Last Thursday, The News celebrated its 50th anniversary with a Backyard Bash behind the paper's office on Longstreet. Newspapers in Kingstree, however, have been spreading the news since at least the middle of the 19th century. Here is a look at some of them and where they were located, gathered from information provided in a story in The State newspaper, written by Nell Flinn Gilland in April 1928 and from the reminiscences of Herbert Cunningham, a Williamsburg County native, who at one time owned a newspaper in Kingstree before settling in Bishopville where he published the Bishopville Leader and Vindicator for many years.
Nell Gilland's piece was written, in part, to announce that Lindsey H. Cromer, then editor of The County Record, had recently bought out the interest of the estate of the late W.F. Tolley, who had served as editor and publisher of the paper, officially from 1915 until his death in 1926. Cromer owned The Lake City News, as well, which he had bought the year before. In January 1928, he also began publication of The Timmonsville News, as that town had been without a paper for about a year.
According to Nell Gilland, Richard Columbus "Lum" Logan began printing The Kingstree Star in 1856. He served as its editor and publisher, employing his brothers, Calhoun and Texas, as printers. In 1861, publication was suspended when the three brothers volunteered for the Confederate Army as members of Capt. John G. Pressley's Wee Nee Volunteers.
However, Herbert Cunningham wrote in The County Record in 1917, that The Kingstree Star was started in 1856-57 by Gilbert and Darr of Sumter. He noted that it then took all day to produce a press run of 500 copies, and a year's subscription cost $3. They, Cunningham wrote, sold the paper to R.C. Logan.
At the conclusion of the Civil War, Logan returned to Kingstree and re-established The Star.
In 1873, Stephen Atkins Swails established the Williamsburg Republican in Kingstree. It's not known with certainty how long this paper existed, but it was likely published until Swails was forced to leave Kingstree, although his family remained here, and he appears to have visited often. Swails' law partner, M.J. Hirsch, was involved in the paper's publication, and Louis Jacobs was business manager for The Republican.
When R.C. Logan gave up the Kingstree Star, it was bought by Samuel W. Maurice, a prominent Kingstree attorney. Mr. Maurice published the paper in addition to carrying on his legal work. Nell Gilland wrote, "When remonstrated with by his friends for overtaxing his health, Mr. Maurice replied that he felt obliged to use the paper as his weapon for fighting Republican rule in South Carolina." He edited the paper for almost three years before his failing health forced him to rent the printing office to J.S. Heyward, a school teacher, who published The Star for a couple of years before moving to Orangeburg and later to Columbia.
In 1877, Herbert Cunningham bought The Kingstree Star and re-opened it under the name, The Williamsburg Herald. Shortly thereafter, he decided, for sentimental reasons, he said, to change the name to The Kingstree Star and Herald. He published the paper until he was forced to move to Greenwood in 1885 because of his wife's health. There, he established that town's first newspaper, The Greenwood Light. And so, he owned two newspapers, 180 miles apart, during a time when travel took considerably longer than it does today.
He finally decided he had to get rid of the Kingstree paper, selling it to two young Kingstree men, Andrews, the Baptist minister and Chandler. Neither of them had newspaper experience, and the paper struggled for a couple of years before closing.
Just before Hebert Cunningham sold The Star and Herald, R.C. Logan appeared back on the newspaper scene in Kingstree, establishing The County Record in a building on the east side of the Williamsburg County Courthouse on Main Street. He edited the The Record for 10 years before selling it to P.A. Alsbrook in 1895. Mr. Alsbrook employed E.G. Chandler, a Kingstree attorney, as editor before selling the paper two years later to 19-year-old Louis Bristow. Bristow built up the paper's reputation and circulation, but sold it after he volunteered in the Spanish-American War in 1898, to Charles W. Wolfe, who remained editor and publisher until his death in 1915 of tuberculosis.
Charles W. Wolfe, with his wife Bertha and daughter Stella.
Also, in 1915, a new newspaper opened in Kingstree. The first issue of The Kingstree Enterprise appeared on June 1. Editor H.H. Brown and business manager Robert E. Houston announced that they would publish twice weekly. The second and last issue of the paper was printed June 4. Rumors were that Brown and Houston had left town Saturday, June 5, for Spartanburg. No one was sure what had happened to cause their quick exit.
W.F. Tolley moved to Kingstree from Virginia, where he had 30 years of newspaper experience, in 1912 to work at The County Record as Wolfe's health began to deteriorate. After Wolfe's death, Tolley and R.K. Wallace bought the paper from his widow, Bertha. Wallace, however, soon sold his interest to Edwin C. Epps. Mr. Epps, a banker, was not active in the newspaper business, leaving that to Tolley, who for some time employed W.H. Welch as business manager. As Mr. Welch's own business grew, though, he had to relinquish his newspaper duties. Mr. Epps also eventually sold his share in the paper to Lindsey Cromer, who then acquired sole ownership of the paper at Tolley's death.
In 1902, attorney, later to be Third Circuit Solicitor and Congressman, Philip H. Stoll and his brother, Charles, had started The Weekly Mail. That publication remained in operation for four years.
Another paper called The Williamsburg Herald was founded in 1916, owned by a stock company, and managed by F. Earle Bradham. The paper was located on Main Street on the second floor of the Baggett Jewelry Store building. The Herald published for three years before it was bought by The County Record.
Nell Gilland noted in 1928 that the various papers had changed the location of their offices many times. She wrote, "According to the unwritten recollections of some of the older citizens of Kingstree, the Kingstree Star in 1855 was published in a building which stood about where the home of Charles Tucker is on Main Street. The next move was across the street to where Dr. J.A. Cole now lives. Both of these buildings have disappeared."
Herbert Cunningham built a building on Academy Street to print the Williamsburg Herald, next to a store owned in 1928 by Mrs. W.T. Wilkins. While The Star and Herald was located on this site, a storm demolished the roof of the building, destroying all the paper's files. Nell Gilland wrote that one of the few exiting copies of that paper had been placed in the library in Charleston for safe-keeping.
When R.C. Logan started The County Record, it was located on the second floor of Bill Lee's general merchandise store to the east of the Courthouse. A filling station occupied that property when Nell Gilland was writing in 1928. By the time Louis Bristow acquired The County Record, it was located in a small cottage at the edge of the J.N. Hammet property on Main Street, today the site of the Williamsburg County Administration Building. Charles Wolfe moved it in the early 1900s to the second floor of the three-story Gourdin building, still standing on Main Street, next door to Jenkinson, Kellahan, Thompson & Reynolds. In 1908, or so, he wrote an entertaining story about the trials and tribulations of attempting to lower the large printing press from a second story window, and to replace it with an even larger press. The paper occupied the second floor of that building for many years before it moved two door down Main Street to the old Bank of Kingstree building. That building, in 1928, when Nell Gilland was writing, was occupied by Reynolds & Son. In 1926, The County Record moved across the street into the old McCabe building on the west side of the Courthouse (now the Alex Chatman County Complex). It stayed there until the 1970s, when it moved into an office on Jackson Street, where it was located when it closed in 1974.
In the 1980s, Jim Fitts established The Voice. an African-American newspaper for Kingstree and Williamsburg County. Mr. Fitts was indicted in 1988, using South Carolina's archaic criminal libel law. The charges were, however, eventually dropped. But this case is now taught in journalism schools across the county.
Vickey Boyd (center) served many years as publisher of The News.
The News was established in 1972 in a building, once occupied by Clark McCall Architects, on Mill Street. It remained there until it moved in 2006 into its present location on Longstreet Street. Vickey Nexsen Boyd was publisher of The News for many years before moving to Charleston, where she has continued working for Evening Post Industries. She is scheduled to retire this summer after 50 years in the newspaper industry. Tami K. Rodgers is currently publisher of The News.
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