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. 

Two New Books with Kingstree/Williamsburg County Ties

This Spring, two new books with direct ties to Kingstree and Williamsburg County hit the bookstores. One is Homespun, the third and final novel in Sophia Alexander's Silk trilogy, the story of one family, living near Kingstree and Greeleyville from the late 1800s until World War II. The second, published last week, is a memoir by Kingstree native Joseph McGill, Jr., co-authored with veteran reporter and free-lance writer Herb Frazier. This memoir, Sleeping with the Ancestors, recounts how McGill began his Slave Dwelling Project in 2010; what he's learned from 13 years of sleeping in the dwelling places of the enslaved; and the awareness he believes the project is bringing to various groups of Americans.

Sleeping with the Ancestors by Joseph McGill, Jr., and Herb Frazier.

While his first night in a slave cabin was in May 2010, the seeds of the project were planted much earlier when Joe McGill was a military policeman in the US Air Force, stationed in Germany. During that time, he and other military personnel toured Amsterdam in the Netherlands. On the tour, they were able to visit the attic in which Anne Frank and her family were hidden from the Nazis. McGill writes that in that moment he realized how much places matter. 

McGill went on to work for the National Park Service; the Penn Center on St. Helena Island; The African-American Museum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; the National Trust for Historic Preservation and at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens. 

His project began as The Slave Cabin Project, and he expected it to last a year in which he spent a night in various slave cabins across South Carolina. However, it did not take long for him to realize that the enslaved were not limited to cabins on the large plantations of the South. They also inhabited quarters in urban areas and in states as far north as New England, many in the Midwest and a few in the Northwest. In fact there were slave dwellings in every state east of the Mississippi River. And so his endeavor was renamed The Slave Dwelling Project. Soon, he was being invited to spend the night in dwellings in a number of different states, and he realized this was not just a year's endeavor, but a long-term project in which he could make tangible that places do matter.

Joseph McGill speaking in Kingstree in February 2020.

In his book, he quotes Dr. Deborah Fripp: "Understanding the nuances in everyone's stories helps us avoid cardboard caricatures of complex people." And he also quotes Texan Donald Payton, who said, "You have to know your grannies and your great-grannies. You can't just go through life believing that you made yourself." 

Through the Slave Dwelling Project and now in Sleeping with the Ancestors, Joe McGill is telling the stories of enslaved persons whose voices have been silenced for too long, and, in so doing, he is helping others to see, in the stories of those who have gone before, the importance of remembering the lessons their lives teach us all.

Joe McGill is scheduled to participate in the African-American Heritage Celebration of the opening of the African-American Archives of Williamsburg County on Saturday, June 24, at 2 p.m. at the Archives on Hampton Avenue in Kingstree.

And speaking of "knowing your grannies and your great-grannies," Sophia Alexander's paternal roots are deep in the Greeleyville area of Williamsburg County, and although her books are fiction, the stories and characters in them are loosely based on her Williamsburg County family, including grannies and great-grannies.

Homespun, book three in the Silk Trilogy by Sophia Alexander.

In Homespun, as in Silk and Tapestry, she follows the lives of Vivian and Gaynelle, the daughters of Silk's main character, Caroline, as they make their way through life in Williamsburg County from the early 20th century through World War II. But Homespun also introduces us to new characters, such as Zingle Caddell, who one reviewer writes, "doesn't regret the destruction left in his wake so much as he is annoyed by it." Zingle in a dark character, but like all good stories, things turn out in the end.

The author, in an interview, describes Homespun as the story of trouble lurking "in the guise of a family feud, forbidden love, and a journalist hell-bent on uncovering corruption."

Author Sophia Alexander.

She credits her obsession with genealogy and poking around at her family's murkier roots as the basis for the stories she developed into the series of three novels. She also notes that Homespun is less romantic than the two earlier novels, with more of a thriller edge.

To learn more about Silk, click here and for more information on Tapestry click here.

Born in South Carolina, Alexander now lives in Savannah, GA, but still spends time in Williamsburg County at her grandparents' old home. Her parents and sister live in Greeleyville. Her father was in the military, and she grew up in Germany, which will be the setting for her next novel.

Exciting Times Ahead for Williamsburgh Historical Society

The Williamsburgh Historical Society held its 2023 Annual Meeting Sunday at Thorntree House.

Thorntree House was the site of the Williamsburgh Historical Society's 2023 Annual Meeting.

It has been a busy year for the society as it prepares for the June 23-24 ribbon cutting and grand opening of the African-American Archives, located in the building next door to the Williamsburgh Historical Museum on Hampton Avenue in Kingstree. Society president C.M. "Bubba" Hammet, Jr., said much hard work has gone into the creation of the Archives and gave special recognition to former society president Beth Horton during whose tenure plans for the African-American Archives began.

He also recognized retiring recording secretary/treasurer Rosa Cherry for the many years of dedication and service she has given to the Historical Society. Museum Director Wendell Voiselle also thanked Mrs. Cherry for the hours she has put in working with the society's finances.

Bubba Hammet and Rosa Cherry compare notes before the annual meeting.

Over the last year, the society has hosted the Smithsonian Exhibition, Voices and Votes, and in March of this year held a movie night for the screening of Hidden Figures to honor Women's History Month. Also during the past year, the organization has overseen repairs to Thorntree House, the 1759 Witherspoon home that was re-located to Nelson Boulevard in Kingstree 54 years ago, and painted both Thorntree and the Museum. Hammet noted that another "Monuments of Stone" cemetery/graveyard tour is in the works, with more information to be provided later.

Board members re-elected for two-year terms were Billy Jenkinson, Archie Ward, Lynn Wilson, Joanne Brown, Irma Brockington and Sam Clarkson. Two new board members, Fran Clowney and Lane Mayor Charlie Fulton, were also elected. Other members of the board are Bubba Hammet, Darby Ward, Harriet McIntosh, Helen Tyler McFadden and Margaret Chandler. Society and Museum Director Wendell Voiselle also serves on the board as an unelected member.

Hammet was re-elected president of the board, with Margaret Chandler to serve again as vice-president. Harriet McIntosh will take over the duties of recording secretary, and Lynn Wilson agreed to serve as treasurer for a trial period. Rosa Cherry promised to be available to answer questions she might have.

The speaker for the afternoon was Pineville resident Keith Gourdin. Although he lives in Berkeley County, he has deep family ties to Williamsburg County and has long been a member and supporter of the Williamsburgh Historical Society. Gourdin is one of the organizers and leaders of Berkeley County's 250 Committee. Counties in the states which represent the 13 original colonies are forming 250 committees to plan ways each county can recognize and commemorate the 250th anniversary of the colonies' fight for independence and the founding of the United States. These events began in 2020 with a commemoration of the Boston Massacre and will continue through 2033, the 250th anniversary of the Treaty of Paris. Most of Williamsburg County's events will take place in 2031-32.

Keith Gourdin

Gourdin said that he had been talking to Camden Revolutionary War historian Charles Baxley for about four years, looking at how counties can best memorialize the events of the American Revolution. He felt the best way for him to start in Berkeley County was to identify the existing historical markers in the county that were tied to the American Revolution. This led to three years of putting together a book in which all historical markers in Berkeley County are pictured and the story of their significance is told. He later converted that book into a pocket-sized guidebook, in which those interested can check off each marker as they visit it. 

He said that for the 250 Committee, though, he is working on the RIMM theory, which means he Researches, Identifies, Marks and Maps each of the "action sites" that have Revolutionary War significance. He initially found approximately eight historical markers identifying Revolutionary sites, but he has now been able to identify over 30 documented sites with Revolutionary War ties. 

He then began looking for an economical way to mark these sites as official South Carolina Historical Markers cost over $2,600 a piece. A local sign company gave him a good price, and he was then able to get the support of the Berkeley County Council. The County Supervisor has assured him that as funding becomes available, the county will systematically replace the cheaper signs with official historical markers.

He has, however, run into some difficulties with the South Carolina Department of Transportation. SC-DOT no longer allows such signs in its rights-of-way, and private landowners are wary of allowing the public access to their properties to view markers. He said he hopes that perhaps the SC Legislature will be able to work out some sort of provisions, particularly as the 250th anniversaries of various events associated with the American Revolution approach. 

In his introduction of Gourdin, Museum Director Wendell Voiselle noted that the South Carolina Legislature will again provide funding for the Francis Marion Trail Commission, which was established in 2005, but which lost state funding several years ago.

Gourdin noted that he has been able to identify more sites associated with the Revolution by seeking help from Berkeley County residents. "I know my area of the county, but I realized that others know more about other areas of the county and could help us identify more sites," he said. 

Williamsburg County, like Berkeley, likely has far more sites associated with the American Revolution than have been formally identified. If anyone has information about such sites, please consider contacting Williamsburg County 250 Committee chair Margaret Chandler at margaretchandler15@yahoo.com.

Kingstree and Williamsburg County residents have much to look forward to in the coming months and years as this year marks the 200th anniversary of the construction of the Williamsburg County Courthouse and 2032 will mark the 300th anniversary of the founding of the Town of Kingstree, as well as the events in between that commemorate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.

Williamsburg County's Civil War Before the Civil War

The last post ended with Kingstree citizens riding two itinerant printers out of town on a rail in late 1859. While these two appear to be the only ones to suffer that particular indignity, two school teachers were also believed to be abolitionists sent to rile up the enslaved population, and they, too, were harassed by local citizens until they left the area.

Dr. James Brockinton's home at the head of Academy Street served as an early school.

In those days before public education, many of the more well-to-do families pooled their resources to hire a teacher for their children. The teachers would board with the families, with each family providing room and board for a time commensurate with the number of children in the family.

In 1857, the Rev. James A. Wallace, who was then minister at Williamsburg Presbyterian, placed an ad looking for a teacher. It's not clear if the ad was for Wallace himself or for members of his congregation. He received a number of applications and after hiring one of the applicants he passed the resumé of  Richard Patterson Ashbridge Hamilton on to S. J. Bradley and four other families who were also looking for a teacher. Hamilton was the son of a Virginia minister, who had most recently answered a call in Pennsylvania.

In a letter published in The Charleston Mercury in late December 1859, Wallace, who by then had left Kingstree to pastor a church in Georgia, noted that it was not at all unusual for local families to hire teachers from the North. Wallace noted that the families who employed Hamilton considered him to be a good teacher. However, there were others in the community who were suspicious of him simply because he had come from Pennsylvania.

At some point, Hamilton submitted an article, which seems to have been about religion, to The Kingstree Star, which was not accepted by editor Richard Columbus Logan. Instead, Logan penned an editorial in which he made derogatory remarks about Hamilton and his views. Hamilton protested this in a letter he hand-delivered to Logan. According to Wallace, Logan "disliking some portion of it, commenced a personal attack on Mr. Hamilton." 

Richard Columbus "Lum" Logan

No one was injured, but it was hardly a fair fight as Hamilton had a physical disability. In fact, this disability kept him from presiding over a larger school and was the major reason he had applied to teach at a small country school.

Hamilton charged Logan with assault and battery, but the Grand Jury refused to indict Logan. Hamilton then published a circular, detailing his issues with Logan, and Logan began to editorialize on a regular basis about the dangers of hiring northern school teachers.

At the time this was going on, H.D. Shaw had hired William Joseph Dodd from Jersey City, NJ, to teach his children. Dodd had only been in Williamsburg County for 10 months, living with the Shaws for the entire time.

Once Logan began his editorial campaign against teachers from the North, citizens began harboring suspicions about Dodd, as well as Hamilton.

 William J. Dodd

Source; Findagrave.com

After the altercation between Hamilton and Logan, some of Hamilton's patrons withdrew their children from his school without notifying S.J. Bradley or the other parents. This created strong tensions among many families in the area.

But some of the families who had hired Hamilton, as well as Dodd's employer, H.D. Shaw, supported the teachers, noting they had seen no signs that either of them held abolitionist views. Feelings were running high in the community with at least one demonstration near the courthouse where demonstrators called for men like Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter to rise again to defend the county.

A group of men opposed to Hamilton and Dodd met at McClary's store about three miles from Kingstree, where they agreed that the teachers must be forced to leave the community. Of all people, R.C. Logan was named chairman of a committee of 12 men who were given the task of informing the two teachers of the community's decision.

Dodd, for his part, approached Dr. Samuel Davis McGill, who had taught school before becoming a physician, and asked him to intercede with the community on his behalf. Dr. McGill chaired a meeting at the courthouse where he attempted to, as he wrote in his reminiscences, "appease the tumultuous cry against these foreigners." Drs. James S. Brockinton and S.D.M. Byrd quickly let Dr. McGill know that there would be no appeasement, and he hastened to tell William Dodd to leave town immediately.

A newspaper article published in Maine, stated that Dodd grew disgusted and left Williamsburg County; however, it seems likely that he simply listened to Dr. McGill's counsel and departed. Hamilton, on the other hand, stayed in Williamsburg County until the deadline he had been given before taking his leave.

I wondered what happened to Hamilton and Dodd after their tumultuous stay in Williamsburg County. While it's not always the case, the news stories surrounding these events gave me the gift of plenty of clues to attempt to trace their histories.

Both of them, it turns out, lived long lives, but neither of them married.

Hamilton, on leaving Williamsburg County, attempted to secure a teaching position in Sumter. However, his "reputation" in Williamsburg preceded him, and the people of Sumter also sent him packing. He then returned to his father's home in Pennsylvania.

In the 1870s, he moved to Chicago, where he first worked as a clerk in a store and later sold fire insurance. He died in Bremen, IL, a suburb of Chicago, in July 1918, at the age of 85.

William Dodd seems to have emulated Dr. S.D. McGill in that on returning to Jersey City, he entered medical school.  During the Civil War, he was a US Army Surgeon aboard the hospital steamer Ben Deford. He later worked for several years at Bellevue Hospital in New York City.

Dodd died in 1909 at age 80. This interesting article appeared in several newspapers across the county shortly after his death. "Dr. William J. Dodd, a New York physician, who left an estate of $250,000, feared he would be buried alive, and in his will requested that his radial artery be cut before his burial. The administrator in probating his will said the artery was cut as requested."

It seems a few lines from Jan Richardson's poem "Eucharista" offers a fitting benediction for this sad moment in our community's history:

You whose names

have been lost to the winds,

whose stories

have been turned into scraps,

whose voices

echo through the ages

and beckon us to listen,

we give thanks

and we remember you.