S. Marcus Served Kingstree for 17 Years

Author's Note: It has been sometime since I posted a new story here. I've spent the last few months attempting to see how many businesses in downtown Kingstree I can identify and place in their actual locations. I thought now might be a good time to introduce some of what I've found, especially as The News has posted a story online this week on the history of Marcus Department Store. Complementing that, I'd like to tell the story of another, apparently unrelated, Marcus family, who moved to Kingstree 30 years before Harry Marcus, and spent the next 17 years running a successful dry goods business, S. Marcus, that specialized in women's millinery. So, here we go. 

An early S. Marcus advertisement from February 1904.

Saul Marcus was born around 1870 in Austria. He moved to New York City sometime in the 1880s where he met and married native New Yorker Anna Schiller. It appears they moved to Manning, SC, where they had relatives, sometime in late 1902, with their three children, Milton, Pearl, and Lilly. In August, 1903, the family came to Kingstree, opening a dry goods store in a building on Main Street just east of the Courthouse Square. In earlier years, this building had housed W.J. Lee's general store, a business continued by his wife Virginia after his death. This building was torn down in 1919.

Saul and Anna Marcus were truly partners in business as he was responsible for the men's department and she handled the buying for the ladies, specializing in ladies' hats, or millinery, as it was called in those days. The following Spring, Anna Marcus began a practice that became an institution in Kingstree–that of the ladies' millinery opening each Spring and Fall, where she held an open house to exhibit the new hat creations for the coming season. It was not long before other stores in town that offered ladies hats followed her lead, and the millinery openings became a much looked-forward-to event among the women of Kingstree and Williamsburg County. 

The Gourdin "skyscraper' as it looks on West Main Street today.

In March, 1904, The County Record described her first Spring millinery opening: Mrs. S. Marcus sent out a number of invitations to her millinery opening which took place last Tuesday, and a great many ladies from town and county gathered there to admire the beautiful Spring hats and millinery effects she had on display. Mrs. Marcus' stock comes direct from New York and includes all the latest styles, shapes and trimmings that can be found in a fashionable millinery establishment anywhere. Moreover, she possesses excellent taste in selection and trimming, which, after all, is the chief essential in a modish millinery creation." In April, 1908, The County Record noted, "A mere man is scarcely capable of judging this class of merchandise, but the richness and artistic finish of Mrs. Marcus' Easter offerings speak for themselves."

In the summer of 1904, P.G. Gourdin began construction of a three-story commercial building on the other side of Main Street from S. Marcus. This building is still standing beside Jenkinson, Kellahan, Thompson & Reynolds. On Saturday, October 22, S. Marcus held a grand opening event as he moved his business to the first floor of the Gourdin building. It seems that any building taller than two stories was called a skyscraper in those days, and Saul Marcus made that a selling point with his "Meet Me at the Skyscraper" ads.

This ad ran in The County Record for many weeks.

Both Saul and Anna Marcus made two buying trips to New York each year, in February for the spring/summer merchandise and again in August or September for the fall/winter goods. While their children were small, Mrs. Marcus would go to New York for two to four weeks, and when she returned, her husband would then go for a roughly equal amount of time. It was only after the children were grown that the couple traveled together to buy stock for the store. 

Around 1909, their son Milton began experiencing health problems and was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. The Marcuses sought specialized care for him in New York, but in December, 1912, shortly after returning from New York, where he had been treated, he became very ill, lapsing into a coma from which he never awakened. 

S. Marcus moved into the first floor of the this three-story building in August 1913.

In July 1913, S. Marcus announced that it was moving from the Gourdin building to the first floor of the Nexsen building (present location of Jarrito's) on the corner of Main and Academy streets, and by the second week in August, the Marcuses were doing business in the new location. They would remain there until October, 1920, when they closed the store and retired from the retail business. 

A headline in the October 28, 1920, County Record read, "Marcus Store Closed." It was followed by this story. "As announced in an advertisement last week in The County Record, the popular store of Mr. S. Marcus closed its doors on Tuesday. Mr, Marcus has been in the mercantile business for a number of years, and has conducted during that time an up-to-date dry goods, millinery, ladies' and gents' furnishing store. The business expanded several years ago into the large storeroom erected by W.I. Nexsen on the corner of Main and Academy streets. But this stand, we understand, has been leased and will be occupied after January 1, 1921, by the Bank of Kingstree, whose business has in recent years grown beyond its present quarters. Mr. and Mrs. Marcus and their two charming daughters have made many friends in the county who will regret their retirement from the business. 

It seems that the Marcuses devoted much of their time to their business, but, on occasion, they hired help. In 1905, they hired Morris Bow to work as a salesman for them. He worked for them and then for J.S. Eron before opening his own store in Timmonsville. He was followed by Harry Riff (we'll learn more about Harry in another post at another time.) in 1908. Riff worked for the Marcuses for six years before going into business on his own. During his early days in Kingstree, he boarded in the Marcus home. In 1907, Lula Coker of Hartsville was hired to work in the millinery department, and in 1912, Alice McConnell was working as a saleslady for the Marcus. 

In March of 1914, Saul Marcus ran a Special Notice in the newspaper, announcing: Owing to the great increase in my business, I have engaged the services of Miss Carrie Lipps, a thoroughly competent trimmer and designer from the well-known house of Armstrong, Cator & Co., to assist Mrs. S. Marcus in the millinery department so that we may be better able to serve and please the people of Kingstree and Williamsburg County. S. MARCUS. It must be noted that Miss Lipps only stayed for the Spring season, returning to her home in Virginia in July. 

As the Marcuses got older, they seemed more inclined to hire assistants. In 1917, both Esther Berger and Lamar Burgess were hired to work at S. Marcus. 

While the business appears to have been one of the main focuses of the Marcuses' lives, they did spend time visiting relatives in Manning and New York and friends in Lake City, St. Stephen, and Charleston. They also were involved in the community. Saul Marcus was an officer of the local chapter of the Knights of Pythias, and Anna was one of the founding members of the local Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star, on November 10, 1908.

They attended local dances. Two of note were the grand Easter ball which inaugurated the Hotel Van Keuren in April 1907, where Mrs. Marcus was said to have worn blue silk mull with lace trimmings, and the December 28, 1908, Christmas Ball at the Kellahan Hotel, sponsored by the Kingstree Social Club. Mrs. Marcus, for that occasion, wore black silk and diamonds. 

During their daughters' teen years, the Marcuses were chaperones for several dances, including one "overalls and gingham dance," often sharing chaperone duties with Kingstree merchants David and Sadie Silverman. 

We don't know where the Marcuses lived when they first moved to Kingstree, but in January, 1908, they moved into a new cottage Louis Jacobs had built on West Main Street near his home. They remained there until October 1917. Again, we don't know where they lived for their last three years in Kingstree. 

In March, 1921, Saul Marcus bought the home at 815 Chauncey Avenue, Baltimore, MD. He would live there for the rest of his life. He died on April 19, 1934. His daughter, Pearl, who had married Julius Offit and also lived in Baltimore, died November 23, 1939. Anna Marcus died in 1942. 

Lilly, however, lived until April 22, 1975. She remained in South Carolina, marrying Charleston antique dealer and auctioneer, George Charles Birlant. 

All that remains of S. Marcus today.

There is one faint artifact of S. Marcus still visible in Kingstree today, if you know where to look. On the eastern exterior wall of the third floor of the Gourdin building, S. MARCUS was painted at some time while the store occupied the first floor of the building. If you stand in the parking area behind the Cafe and the Downtown Garden and look up at the Gourdin building you can still see a very faint RCUS on the bricks.