Carrying the Mail, Pt.1

Over the next few weeks, we'll take a look at mail service in Kingstree over the 287 years of its existence. On April 17, 1932, the News & Courier published an article by Laura C. Hemingway under the headline, "Kingstree Gets New Post Office on 200th Birthday." It's a fascinating look at how early citizens communicated with the outside world, and instead of trying to paraphrase it, I offer you Laura Hemingway's story in her own words:

The Kingstree Post Office operated out of this building from 1932 until 1937.

"Kingstree is this year celebrating her bi-centennial and one feature is the moving of her post office into modern quarters at the corner of the two intersecting streets that have, since the first settlement on the Black River banks grew into the semblance of a town, formed the backbone of the business section.

"Bi-centennials necessarily call forth reminiscences. Old tales have been revived. These center chiefly just now about the new post office, as the post office seems to have been the hub of activity throughout the two centuries of the town's existence. It has grown from a cubby hole in a dark little store on the banks of Black River to a concrete building of spacious dimensions on the town's busy corner, adequately lighted by day by a number of large windows and by night by many electric lights, different far from the river bank store where candles sputtered after dark.

"Recently an old sheepskin-covered account book with many loose leaves of accounts almost two centuries old was unearthed by Mrs. Martha Wolff, of Salters, who has a flare for finding things long passed from the recollection of this generation. The year 1799 was written in ink on the sheepskin. Letter postage is charged frequently on the account sheets along with other commodities such as calico, homespun, spirits of turpentine, castor oil, which was used in quantity, and rum, also a much charged commodity. The postage rates varied, running much higher than those of today. Payment was made either quarterly or at the end of the current year.

"The amount of the postage was written on the letter, which was folded to simulate an envelope and the ends sealed with a thin moistened wafer.

"It required several weeks sometimes for a letter to travel to its destination of only a couple hundred miles, according to tales handed down in this locality.

In days gone by, mailing a letter required more than just dropping it in a convenient mailbox.

"When members of the families living on plantations in Williamsburg County became impatient to learn how their friends and relatives were faring on neighboring plantations, they placed a black boy upon a fast-running horse and sent him on the rounds with letters for each person with whom they wished to communicate. The boy was to bring an 'answer' from each one. His return was eagerly awaited. Sometimes, he was gone for three days at a time.

"This private forerunner of the rural delivery man was a privileged character on the plantation. A large pot of the best 'victuals' on the plantation was kept simmering for him alone, and as soon as he had delivered his sack of mail to the mistress of the plantation, the pot was set before him, and he was left in peace to do what he willed with it.

"Usually in each community, back in the days when mail was an event in the lives of country folk, there was one person who made it his task to go into town and bring back the mail. They took turns in doing this, and the 'post office' moved accordingly from house to house. The trip to town was made weekly. It was timed to 'catch' the newspapers that, in those days, came up from 'the city' weekly.

"A regular stage line once ran through Kingstree from Cheraw to Georgetown. It was run by relay. From Kingstree to Georgetown it followed the old state road that had been cut by forty Scots shortly after the settling of The King's Tree as they pushed their way inland from Georgetown. Two fresh horses were hitched to a vehicle resembling a large buckboard buggy at Kingstree. These were changed at Choppee and again at Georgetown for the return trip. The mail was carried down one day and brought back the next.

"For some time before the coach set out from Kingstree, the driver blew the horn vigorously in order to sound a warning to all disposed to travel that he was ready to leave. Time enough was allowed for passengers to make themselves ready for the trip.

Long gone are the days when the mail was transported by horse and buggy.

"The horse was the main dependence in earlier days for the delivery of the mail through this section. When regular 'routes' were given under contract, the horse was usually driven by a Negro to whom the contract had been sublet. From many years, mail in Williamsburg County was delivered exclusively by Negroes. In this trust, they proved worthy and painstaking. Only one of these rural deliverymen remains hereabout now. That is Cicero Hanna, who drove the mail for years between Kingstree and Bloomingvale as his father had driven it for years before him.

"Cicero is growing old, as he admits, but he remembers the hardships he encountered in the day of the horse and buggy mail delivery. Each morning he left before the sun had warmed the earth. Sometimes during the winter for three weeks at a time, the mud was caked so thick upon his buggy wheels and frozen so solidly that it could not be broken away without doing damage to the wheels. It finally required an axe to remove it. Frequently, Cicero says, he had to loose the horse from the buggy and lead him around through the woods to the road where he hitched him until he could push the buggy across the roadside pools that were frozen over.

"'We don't have no winter nowadays,' he declares. "It used to get cold and stay cold, and I mean it was cold."

"But despite his hardships, he went his daily mail rounds for forty years.

"Perhaps the first white man in these parts to fill his own contract was Dowling McConnell, some years dead now. He carried the mail in a little road cart having two wheels. So considerate of his horse was Mr. McConnell that he walked the better part of the way and let the horse take the road easy. Travelers along the highway could hear him approaching at some distance, singing hymns at the top of his voice. As he came abreast of the travelers, he interrupted his singing long enough to wish them a 'Good Day!'

Although Kingstree is two centuries old, its first quarterly return rendered by an official postmaster was not made until January 1, 1805. That was by Robert Frierson, Jr. Twenty-two postmasters have succeeded him. These were John McMurray, James Hedleston, James Donnelly, William Staggers, Robert G. Ferrell, Peter B. Mouzon, Richard Jarrott, Carter T. Baughan, Joseph P. McElveen, J.L. Armstrong, James M. Staggers,  Adam L. Connor, J.E. Metts, William C. Footman, Mary F. Gewinner, Pauline Heller, Henry Solomons, Cohen Whitehead, Charlotte McCrea Chandler, Louis Jacobs, Louis Stackley, and Fore J. Watson.

These early postmasters knew nothing of the now-familiar Zip Code.

"At least one of Kingstree's postmasters has been a Negro. This was Cohen Whitehead, who held the appointment from July 26, 1877, to October 25, 1886, when he was succeeded by a white woman, Charlotte Chandler. (Note: In Edwin C. Epps' memoir, he mentions another black postmaster, Beauregard Patterson. Mr. Epps says the post office, overseen by Mr. Patterson, was located on the block of Main Street west of the courthouse, near the home of Louis Jacobs. The Jacobs home was located on the site that Hardees occupies today.)

"During Whitehead's term, the post office was located in his barber shop on Main Street toward the river. His wife maintained a dressmaking establishment in the little, one-story frame building also."

Next time, we'll look at the various buildings occupied by the Kingstree Post Office from 1897 until today.