The Devil's Own Weed

This summer marks the 110th anniversary of the official founding of the tobacco market in Kingstree. To mark its 20th anniversary, the following newspaper article appeared in The State, on Monday, July 29, 1929. And while there were already ominous signs that economic upheaval lay ahead, one wonders how many were prepared for the Great Depression that would begin with the fall of the stock market later that year. Here is the full-length article as it appeared in The State.

While tobacco is not as prevalent as it once was, a number of local farmers still grow it.

With two full sets of buyers ready to bid in Williamsburg's crop of fragrant tobacco, the preparations for the opening of the market Tuesday are complete, and the town is set for the welcoming and making comfortable of the tobacco market men. The stores are stocked with everything that will be needed for householders, who will be ready to buy more at this season than any other when they have their tobacco money.

Though it was only in 1909 that a market was established at Kingstree, tobacco has been raised in this county for more than 150 years, dating back to soon after the Revolution, when a few men in this section began to plant what was then known as "the devil's own weed." Only enough for the use of the planter's family and his slaves was raised at first, but later the crop, of heavy burley type, cured outdoors was packed in hogsheads and shipped down the Black River to Georgetown, where in 1823 the price went up from the seven cents that had been customary to 40 cents a pound. The usual result followed. The market was glutted with tobacco from northern Virginia to southern Georgia, and the price went down to very little so that tobacco as a money crop was given up for a time.

Cattle continue to be a part of the agricultural mix in Williamsburg County today.

However, tobacco became more and more the chief source of income in Williamsburg. Deer, fish, rice, garden truck, and cattle raising took care of the people, and tobacco gave them the extra money they needed for their other simple wants. It was not until some years later that cotton became the chief crop, as it was between the years of 1830 and 1900, in spite of the fact that British wool manufacturers had a law passed that no cotton should be grown in America during colonial days.

When the planters had overstocked the market with tobacco so that it brought almost nothing, they began to turn more and more to cotton. Cotton production increased each year after the beginning of this century, when it was borne to the minds of the inhabitants that they could no longer live off the land, killing off cattle to keep them going until harvest time. In 1919, this county produced 27,000 bales of cotton, as against the usual 10,000 bales produced in the former century. In the spring of 1920, farmers were refusing 44 cents a pound for their 1919 cotton, which had brought the highest prices ever recorded. There is a current theory that some farmers in this county are still holding some of the enormous crop of 37,000 bales produced in 1920, when the acreage was increased, and everybody was doing his best to get in on the golden harvest of cotton and was disappointed to be offered only ten cents a pound for the crop.

A cotton boll from a field in Williamsburg County.

It was after this tragic year, when the boll weevil assisted in the overthrow of King Cotton that tobacco became again the chief money crop in this section.

Dr. R.F. Maurice won a prize for the prize-winning sample of tobacco on his plantation south of the Black River on the Kingstree-Andrews road, when The News and Courier offered that prize soon after the close of the Confederate war. Tobacco in other states was bringing good money, and the prize was offered in the hope of inspiring South Carolina planters to grow the weed. It was not until after 1900 that much of it was grown commercially, however.

In 1909, W.K. McIntosh and D.J. Epps, well-known Kingstree citizens, operated a tobacco sales warehouse at what is now the Kingstree High School yard, selling about 1,759,000 pounds in the season. The next year Captain Kennedy's old store at the corner of Hampton and Mill streets was transformed into a tobacco warehouse, and later, Nelson Warehouse was built, followed by Wilkins and later the Farmers' Warehouse. Mr. McIntosh is still with the Kingstree tobacco market, the only son of the town still in the warehouse business.

W.K. McIntosh

Courtesy of W.K. "Bill" McIntosh, III

He has had charge of Nelson's Warehouse since its construction and has been assisted in the management of it from almost all that time by E.J. Hester, who will again be associated with him this year. During the season of 1918, McIntosh and Hester sold 3,750,000 pounds of tobacco for $37.80 per 100 pounds at Nelson's Warehouse, by far the highest average ever made by a warehouse in South Carolina selling anything like as many pounds. The old warehouse has had 5,000 square feet added to is floor this season and has been improved in other ways.

Nelson's Warehouse about 1913

R.E. Holland and A.J. Tilley have charge of Wilkins' Warehouse this year. That has also been renovated and is in shape for a big business.

Paul Taylor and E.D. Matthews will again operate the Farmers' Warehouse this season, both of them being well-known on this market, where they have been for a number of years. They have added 12,500 square feet to their warehouse floor space, making it one of the largest in the state.

A great tobacco crop has been gathered and cured this year and will be brought into the local warehouses when the market opens Tuesday. Good prices are predicted and an era of prosperity looked forward to. Let the boll weevil rage, the devil and his weed will yet feed plenty.

Tobacco again became the major crop in Williamsburg County after the boll weevil cut cotton yields.

There are still a number of conscientious planters in Williamsburg County who cannot square the planting of tobacco with their consciences and not a leaf is grown on their lands. But they are in the minority.

Could the early settlers of 1732 who sailed up Black River from Georgetown and settled on the river bluff on which grew the white pine reserved in the grant by the king for his majesty's ship's masts come back now and see the settlement of the King's Tree with its crowded warehouses and eager throngs of happy people with their automobiles, their radios, to say nothing of their short skirts–what would be their reaction?

Many are the concerns which have not been strong enough to weather the storms of the past ten years, the drop in the price of cotton, the inroads of the boll weevil, the deflation in the price of real estate, and the consequent closing of the banks. But in the quiet old settlement, nearing its bicentennial celebration, there are a number that have gone calmly on doing business safely and sanely, with the characteristic grit of the early colonists who were battling against the hardships in their settling at the township of Williamsburg on the Black River in 1732.

(One also wonders what the settlers of 1732 would think today, 90 years after this article was written, of our televisions and computers and cell phones. What would be their reaction indeed?)