Kingstree Was Site of Historic Choral Performance

Main Street's Kingstree Live series is developing an enthusiastic following as it begins its second full summer of concerts. The first performance on May 10 saw many in attendance dancing with members of Flashback, The Party Band–the entertainment for the evening–while children chased beach balls, and played games. Historically, Kingstree broke new ground on the music scene seventy-nine years ago, on March 13, 1940, when it became the first town in the state outside Columbia to host the 150-voice Shandon Choral Society in concert with the 60-piece Southern Symphony Orchestra directed by Hans Schweiger, performing Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah Oratorio. It was a very big deal.

Line dancers having a good time at Kingstree Live on May 10, 2019

The Elijah performance was sponsored in Kingstree by The Williamsburg Choral Society. According to The State newspaper, the Shandon chorus met at 1 p.m. on March 13, 1940, at The Township Auditorium in Columbia to form a motorcade of 30 cars which would leave at 1:30 to take them to Kingstree. The cars were numbered and each member of the chorus was assigned to a specific car. Each car carried a banner reading "Columbia Chorus." The parade of cars would go through both Sumter and Manning before reaching Kingstree between 3:30 and 4 p.m. Columbia businessman and chorus member Claude P. Davis drove the lead car, which may have also carried Columbia Mayor Dr. L.B. Owens, who attended the concert at the invitation of Kingstree Mayor T.M. Gilland.

The Southern Symphony had played in Manning on Tuesday night and its members remained there until the Columbia Chorus motorcade reached that town. There, the two buses carrying the orchestra joined the procession and they made their way to Kingstree together.

Children having fun playing with various games at the May 10 Kingstree Live.

Meanwhile, in Kingstree, officials were planning to give the orchestra and chorus a "royal welcome to the Royal Town." Mayor Gilland, members of the sponsoring Williamsburg Choral Society, E.W. Stokes and E.L. Long of the South Carolina Highway Patrol, and the Kingstree High School Drill Band met the motorcade several miles beyond the Black River bridge on Main Street. When the two groups met, the mayors greeted each other, and then the band, led by Drum Majorette Mary Kent Seignious, preceded the motorcade as it came, according to The County Record, "bringing Elijah to Kingstree." Once the band reached the Confederate Monument, then located in the middle of the intersection of Main and Academy streets, it stopped and continued playing as the procession turned down Academy Street and moved on to Kingstree High School on Third Avenue, where the performance was given in the gymnasium, beginning at 8 p.m.

Drum Majorette Mary Kent Seignious, who led the procession into town.

Photo courtesy of Peggy Kelley Jenkinson

Three of the four lead soloists were professional singers with the Metropolitan Opera in New York. They arrived in Kingstree by train earlier in the day of March 13, and were staying at the Carolina Hotel.

According to The County Record, several hundred people attended the performance. Tickets were $1 for adults and 50 cents for students. The paper noted that some people who had witnessed the only other performance of Elijah given by the two groups in Columbia in January, 1940, had driven to Kingstree to see it again, along with many Columbia residents who had missed the first performance. Tickets were sold to music lovers from all over the Pee Dee, as well as many residents of Kingstree. Harvey B. Jeffries was chairman of ticket sales. 

A letter from Eli Kozma in a subsequent issue of The County Record proclaimed the performance as "superb."

Members of the Flashback Band, center, join dancers at the May 10 Kingstree Live.

The current Kingstree Live music series may not have as much pomp and circumstance as the coming of Elijah to Kingstree, but residents are appreciating the opportunity to spend one Friday evening a month during the spring and summer with friends and family, enjoying each other's company and the music of different bands. The next Kingstree Live is June 14 from 7-10 p.m. The Maxx Band will  perform at that event.

Thoughts on the American Revolution

At the Williamsburgh Historical Society's 2019 annual meeting May 4, Jack Parker, author of Parker's Guide to the Revolutionary War in South Carolina, gave a presentation highlighting some of the Revolutionary War action in Williamsburg County.

Approximately 30 people attended the historical society's annual meeting.

Mr. Parker concentrated on British Major James Wemyss' march through South Carolina, highlighting the part of the march that took place in Williamsburg County. This included what has come to be known as the Battle of Kingstree, although it was more likely something of a skirmish. Gen. Francis Marion had sent Major John James to lie in wait for Wemyss' party as it approached Kingstree. James' instructions were only to count the number of men Wemyss had with him, not to engage. James, however, couldn't resist, and in the resulting skirmish killed or wounded 15 men, while capturing 15 more. James, however, also lost five men and had 15 wounded and 10 captured. James himself returned to General Marion with news that the group of British and Tories was too large for Marion's men to have any success in stopping them, and Marion withdrew into southern North Carolina, while Wemyss and his company burned homes, killed livestock, and otherwise terrorized residents along their path.

The Historical Marker for the Battle of Kingstree is located on West Academy Street.

From our vantage point looking back, it is hard for us to remember that South Carolinians during the Revolution were not only fighting the British, but also their friends and neighbors who remained loyal to the King. We also tend to forget that the wholesale destruction of property had a long-lasting effect on this area. One example of this is seen in this small article from the August 13, 1859, issue of the Keowee Courier in upstate South Carolina. 

"There is a lady, a Mrs. Singleton, residing in this District (Williamsburg) who is supposed to be around 140 years old. The record of her age was consumed in a house burnt by the British and Tories, hence her age cannot be exactly ascertained. Her youngest child, a daughter, was a grown-up lady in the time of the Revolution, and her youngest grandchild is now 50 years old. She has lived all her life in the Districts of Georgetown and Williamsburg."

Jack Parker, center, answers a question during his presentation on Wemyss' march

And while Major John James, grandson of John Witherspoon, is perhaps the best known hero of the American Revolution from Williamsburg County, other citizens did their part, including two women whose stories have been handed down, although one is much better known than the other. 

Jane Hawkins is little remembered today, but according to a story told by Nell Gilland in The State newspaper on July 3, 1932, Mrs. Hawkins was approached one day by seven British soldiers who told her that they had lost their way and were wondering if she could give them directions on how to get back to their camp. She told them that it would be easier for her to show them the way back to camp so she mounted her horse and began to lead them while engaging the men in pleasant conversation, all the while extracting information from them about the British army's next moves. The seven soldiers did not realize it until too late that while Mrs. Hawkins kept them distracted by conversation, she led them to General Marion's headquarters instead of back to their own camp. Marion's men were only too happy to take the seven as prisoners.

The name of the other woman lives on today in the Margaret Gregg Gordon Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Two stories about Mrs. Gordon were related by the Rev. James Wallace in his history of Williamsburg Presbyterian Church. In one, he stated that one of a group of British soldiers fleeing from the Americans got himself hung up in a fence on Mrs. Gordon's property. Seeing this, she ran out and stood guard over him until the Americans could take him prisoner. In another instance, the British stole several horses from the Gordon stable. Mrs. Gordon followed them at a distance, and that night after the British were asleep, she untied their horses and rode away on a far better animal than had been stolen from her.

On January 21, 1915, the Margaret Gregg Gordon chapter of the DAR was founded with Martha Brockinton Scott, regent; Corinne McFadden, vice-regent; Lula Brockinton, secretary; and Eleanor McCabe, treasurer. Ada Brockington was named registrar and Maud Logan, historian. The Board of Management was made up of Mamie McLees, Cornelia Gamble, and Mag Brockington. Five of the founding members were direct descendants of Margaret Gregg Gordon.

Childhood Memories of Railroad Trains

An ACL engine taken in Florence, SC, August 27, 1894, after

a fast run from Charleston.

A Pictorial History of Williamsburg County

Browsing through various news stories from 1929, I ran across this reminiscence from James H. Hogans, who lived in Kingstree when he was a small child. As an adult, he became one of the Pullman porters he had viewed as the heroes of his youth and wrote a regular column during the 1920s and 1930s for The New York Age, one of the most influential African American newspapers of the time. In fact, in an article called "The Platform: How Pullman porters used railways to engage in networked journalism," Allissa V. Richardson suggests that James H. Hogans was perhaps the most famous of these columnists. His columns earned him a loyal readership, and in 1936 he left his job as a Pullman porter after The Baltimore Afro-American offered him a full-time job as a columnist. This is his column from the March 9, 1929, issue of The New York Age:

Even when a child, railroad men and railroad trains fascinated my youthful imagination. To this day, the fast moving train, whether it is a freight or a passenger, it brings to me a wanderlust as it passes.

I became conscious of my existence in a village in South Carolina, called Kingstree. Perhaps it has expanded ere now to a town. I have heard that it has. But it my days there it was only a village, nestling amid pine, oak, maple and palmetto trees.

A 1930s passenger train steams through Williamsburg County.

A Pictorial History of Williamsburg County

My first recollections of railroad trains date back to those childhood days when I played around my father's blacksmith workshop. I can picture the old shop now, with its collection of broken wheels, bent axles, rusty plows, wagon bodies, carriage springs, and my father, with perspiration oozing from every pore in his brawny chest, annealing the red hot shoe to the size of the hoof patiently waiting to be shod. I can recall the many signs on the evils of credit which adorned its boarded walls. To my infantile mind this one always appeared awesome: "Poor Credit is Dead; Bad Pay Killed Him."

The shop was located near the tracks of the one railroad that passed through the village. Aside from the station whistle, fast freights and still faster passenger trains never slackened their speed in their mad race through the little community. Childlike, I often stood and wondered as they tore past my playground what made them in such a hurry. As I grew older, these things of speed began more and more to impress my imagination. The black man who waved to me as he walked atop of the swiftly moving cars, with all the nonchalance of a ground pedestrian, was my idea of a hero. That he was only a brakeman who had acquired the knack, and that this was only a part of his duty, were no part of my youthful knowledge.

But though I thought the black brakeman a more superior man, I deeply envied the black man, who I could see through the vestibule train windows. In those days an all-Pullman train was called a "vestibule train" by the people of our village. The name was derived, no doubt, from the fact that in those times, Pullmans were the only cars having enclosed platforms.

I remember seeing one of these trains stop near my playground. A white-coated man alighted from one of the cars. That the man was any place but New York never entered my little head; in fact, I was just old enough to think that none but one so clean-shaven, white-collared and white-liveried could hail from any other place. So, timidly I accosted him and inquired did he know my uncle "Pete" Hogans? The liveried person was quite nice about it. No, he didn't know my uncle "Pete," but he humored me by answering my various questions about trains.

AMTRAK still stops in Kingstree.

Several months later, my father received a telegram from another brother by the name of Andrew, who was also a porter, saying that his train which ran between Jacksonville and New York would make a stop at Kingstree on its way North, an unusual occurrence. When Uncle Andrew's train arrived, my childish brain was so fired with the luxuriousness of the train that I declared there and then to Father than nothing but a job like Uncle Andrew's would ever satisfy me.

But this infatuation with trains wasn't because I had never ridden on any. As a matter of fact, my family did considerable traveling between our home and Charleston, Florence, Orangeburg, and other places in the state. It was always a case of rejoicing when one of these trips was contemplated by the family. In those days the "Jim Crow" law had not poked its obnoxious frame in the Southland. There were no separate coaches for the races. And next to the anticipation of a trip, the thing that I always used to look forward to with the most childish eagerness was buying apples off the train's newsboy. Somehow it seemed that those boys carried the reddest and biggest apples I ever saw. Perhaps that was only another of my imaginations about trains. Anyway, those old day coaches always had to me the odor of apples.

Later in life, around my adolescent age, my parents sent me to school in Fayetteville, NC. My feelings for trains followed me there. I was matured enough then not to be impressed with the heroism of freight brakemen and the livery of Pullman porters, but the shrill blast from the engine at night used to always kindle my imagination and give me a yearning to follow in the wake of its sound.

A freight train approaches the Main Street crossing after the snow storm of 2018.

There used to be a railroad engineer running through Fayetteville by the name of Bonnie. If this article should come under the eyes of any old resident of that town, he will no doubt recall this engineman, for he was known to all its residents for the way in which he blew the whistle of his engine. The whistle, as I have since learned, was merely a road crossing signal, but this engineer thrilled you with its almost human cry. For miles away you could hear its echo. Many are the nights I have lain in bed with the sound of Bonnie's whistle pricking my receptive imagination of things in the outer world.

Through the kindness of Mr. Lucien White, musical editor of The Age, I had the pleasure not long since of enjoying, for the first time, the Hall Johnson Spiritual Singers. On this particular occasion (it may have been just a coincidence) three of the numbers on the program dealt with railroad trains. That observation helped to strengthen my trend to the belief, which thought I have expressed here before, that the motor car and the airplane may in time supplant the railroad train, but neither of these locomotions will ever stir the imagination of the child, the writer, the poet and the singer as has the railroad train.

DON'T FORGET the first Kingstree Live of the season is Friday night at the Depot from 6:30-9:30.

Two Easter Church Dedications in the Early 1900s

During a span of two years (1912-1914) three large churches opened on Academy Street in Kingstree. Two of them were dedicated during the Easter season, one in 1912, the other in 1914. In 1910, the congregation of Kingstree Methodist Church realized that it had outgrown its building on the corner of Academy and Church streets and set out to raise money for a new sanctuary. They broke ground on the same spot as the old church on January 23, 1911, holding services in the school auditorium until the new building could be completed.

Kingstree Methodist Church as it looked in 1912.

The County Record

The $17,000 building measured 64 x 90 feet, with the sanctuary measuring 54 x 54 feet. The Gothic-designed ceiling in the sanctuary consisted of four arches which met in the center. The building contained the sanctuary, the Sunday School room, seven classrooms, and the pastor's study. An elevated choir loft rose at the rear of the pulpit. It could seat 600, although membership at the time of its construction was approximately 170. Most notable were the two, large stained-glass windows, one facing Academy Street and one facing Church Street.

The first service was held in the church on Easter Sunday, April 7, 1912. The County Records for April, 1912, are missing, and there appears to have been no write-up in any of the daily papers. However, we know from later newspaper articles that members of all denominations in Kingstree at the time attended the Easter service with the Methodists. We also know that in 1913, the church, led by its pastor D.A. Phillips, raised the funds to pay off the $9,201.50 balance on the mortgage. Dr. D.C. Scott contributed the final $25 at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 22, 1913. The next day, the  mortgage was burned as the congregation sang the Doxology. 

The Methodists used this building until the walls cracked in the 1950s, and it was condemned. The current Kingstree United Methodist on Longstreet Street was built in 1957, designed around the two large stained glass windows from the old church.

Shortly after the construction of the 1912 Methodist Church, the congregation of Williamsburg Presbyterian Church decided to build a new brick church, costing not less than $12,000. They, too, would build the new church on the ground on which the old church stood. 

Williamsburg Presbyterian Church as it looks today. Of the three churches built in the early

 1900s, this is the only one still standing.

The new church was dedicated on January 25, 1914, and as was the case with the Methodist Church before it, the other churches suspended their own services that day to worship with the Presbyterians. The guest speaker was Dr. Henry Alexander White of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Columbia. He addressed the 500 people in attendance on the history of the Presbyterianism in Williamsburg County, noting that this new building was a far cry from the first service conducted by John Witherspoon in the barn of an earlier settler in the county.  Also during the service, the Rev. D.A. Phillips of Kingstree Methodist, and the Rev. W.E. Hurt of Kingstree Baptist brought greetings and congratulations from their congregations. Estelle Campbell, the music teacher at the school, played the pipe organ, accompanying a large choir of "selected voices." S.D. Carr, brother of Kingstree resident, W.H. Carr, and a salesman for a music company, played the offertory. 

Kingstree First Baptist, with the parsonage to the left.

A History of the First Baptist Church of Kingstree

While the Presbyterian Church was under construction, across Academy Street, the town's Baptist congregation was building a new church of their own. They, too, were constructing the new building on the same lot as their old church. The frame building that had served them for many years was moved first to the back of the lot and then, after M.F. Heller bought it, across the street where it became the dining room of the Heller House, now the Heller House Inn.

This new church was dedicated on Palm Sunday, April 5, 1914, with Dr. E. Pendleton Jones of Newberry as the guest minister. He based his sermon on the Gospel of Luke, titling it "The Spirit of the Lord is Upon Me." Again, the other churches in town closed for the day to celebrate with the Baptists. Baptist minister, W.E. Hurt, noted in his remarks that the first Baptist Church in Kingstree was made possible by a good Presbyterian elder, A.I. McKnight. The Rev. D.A. Phillips of the Methodist congregation and Presbyterian minister, the Rev P.S McChesney both spoke on the spirit of Christian unity in the community. Both the sanctuary and the Sunday School room were filled to overflowing for the service. Violinist David Silverman played a solo, accompanied by pianist Estelle Campbell. S.D. Carr also played two selections during the service. 

According to The County Record, the arrangement of the church was "simple and convenient." In addition to the sanctuary and the Sunday School room, there was a pastor's study, a ladies' parlor, and three spacious vestibules. The large stained glass dome in the center of the sanctuary was accented beneath by a circle of many electric lights. There was additional electric lighting on the walls of the sanctuary. 

While today, Kingstree's Baptists still worship on Academy Street, the 1914 church gave way in the 1980s to a larger, more modern building constructed on the spot of the old parsonage. However, across the street, the 1914 Williamsburg Presbyterian Church still stands, although it has been renovated several times over the years and is currently undergoing another renovation.