Summer has traditionally been a time of picnics. In 1883, Williamsburg County Sheriff Joseph E. Brockinton hosted what was believed to be the largest picnic ever held in the South up to that time. On June 20, 1930, Laura C. Hemingway told the story of that picnic in The News & Courier. Let's take a look at it.
Sheriff Joseph Brockinton's home, located in the vicinity of the DSM facility today.
The basement area was partitioned off into jail cells.
Source: Williamsburg County: A Pictorial History
"A Carolina moon will keep shining no doubt until the songwriter comes along who will eclipse it with something more alluring to the music-loving public. Carolina moons are irresistible–that none will deny. But when the golden hues of an early season Carolina sun begin to creep among the newly leafed forest trees, the thoughts of Carolinians turn to picnics as inevitably as the thoughts of the poet's young men to love in the time of spring.
"Perhaps these sons and daughters of Carolina hark back to their pagan ancestors who delighted in their festivals in honor of the spring and paid homage to Apollo who brought again to them this season. They never were able to resist the 'Pipes O'Pan,' so why should their descendants restrain that age-old impulse to go into grassy nooks of field and forget to make merry?
"Carolinians are especially fond of picnics for the very good reason that in Carolina the shafts of gold flicker through their leafy roofs to fall upon grass-grown carpets in a manner so alluring that all nature seems beckoning a welcome to the great out-of-doors.
"Time passes and the forefathers of Carolinians of today turned their Fourth of July celebrations into picnics of unprecedented ostentation, staging muster parades and military drills, horse races, dances and such, as popular forms of entertainment. Then followed the great political picnics that became an accepted fact during campaign years. This custom holds over the present day to a certain extent in some communities.
"Williamsburg County lays claim to the trophy for holding the most pretentious picnic in the history of the South. This was given by Sheriff Jospeh E. Brockinton in the summer of 1883 at his home about six miles north of Kingstree. To this he invited every man, woman, and child in the large county of Williamsburg, and others from neighboring towns and cities. Hospitality was accepted then as a natural accompaniment to southern manners; consequently, this invitation was accepted. When noses were counted, they were found to number 2500!
"Somebody had to keep busy to make that crowd comfortable and keep it happy. If anyone should ask: When is a picnic not a picnic? the inevitable answer would be: When there is no lemonade to be had. But this was a real picnic. When the sun rose on the accepted morning, three men, George Arms, Jim Fluitt, and Johnny Matthews were found making lemonade. All day long they labored at this task. Now, everyone knows there is no 'kick' to lemonade unless it has in it plenty of ice. That was no easy job in those pre-ice machine days to supply 2500 people with ice-cold lemonade. But Mr. Brockinton had thought that out in advance. From Charleston he had shipped up barrels of ice packed down in saw-dust or rice-chaff.
"In addition to the lemonade the guests were given fresh apple cider in plenty to drink, a large apple orchard being nearby. Cider presses were kept running continuously all day. It is not recorded, nor does anyone remember how many men were assigned to this task. It is only remembered that drinks were plentiful.
"It was at this picnic that the first soda fountain to be seen in this part of the country made its appearance. About 1 o'clock a wagon drove up, drawn by one grey horse and one bay. It claimed to have come from Timmonsville. It is thought it came down from North Carolina. The crowd gathered about this, expecting to be treated to a show. Instead, when the rear doors were opened, they revealed a traveling soda fountain. This was a curiosity to those gathered about it. Never had they seen its like. The turn of the faucet was all that was required to fill a glass with any drink desired. And that ice cold!
"It has not been recorded, but it is thought that the three men patiently rolling lemons beneath the shade of the trees, rested a bit from their task. But not for long. After all, what is better than ice-cold lemonade at a picnic?
"Dinner time drew on. The air was filled with aromatic odors. Rice was cooking in a number of big iron wash pots in the shady yard while some eight or 10 negro women kept the fires burning beneath the pots. Bread had been shipped in carloads from Charleston. Cakes, pie, chickens, and hams had been cooking on the plantation for a week ahead.
"In a neighboring yard, at the old Matthews place, all the county officers with W.P. McGill and A.W. Flagler had been placed upon a special committee to look after the comfort of the guests. They were to see to it that none went hungry. Great holes had been dug in the ground which remain to this day. In these Henry Burrows, J.P. Nelson, and Mr. Bodiford were busy barbecuing 14 hogs, three cows and six sheep.
"No picnic at that time was considered a success without a watermelon cutting following the dinner. From early morning until noon two negro men were kept busy hauling watermelons from a four-acre field which they cleaned up for this occasion.
"After the multitude had been fed to the point where food had become distasteful, they began to look about for amusement. The old Matthews home had two large rooms on the second story that were ideal for dancing. And Jim Stewart had brought up from his home in Charleston his trusty "fiddle," which he knew how to handle to a finish.
"Outside in a nearby field, a baseball game between a Kingstree team with L. Stackley as captain and a Cades team with McClure Brockington as captain, was in progress. Cades succeeded in carrying the honors of the game.
"Underneath the shade trees, political aspirants had taken the stump to present their various claims to those present. No record has been kept to prove there was any 'mud-slinging' at that campaign speaking. Perhaps, there again, the host, himself a veteran politician, had used good judgment in feeding his guests to the point of satisfaction with the world and everything in it.
"To this picnic the guests came in every kind of vehicle imaginable, from an ox-cart to a pretentious horse-drawn phaeton. That was long before this age of rapid transit. It took time to arrive, but they got there, just the same. Night caught many still there but in those days nobody bothered about an extra dozen or so guests. None was averse to sleeping on a pallet on the floor when the supply of beds became exhausted. And the little matter of food for extra mouths inconvenienced nobody.
"The little town of Kingstree was alive that day with guests passing through. At that time, the business section boasted only four bar-rooms and three-stores, all wooden shacks, quite a different picture from that of today when modern brick business buildings frame the paved streets through which high-powered motor cars slip away to a green, woodland spot, some of the nearby beaches or even the mountains, for a little picnic for a few hours.
"Nobody thinks of spending a full day at a picnic any more. Time is too precious in this 20th century. But then, nobody thinks to invite 2500 people to a picnic, expecting to feed such a multitude."
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