystanders, including Wallace McIntosh and police officer McConnell rush to help him and try to stop the bleeding. Someone summons Dr. E.T. Kelley, who quickly arrives and arranges to have Fleming moved to his offices around the corner. Dr. Kelley works feverishly throughout the night to stop the bleeding, but the femoral artery was severed by the bullet, and Fleming has lost too much blood. He dies at 8 a.m. Christmas morning.

The town turns from merriment to mourning. The mayor and town council offer a $100 reward, supplemented by $112 raised by private citizens (This would amount to a little over $5,500 in today's dollars.) for any information leading to the person who fired the fatal shot. Some citizens felt that it was just a rabble rouser firing at random on the street; other felt that Fleming was targeted. Council also quickly adopted an ordinance banning fireworks on the streets of Kingstree.

A vintage Main Street scene. You can see the Jenkinson store at the far right of the picture.

Photo courtesy Williamsburgh Historical Museum

On January 2, 1913, The County Record published a lengthy editorial. It read, in part: The horrible atrocity committed here Christmas Eve night when James Fleming, a young Negro, was shot down while standing in Jenkinson's store, stands without parallel in the annals of crime in our town and county. ... Here on the night before Christmas, a holiday the world over among Christian nations as commemorating the coming upon earth of Christ–the Prince of Peace, whose advent heralded "peace on earth and good will toward men"–an assassin steals along a crowded street, and under cover of the noise of exploding fireworks, sends his leaden missiles of death across the street, crashing through the windows of stores filled with innocent and unsuspecting men, women, and children–sending into a merry, carefree throng a veritable specter of death. Not once only, but twice, aye, even thrice the deadly weapon spoke, speeding bullets through windows into stores thronged with clerks and shoppers.

For more than a century the Town of Kingstree has boasted a spirit of conservatism, a respect for law and order, that insured (sic) the protection of life and property to all who came within her gates. But the crime that marred the Christmas season has rudely shattered this tradition and left an unsightly blot upon her fair escutcheon. Are the citizens of Kingstree content to allow it to remain there?

If the murderer of James Fleming go unwhipt of justice, whose life is safe in Kingstree? The authorities, municipal, county, and state, should act promptly and vigorously, and the citizens of Kingstree owe it to themselves and to the town to back up the authorities in every way possible. The community is on trial. What will be the verdict?

Town of Kingstree's 2017 Christmas tree after an early January 2018 snow.

It appears no one was ever apprehended for the shooting of James Fleming. However, Fleming's death was responsible for a vast change in the way the people of Kingstree celebrated the holiday. In 1913, The County Record noted that Christmas was "one of the sanest and quietest that has been noted in many years." The paper stated that there was a total "absence of noise and din," due to the ban of fireworks. That ban had effectively quelled those who liked to celebrate by shooting their guns, as well, as they has always used the fireworks to mask the sound of gunfire. Again in 1914 and 1915, Christmas was a quiet family celebration, although there were some who had begun to complain that it was just "too quiet."

Big thanks to Wendell Voiselle, Director of the Williamsburgh Historical Museum, for sharing his research into the murder of James Fleming.

A Civil War Mystery Solved

Most people leaving Kingstree by the Lamar Johnson bridge are unaware of the small cemetery to their right on Main Street just before they reach the bridge. Started in 1856 by the Baptists, whose church once sat on the lot in front of the cemetery, this burial ground has one historic monument that has long puzzled those who are aware of its existence.

The Baptist Cemetery as it looks today.

The monument is dedicated to the memory of 19 Confederate soldiers who gave their lives during the closing days of the Civil War. The story had long been told that 19 soldiers from Georgia had died in Kingstree and were buried here, but as there were no individual markers for the soldiers, no one knew for certain the full story of how they came to be there. A number of years ago, state archaeologist, Dr. Jon Leader, at the request of a local resident, spent a morning in the cemetery using ground penetrating radar to see if he could determine the location of the graves. While the equipment showed anomalies, there were not enough of them to account for 19 separate burials.

The soldiers' monument at the Baptist Cemetery.

Recently, however, I ran across two stories written by the late Laura Cromer Hemingway and published in The News & Courier in 1933, which tell the story of the marker and the soldiers who died here 154 years ago. I'll let Mrs. Hemingway tell the story:

"It was during the Christmas season of 1864 that news of Sherman's approach reached the people of Williamsburg County, throwing them into a panic. But they learned, too, that (Confederate) General Hardee was in advance of Sherman's army. When Hardee reached Kingstree, he paused to recuperate and to outfit his men to hold back Sherman. When Sherman changed his plans and sought another route to Columbia, Hardee made ready to march on northward. His men were ill, and there were 21 too ill to continue the march. These were left behind to the mercy of the people of Kingstree."

While in Kingstree, Hardee's men camped in the field between the Gewinner house, on the corner of what is now Main and Longstreet streets, and the river. Reportedly that December of 1864 was a cold and wet one, and as the war had dragged on for four years, Hardee's troops were worn out and ill-equipped to handle the inclement weather, and so many of them succumbed to fever.

The west face of the marker.

Laura Hemingway continues: "The Baptist Church at the river was turned into an improvised hospital where the women of the community took charge and nursed the sick soldiers. Two of the number were removed to a private home. These were the only two to recover. What eventually became of them, none knew."

She noted that the 19 who died were buried in the cemetery and later disinterred and buried in a single casket near the gate of the cemetery with an obelisk over the grave, with the inscription that it was erected by the Kingstree Council No. 18, Friends of Temperance. She wrote that no one living in Kingstree in 1933 remembered any organization by that name. This was the great mystery of the Baptist Cemetery, she said. She added that several newspaper writers had published stories throughout the years, asking for information, but had never received any.

The north face of the marker.

This time, however, an answer was quick in coming. On December 24, 1933, The News & Courier published another story written by Laura Hemingway, in which she announced that after the publication of her earlier story about the cemetery and the marker, she had received a letter from Dr. N.G. Gewinner of Macon, GA. Although he was only a small boy in 1864, he remembered the encampment of Hardee's army in the field near his home, and he was able to fill in the gaps of the story about the 19 Confederate soldiers, leaving only the mystery of their identities, which he did not know.

He noted that the soldiers were originally buried outside the cemetery on the slope of the hill which at that time led to the river bank. On that point Laura Hemingway disagreed with him as she believed the soldiers were originally buried at the back of the cemetery. Dr. Gewinner, however, wrote that 10 years later in 1875, he was in charge of the exhumation and reburial of their remains. He wrote, "They had been buried in shallow graves, no coffins, only wrapped in blankets. Two or more buried in the same hole, and when we uncovered them after being buried 10 years or more, the blankets had rotted, and their bones were so intermingled that it was impossible to separate them. We could estimate the number only by counting the skulls. In taking them up, we located as many as we could, but I have always believed that we did not get one half, and that as many more are still lying on the hillside."

The south face of the monument.

Dr. Gewinner continued, "All the bones were reverently assembled, put together in a large pine box and buried, the monument placed directly over them." He added, "For the sake of appearance, we made dummy graves. I painted and put up the pine head-boards. As well as I can recall they had not been all unknown, as I was supplied by some of the good ladies with seven or eight names." However, those "dummy" markers rotted, and the list of the names was lost so that today none of the 19 soldiers names is known. It is believed that they were part of a unit from Georgia.

Dr. Gewinner noted that the Friends of Temperance was a dramatic society which put on plays at the courthouse. Members that he could recall were Mary Jacobs, Lena and Madeleine Levy, Jessie Manheim, M.F. Heller, and Marion Levin. Louis Jacobs managed the troupe, which performed not only in Kingstree but also in neighboring towns. He said door receipts sometimes ran as high as $800 to $1000. It was from the money raised through these theatrical attractions that they bought the obelisk-like marker to commemorate the soldiers who had died here.

And so, although we still do not know the names of the soldiers, we now have the full story of how they came to be buried in the old Baptist Cemetery and who placed the marker in the cemetery in their memory.

Sign on the gate of the Baptist Cemetery.

An Open Letter from Mayor Tisdale

This week seems a good time to take a little break from historic ramblings and reflect on some of the things happening today in Kingstree. Mayor Darren Tisdale has recently released an open letter to the town's residents, giving an overview of the projects currently underway in town and a bit of a look at some other things that are waiting down the road. Here is the letter in its entirety:

Mayor Darren Tisdale

To the Citizens of Kingstree:

As 2018 comes to a close, big things are happening in the Town of Kingstree!

We are anticipating several construction projects that will begin soon. Hardee's, which has stood at the corner of Main and Longstreet since 1972, recently bulldozed its old building and will soon begin constructing a beautiful, new restaurant to serve residents and visitors to Kingstree. This new restaurant will join the recently completed Subway at the corner of Longstreet and Sumter Highway and the newly-renovated Pizza Hut on Longstreet St. We very much appreciate that these three companies have chosen to update their restaurants in the Town of Kingstree.

The new Subway on the corner of Longstreet and Sumter Highway.

In addition, two old buildings next to Town Hall were recently torn down to make way for a new combination fire and police station. When the Town built the current Town Hall on Longstreet after Hurricane Hugo, the police and fire stations were moved into the old South Carolina Department of Transportation buildings behind the new Town Hall. There were supposed to be temporary arrangements, which have, in reality, accommodated them for 29 years. However, we now have access to money from the one-cent Public Safety Capital Project Sales Tax, which will enable us to build new, joint facilities for both departments. The contract for site preparation work has been let, and as soon as that is completed, we will begin the design and build phase of the project. In addition, the Police Department will soon acquire three new vehicles. This is very exciting for all of us but particularly for our police officers and firefighters.

Site awaiting construction of the new police/fire station.

The town is also currently reworking and enlarging the downtown parking lot, which has served downtown businesses since the late 1950s. We will add much-needed lighting and security cameras to make it safer for citizens to use at night, as well as during the day. In addition, we are landscaping the lot with planters to make it more attractive. This is also exciting, as we feel that these improvements will help in building our economic base in the core commercial area of downtown Kingstree.

Planters have been designated in the downtown parking lot as part of the renovation.

Area on Mill Street to be incorporated into the downtown parking lot.

In another forthcoming renovation project, the Town of Kingstree has partnered with Williamsburg County and the Williamsburgh Historical Society, which allows the Historical Society to secure a Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Grant of $250,000 to repair and renovate the building beside the Williamsburgh Historical Museum on Hampton Avenue. This building, known as the Museum Annex, was damaged by a microburst several years ago and has been used only for storage since then. The Historical Society is currently conducting a fund-raising drive to secure matching funds for this grant and for a $50,000 Rural Development Grant which would provide furniture and fixtures for the space when renovated. When completed the renovated building will house an interactive Civil Rights history exhibit, as well as exhibits on the development of both Santee Electric Cooperative and Farmers Telephone. Both of these cooperatives occupied the building during the early years of their operations.

The Museum Annex on Hampton Avenue.

The town is also engaged in a sewer line replacement project on East Main Street, east of the railroad tracks. Flooding from the canal damaged the old, clay sewer pipes, causing sewage to back up in some of the businesses on the north side of the street. Replacing the lines should alleviate some of these problems. The Town is also completing the Jennyville Water Project which has brought town water to approximately 55 customers in the Jennyville area, three miles west of Kingstree on the Sumter Highway. We are now doing the preliminary work on another potential water project in the county north of McClam Road. This would add an additional 50 to 60 customers to our water system.

Because so many areas of the Town of Kingstree have experienced flooding over the past few years, we have contracted with a Columbia engineering firm to conduct a townwide drainage study. We anticipate that the engineer will issue a report by the end of the year, which should pinpoint the causes of the flooding and what we need to do to alleviate it.

Railroad Avenue during the Flood of 2015.

We are also looking at expanding the recreation complex to include a travel ball field. This would allow us to extend our baseball program to older age groups, as well as give us an opportunity to host tournaments here in Kingstree. In addition, next year we will pursue funding to install a walking track around the perimeter of the recreation park.

The Kingstree Development Corporation has formed to assist the Town in working with property. Although separate from the Town, this 501(c)3 corporation, governed by a board of directors, has already been able to buy several downtown buildings. This will help in preserving historic building and renovating them for today's use without damaging the characteristics that make them unique. We are very positive that this organization will be instrumental in helping preserve the best of our beautiful little town.

This year the town also inaugurated its Main Street, Kingstree, program. This program, in association with Main Street, South Carolina, and Main Street America is devoted to the revitalization and development of the Town of Kingstree. The Main Street, Kingstree, office is located in the historic Kingstree Depot on Main Street. Its purpose is to work with businesses through the Town of Kingstree to provide a better business environment and to promote events and activities to draw citizens and visitors to our downtown. Main Street will also assist prospective business owners by providing information on what they need to start a business in the Town of Kingstree.

As a part of the Main Street effort, the Town has instituted a Facade Grant program which will provide grant funds to building owners who want to upgrade the fronts of their buildings. Building under consideration for a facade grant must be in compliance with all fire and building codes, and any changes must be approved by the town's Architectural Review Board.

Main Street, along with a number of corporate underwriters, sponsored a very successful concert series this past summer called Kingstree Live, and Main Street, along with our local merchants, also hosted several successful Sip and Shop events in our downtown over the past year.

Crowd enjoying Kingstree Live last summer.

Shoppers on Academy Street during the August Sip & Shop.

Committees are currently meeting to plan Main Street events for 2019. If you would like to serve on one of these committees are volunteer to help with Main Street projects, visit the Main Street office at the Kingstree Depot.

I particularly want to thank the members of the Kingstree Town Council for their support and interest in all these projects that are helping to revitalize the Town of Kingstree, and I would also like to thank Town Manager Richard Treme and the staff of the Town of Kingstree for their hard work and dedication, and the community volunteers who are always willing to pitch in when needed. These projects could not go forward without all of them

Sincerely,

Darren Tisdale

Mayor of Kingstree