An Eyewitness Remembers the Kingstree of Long Ago

In the Williamsburgh Historical Society's Summer 2019 newsletter, Director Wendell Voiselle reprinted an article from The County Record of June 14, 1917. That article was also a reprint in that it was written by H.S. Cunningham and originally published in his Bishopville newspaper, the Leader and Vindicator. It is an interesting look at how Kingstree had changed from 1880 to 1917. Mr. Cunningham had lived in Kingstre in the 1880s. He, on occasion, returned here to visit his brother and other relatives.

The Williamsburg County Courthouse as it looked during the time of which

Editor Cunningham writes.

Source: Williamsburg County: A Pictorial History

The article provides much useful data in describing how Kingstree looked in both the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I am reprinting it here with a few annotations and photographic illustrations. Please note that my comments are all in brackets.

The headline read, "Kingstree Long Ago and Now: Editor Cunningham writes interestingly about his old town."

"After a three hours run from Bishopville, we arrived at Kingstree about 6:30 p.m., our first stop being at the home of our brother, Dr. J.S. Cunningham. Here, after a short rest, the party divided, the Editor and better half going to the home of Mrs. Lou Gilland to spend the night. As we had so many relatives to visit, it is needless to say with what a glad welcome we were received by both relatives and friends, especially do we appreciate the pressing invitations from that most genial and warm-hearted, James D. Epps, and our old comrade, Harvey H. Kinder. Knowing our partiality and fondness for the famous Black River fish, we had no less than six invitations from friends Saturday to partake of the famous Black River bream, goggle-eye red breast and mawmouth fresh from the water.

Lou Gilland

Source: South Carolina's Williamsburg

"But our kind hostess, Mrs. Gilland, said to her son, Wilmot, 'Can't you get some fresh fish for your cousins?' Without saying anything more about it, he was up and off to the river by daylight and brought back 48 as fine specimens as one would wish to see and taste. The Editor is a pretty big fish eater, but two of those, almost as broad as your two hands, were just about as much as he could go at one time.

"It was indeed a pleasure to meet and visit in their homes so many of our old friends and relatives, but our time was so limited, we did not get to see more than half of them. We found our dear old brother in very good health and recovered from his terrible hurt during the storm last July. Sunday and Sunday night we spent with Mrs. Cunningham's brother, Mr. P.M. Brockinton, who lives five miles out in the country, although he is Probate Judge for Williamsburg County, and goes to town nearly every day.

"Here at this pleasant home we met an old Confederate comrade, Mr. A.W. Flagler, who, knowing how we love honey, presented us next morning with a gallon of fine extracted honey, almost as clear as crystal. 

"Monday morning we hiked out for home and in about three hours time were back at Bishopville.

"Having said so much about our trip, we cannot close without saying a few words about old Kingstree, 44 years ago when we commenced business there, and new Kingstree of today.

"The first paper started in Kingstree was published about 1856 or '57 by Messrs. Gilbert and Darr of Sumter, with an old Washington hand press that took all day to run off an edition of 500. It was a six-column, four-page paper, known as The Kingstree Star, and the subscription price was $3. Messrs. Gilbert and Darr soon sold out to Mr. R.C. Logan, who continued its publication until '74 or '75, when he sold out to Capt. S.W. Maurice, a prominent lawyer, who published it until his death.

R.C. "Lum" Logan, longtime owner and editor of The County Record.

Source: Williamsburg County: A Pictorial History

"Mr. J.S. Heyward of Orangeburg rented the outfit and continued its publication for a year or two and gave it up. In 1878, the writer of this article bought the outfit and published The Williamsburg Herald. For sentiment's sake, he restored the Star, and it was then published as Star and Herald and was continued under that head till 1886, when the writer moved to Greenwood, having established the first paper in that thriving town, and sold out the Star and Herald to Messrs. Andrews and Chandler, who did not run it long before it was suspended. In the meantime, Mr. R.C. Logan established the Record, which he sold to C.W. Wolfe, Esq., and after his death it was sold to Messrs. Tolley and Wallace, who have an outfit up to date in every respect. [Editor Cunningham is not quite correct here. Mr. Logan sold the paper in 1895 to Pinckney A. Alsbrook, who ran it for a short time, before selling to Louis J. Bristow. Bristow volunteered to fight in the Spanish American war in 1898 and later that year sold to Wolfe.]

Louis J. Bristow

Source:  The Lost Cause: A Confederate War Record, Vol. 4

"Standing at the foot of the Confederate monument at the intersection of Main and Academy streets, after strolling up and down these two thoroughfares, we were amazed at the transformation. The monument has taken the place of the old cucumber pump right in the cross of the two streets, where countrymen watered their stock when they came to town. The old Nelson House, Gewinner Hotel, Court House, somewhat remodeled, an old wooden shack next to the Court House, where one of the most successful merchants of that time, W.J. Lee, did a big business, the old Benjamin home, the Star and Herald's old printing office, the Donaught house and that of Mrs. T.M. Gilland, Mrs. Steele, the Harper house, and the home of the notorious S.A. Swails, are about all the old landmarks on these two main streets that we recognized as being there forty years ago.

The Donaught House, located where First Baptist Church stands now. 

Emma Donaught is pictured standing in front of the house.

Source: Williamsburg County: A Pictorial History

Historical marker noting the site of the Stephen A. Swails House.

Today, Fresenius Kidney Care in located there.

"The merchants doing business there then were James Staggers, Benjamin Bros., W.M. Kinder, Mrs. M.J. Porter, W.J. Lee, Haynesworth Bros., L. Stackley, M. Schwartz–father of the Schwartz Bros. of Sumter–and Ed Grayson. Three drug stores, Dr. J.S. Brockington's, Staggers' and Dr. Scott, who had just opened up.

"The lawyers at the Kingstree bar were E.J. Porter, Capt. S.W. Maurice, and four young men just admitted to the bar, H.J. Haynesworth, T.M. Gilland, J.A. Kelley, and Melvin J. Hirsch. P[hilip] Heller, father of Mr. Mike Heller, kept a hotel and livery stable on Main Street where Capt. Kelly now has two modern dwellings. On the corner where the large three-story brick building [Jarritos] now stands was a carriage and wagon repair shop with upstairs portico extending over the sidewalk. All the stores were one-story wooden buildings, but the one most conspicuous was the old Flint house on the corner where the handsome two-story Wee Nee Bank now stands. From the old Nelson house going towards the railroad there were but three houses on that side of the street as far out as the old Ward hotel, now known as the Harper house; they were the homes of Dr. Merrett Mouzon, Capt. S.W. Maurice, and W.W. Ward. On the opposite side from the old Flint house, there was one two-room cottage, where Miss Mollie Epps lived, and with the exception of a grist mill across the railroad in the edge of the branch, there was no other house except Swails' and one or two negro houses.

The Nelson House once stood on the southeast corner of Main and Academy streets.

This house was also known during one period as The Colonial Inn.

Source: SC Department of Archives & History

The Harper House, also known for a time as the Ward Hotel.

Anderson Brothers Bank is now located on this site.

Source: Williamsburg County: A Pictorial History

"The branch, which has been filled in, a canal cut and where those solid brick and concrete stores now stand, was so boggy a cat could not cross it without sticking in the mud. The late Capt. Purvis Nelson used to tell that he pulled seven (old cat and kittens) out of the mud one morning.

"The depot was a half a mile up the road from where it is now. Mr. Peter B. Mouzon was agent. It was while he was agent that the first telegraph message was received in Kingstree. It was not received then by sound but written in telegraph code, and everybody went to the depot to see the invisible man write.

"From the monument to where Dr. J.S. Brockinton lived at the head of Academy Street, there were only two stores, Wm. Kinder and Benjamin Bros.; but afterwards Dr. Scott's drugstore, the printing office, and Grayson's store were built. Dr. Brockinton's drug store was on the opposite side of the street from where it is now, but afterwards (he) built a wooden store on the spot where his son, Dr. W.V. Brockinton how has his up-to-date brick store.

The Dr. J.S. Brockington home which once graced the head of Academy Street.

Source: Williamsburg County: A Pictorial History

"Out of the 500 inhabitants accredited to Kingstree by the census of 1880, or even up to the time of our leaving there in 1886, we find only a few who were in business then are there now. No wonder we felt sad and lonely as we passed and repassed strangers and only now and then met up with someone we knew.

"But the transformation is equally as great in the growth and progress of the place as in the change of inhabitants. To see the old shops with heavy barred doors give place to elegant two- and three-story buildings with plate glass windows, strung from the courthouse to beyond the railroad, and then for a block or two along Railroad Avenue and Academy Street, three thriving banks to none when we left there, miles of cement sidewalks, water works, electric lights, sewerage, fine churches, and a magnificent school building, to say nothing of the ice factory, tobacco and other industries, acres of old fields converted into streets and handsome homes, was enough to wonder at the transformation that had taken place in so few years, especially when we were told that the census of 1910 showed a population of 2,500 against 500 in 1880.

"We found the names of more of our old friends resting in the cemetery than what we found on the streets or at their homes."

The Great 1904 Kingstree Post Office Heist

Thursday, September, 22, 1904, 3 a.m.: BOOM! BOOM! A few Kingstree residents are awakened by two loud blasts, but in that place and in that time, it is not unusual to hear gunshots at all hours of the day or night. And, so they all turned over and went back to sleep, little dreaming what was transpiring a few blocks away in the Kingstree Post Office on Academy Street.

 The west side of Academy Street around the time of the Post Office burglary.

Source: Williamsburgh Historical Museum

At 7 o'clock that morning, Postmaster Louis Jacobs discovered that during the night someone had broken down the rear door to the post office and then proceeded to use explosives to breach the safe in which valuables were left overnight. The burglars got away with approximately $5,000 in property, including $4,000 which had been shipped to the Bank of Kingstree from Carolina Savings Bank in Charleston, and which had arrived on the train after the bank closed and had been put in the post office safe overnight. Also missing were post office funds, amounting to $260 in cash, $150 in stamps, and $500 worth of jewelry belonging to the Jacobs family. 

Everyone believed that the heist had been accomplished by professional safecrackers as little was disturbed, other than the broken-down back door and the blown safe. Lying in the rubble beside the safe were a cold-chisel, a sledge hammer, a monkey wrench, and a brace and drill–all items that were soon reported stolen by James T. Sullivan from his blacksmith shop.

Kingstree's police department at that time consisted of a Town Marshal who patrolled each day until midnight. He told investigators that he had seen nothing to indicate that something might be afoot. Town citizens immediately after the burglary also said they had seen nothing out of the ordinary, but at least three of them would later remember that just maybe they had seen something.

A number of post offices across the South had experienced similar fates in the months leading up to the Kingstree heist, and still more would find themselves victims in the months and years to follow. Postal authorities believed that a gang, operating from Charleston, was responsible for all these burglaries, which almost always included the use of explosives to gain access to the safes. 

They also believed that at least two, perhaps three suspicious men, had left Charleston on the 5:30 p.m. train that Wednesday–the same train that was carrying the $4,000 addressed to the Bank of Kingstree. Their investigation led them to several individuals in or near Charleston who said they had seen three persons, who had already drawn the attention of law enforcement, in a buggy headed toward the railroad station that day.

The rear of the building on the spot where the post office was located no doubt

looks very different today than it did in September 1904.

After several months of investigation, in mid-December 1904, H. Rudolph Rabens, 25, and his brother, Christopher, were arrested and charged with conspiracy, breaking into a post office and larceny of government funds. The Rabens brothers, originally from Walhalla, owned grocery stores in Charleston, and Rudy Rabens' store on King Street was known to law enforcement as a place where a number of suspected yeggmen (persons who are expert safecrackers) visited regularly. 

Also charged with the Rabens brothers were James Johnson, a notorious yeggman who used numerous aliases up and down the Eastern seaboard; Robert L. Stainback, and Frank Williams. Charleston police had arrested Williams two days before the Kingstree post office burglary shortly after he left Rudy Rabens' Charleston grocery store. Several of these men were also charged in the burglary of the post office in Latta, which had occurred in February, 1904. 

The April 1905, trial was held in U.S. District Court, Eastern District of South Carolina, with Judge William Brawley presiding. The prosecution offered evidence that Rabens and James Johnson had conspired by placing in evidence a letter from Johnson, using the name, George Smith, one of his many aliases, to Rudolph Rabens. The letter urged Rabens to destroy the address previously given to him as things were getting "warm." It also inquired about Frank Williams' bond, promised to send Rabens money (which he did), and suggested using the mail car for letters in an attempt to avoid them being opened by the post office. I.A. Keels and A.D. Hutson, both of Kingstree, testified that they had seen two of the defendants in Kingstree on the day of the robbery. Olive Flowers who operated the Atlantic Coast Line pumping station in Kingstree, swore that she had seen the accused men near the railroad water tank also on the day in question. Postmaster Jacobs testified to what was in the safe at the time of the burglary, and J.T. Sullivan affirmed that the tools stolen from his shop were found at the scene of the burglary. 

After the prosecution rested its case, the Rabens' attorney declined to offer any evidence on behalf of his clients, but he did object to some of the government's evidence. Judge Brawley interrupted him to announce that as far as he was concerned, the prosecution had not presented enough compelling evidence to make its case, and he then directed the jury to return a "not guilty" verdict, which it did. As soon as the jury rendered the verdict, law enforcement officers re-arrested Frank Williams on charges of breaking into the post office in Yadkinville, NC, also in September 1904.

No one else was ever arrested in the Kingstree Post Office burglary, and while residents continued for some time to speculate about it, eventually it simply became an unsolved mystery in the town's history. The Bank of Kingstree had insisted on insuring the $4,000 so it was covered, and neither bank lost any money. There were tales that a man was selling stamps at Ashley Junction the morning after the burglary before he boarded a train for Savannah, and there were also rumors that jewelry fitting the description of the Jacobs' pieces was later found in a store in Charleston.

Rudolph Rabens and other defendants in the Latta Post Office robbery were found guilty later in that term of court. Chris Rabens, however, was acquitted. Rudy Rabens was again arrested in 1907 for receiving stolen goods. He served all but 28 days of his three-year sentence before the governor pardoned him. He died in 1921 at age 43.

Mugshot of James Johnson, who used many aliases in his over 20-years as a

safecracker, but became best-known for the heists he pulled as "Portland Ned."

Source: Post Office Department Photographs,

Descriptions and Records of Persons Charged

with Violations of Postal Law

James Johnson, however, went on to become even more notorious for robbing banks, post offices and other institutions. He continued to use aliases, although the one that became the most well-known was "Portland Ned." Johnson was also a mastermind at escaping from jail. In 1913, SC Governor Coleman L. Blease paroled Johnson. To receive the parole, Johnson went to the State House, and knowing that he would be arrested on other charges as soon as the parole was issued, managed to escape from the State House undetected by law enforcement. His crime spree stretched over a period of at least 20 years.

Tales of the Kingstree Post Office, pt. 2

In the early 1890s, Charlotte McCrea Chandler ran the Kingstree post office from a building on Academy Street. I have not yet been able to determine the exact location of this building, but it was a no-frills operation; there were no lock boxes, and everyone had to call at the window for their mail. In 1897, she did begin keeping the post office open in the evenings until after the last mail train arrived so that businessmen could pick up their mail in advance of the next work day. She also became quite ill in 1897, and 14-year-old Dessie Gilland spent some time as the acting postmaster until Mrs. Chandler was able to resume her duties.

The two stores Louis Jacobs built in 1907 as they looked during the latter part

of the 20th Century. The post office would have occupied the Sears building.

Photo Source: SC Archives & History

When Louis Jacobs took over as postmaster on April 1, 1898, he moved the post office to a store he owned, also on Academy Street. With his daughter, Etta, as his assistant, he brought in all new equipment, including oak lock boxes. He also installed both a general delivery and a money order window. The general delivery window was open 12 hours a day, and the building itself remained open 24 hours a day to allow patrons access to their lock boxes. 

In 1901, when President William McKinley was assassinated, Mr. Jacobs placed the slain President's photo in the post office draped in black mourning cloth. Also in 1901, Jacobs renovated the post office by adding a cabinet of 18 more lock boxes. Initially he had installed 15 boxes and then soon after added nine more, but by 1901, there was a great need for even more boxes. The 18 new boxes had already been rented before installation. In addition to the 42 lock boxes, there were 45 call boxes which required people to go to the window to get their mail. 

Late in 1901, the Kingstree Telephone Company made plans to put the central office/switchboard in the rear of the post office. Louis Jacobs was also named general manager of the telephone company as he would be present to oversee both the daily operations of the post office and the phone company. The phone company remained in the back of the post office until it moved across the street to the second floor of Scott's Drug Store in 1903.

It could be argued that Kingstree's first public school was born in the post office on Academy Street. In 1902, Mayor John A. Kelley and Dr. D.C. Scott began spending evenings with Mr. Jacobs at the post office. During these informal get-togethers, the three of them came up with a plan for Kingstree to get a new school building that would house a public school.

The stores Mr. Jacobs built in 1907 as they look today.

A few years later, in 1907, Mr. Jacobs temporarily moved the post office a few doors up Academy Street to the furniture department of Kingstree Hardware so that he could tear down the post office building and replace it with a new brick building. For the new building, he bought fixtures from the Georgetown Post Office, which included 400 lockboxes. Box rent was reduced in an effort to increase the number of box rentals. By mid-July, 1907, the post office was up and running in its new building.

In 1912, the federal government required post offices to close from midnight Saturday until midnight Sunday. This included locking the front door so that patrons who had rented lock boxes would be prohibited from picking up mail during those 24 hours.

Louis Stackley succeeded Louis Jacobs as postmaster on June 16, 1913. Stackley leased the building from Jacobs and continued to operate the post office there throughout his tenure as postmaster. He was succeeded by Fore J. Watson, who in 1932 secured the old Wee Nee Bank building on the corner of Main and Academy for a more modern post office.

The Wee Nee Bank building served as the Kingstree Post Office from 1932-1938.

On the evening of March 31, 1932, the post office moved into the old bank building. It had been specially renovated to house the post office. All mail boxes had combination locks, and according to news reports, many citizens visited the post office for several days before its official opening to practice using their new combinations. The floor was tiled, and the building boasted large plate glass windows on its two open sides. Newspapers noted that adequate lighting had been installed, with writing desks and other fixtures placed throughout the building.

The Kingstree Post Office on Mill Street.

Late in 1937, the US Treasury Department began receiving bids for the construction of a new post office at Kingstree, and on December 6, 1937, awarded the contract at a cost of $42,161. The new building, on the corner of Mill and Jackson streets, was dedicated on July 27, 1938, in ceremonies on the grounds of the Williamsburg County Courthouse. More than 1,000 people attended the dedication, where J.Austin Latimer, special assistant to the Postmaster General of the United States, was the principal speaker. Kingstree Postmaster Watson served as Master of Ceremonies, with music provided by the Kingstree High School Band under the direction of Hal Middleton and the Williamsburg Choral Society. At the dedication, Salters postmaster Julius G. Lifrage, who was in attendance, was recognized for his 59 years of service as the postmaster at Salters. He was believed to be the longest serving postmaster in the United States at that time.

The mural, "Rice Growing," by Arnold Friedman was installed in 1939.

Artist Arnold Friedman at work. The mural in the Kingstree Post Office is his best known piece.

Photo Source: Wikipedia

In 1939, Arnold Friedman (1879-1946) was commissioned to paint a mural for the Kingstree Post Office as part of the New Deal Post Office mural project. The resulting "Rice Growing" is Friedman's most well-known work. The mural is one of 13 such murals painted for post offices throughout South Carolina, Altogether, approximately 1,400 murals were placed in post offices throughout the United States as part of the program. In 2006, Kirsten Olds edited a book titled Arnold Friedman: The Language of Paint about Friedman's work. Author and scholar William Agee penned an essay about Friedman and his work for inclusion in the book.

The Kingstree Post Office was expanded in 1983 in order to add more post office boxes.

Coming Up: The Great 1904 Kingstree Post Office heist.