Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article

To: Bubba Ho-Tep
Yeah, I did so a search on Mt. Croghan, consulting the town's own official website with several pages on town history rather than a passing mention in a tourist brochure. But if you know better, maybe you should contact them and tell them that they have their history all wrong, that it wasn't a growing town in 1900, that it wasn't doing well enough to incorporate in 1911, and that it was Sherman's fire rather than the fire of 1931 from which " the town never again regained its former prestige."

Let's look at the article in its full context from website;

"Mount Croghan is one of the three oldest towns in Chesterfield County. Cheraw and Chesterfield are the other two. The name of the hill around which Mount Croghan was built, and which has been the only name the community and town have ever known dates back almost two hundred years to 1780 and the Battle of Camden. Mount Croghan got its name from Major Croan, a French officer who was famous during the Revolutionary War. While traveling to Virginia after the Battle of Camden, Major Croan made his camp on a hill just above the present site of Mount Croghan and gave it this name. By 1809 Mount Croghan was a voting precinct and had a Post Office. Elizabeth Baptist Church is another landmark. The first covenant of the church was constituted by Elders Joel Gulledge and Samuel Timmons in 1825. There was a balcony for slaves. Between the years 1874 and 1877, the slaves began petitioning the church for letters of dismission to join other churches. The cemetery of Elizabeth Church is one of the oldest in the county.

In 1836, the people of Mount Croghan were concerned about organizing a school to educate their children. At that time, academies were important types of schools. It was then decided that an academy should be started. Mary Burch gave the land for the school to be built about a mile north of Mount Croghan at the old Elizabeth Church. Joseph Burch, Stephen Jackson, John Huntley, Sandy May, Joel Baker and Samuel Timmons gave of their time and materials so that this school might be built.
When the Academy was started, it was the only school within a radius of twenty miles. Alexander Whitton was the first teacher at the Academy.
The importance of the old Elizabeth Academy increased until it meant more to the people educationally and socially than any other place in the small community. The Academy was considered equal to a high school, and some of the children who attended were later considered the best educated people in Chesterfield County.

Mount Croghan was one of the towns burned down by General William T. Sherman and his army in 1864 as Sherman and his troops divided the South. Most of the recorded facts of Mount Croghan’s history were destroyed. During the Civil War, the northerners burned the Academy and stuck their swords and bayonets in the surrounding ground to see that nothing of value was buried there.

Mount Croghan Academy failed in the year 1900. Mount Croghan was a growing farm town with eight to ten stores in the early 1900's. The Chesterfield and Lancaster Railroad, running south of Mount Croghan gave the transportation of merchant and farm goods.

The Mount Croghan Methodist Church was built in 1907 and still stands in its original site. It was derived from Antioch Church on the Hornsboro Road, which no longer stands.

Mount Croghan Baptist Church was derived from the Elizabeth Baptist Church. Mount Croghan Baptist met at the school until a building was erected in 1922.
A Charter of Corporation for the Town of Mount Croghan was applied for by a group of leading citizens on October 3, 1911. The declaration showed that there was a population of 150 inhabitants. The boundary lines of the town were set forth. The Secretary of State, R.M. McCrown, granted the Charter of Corporation. The Charter was written in his own handwriting. It was later recorded by him on May 28, 1914.

The year 1909 was a red-letter year for Mount Croghan. The people, believing that the greatest contribution to man was the school, believing that ‘Man cannot live by bread alone,’ realizing that an educated person is able to live with himself with a greater degree of satisfaction, and that intellectual maturity would lift them out of the provincial into something of the cosmopolitan and universal, erected a school. It was erected in 1912.

The Depression started in the late 1920's and lasted until the mid 1930's. Mount Croghan was no exception to this event.



The Mount Croghan Bank was the strongest bank in the county until it went broke during the Depression. Before the Depression, a dollar was worth $1.18, but during the Depression, its value decreased to 38 cents.

The Mount Croghan School gymnasium was built of white rock hauled in by citizens from the fields in 1932 and 1933. It was the first governmental project of its kind in South Carolina to be signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Mount Croghan burned a second time in on September 3, 1931. A whole block of five stores was destroyed including the mercantile establishments of Mr. Rufuf Nicholson and Mr. Press Tucker, a vacant store owned by Mr. Tucker formerly occupied by the post office, the Baker and Rayfield Dry Goods Store and a vacant store owned by Mr. D. F. Nicholson. After burning down this time, the town never again regained its former prestige.

Mount Croghan began to lose its population in the 1950's with the increase in industry in nearby towns and the decrease of farming.

The population of Mount Croghan for the 2000 census was 155.

The town limits of Mount Croghan have a radius of one mile. Contained within the one mile radius are the business area, two churches and residential homes.

Mount Croghan is located ten miles east of the Town of Pageland and ten miles west of the Town of Chesterfield." Town of Mount Croghan ©2009 55 Burch Street, Mount Croghan, SC 29727 | tel. (843) 634-3810 Email: mtcroghan@mtcroghan.com"


Now if you go to the Chesterfield County article you will see the same sentence used in context with Sherman. Maybe they used it twice. But as I said a careful study of the area shows it never recovered from Sherman .

I mean isn't this what you Yankees are so proud of . . .you know, beat us like what was it "a hired mule".

Usually you all are bragging here, what's wrong?
355 posted on 08/24/2010 12:04:35 PM PDT by mstar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 351 | View Replies ]


To: mstar

Do you always strain at gnats or is this a special occasion?


356 posted on 08/24/2010 12:09:25 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 355 | View Replies ]

To: mstar

Sherman treated The South like Cromwell, and Cromwell’s son-in-law, treated Ireland. ‘Scorched earth’ came from Cromwell. His army moved most of the Irish landholders out and moved English families in to work those holdings. This all happened 1670 to 1690 or so.

The first five Amendments in the Bill of Rights largely came out of that experience. England is still paying the price for Cromwell, as are the Irish.

I remember my great uncle once referring to himself as a ‘son of the niggers of Europe’. He referred to African-Americans as ‘smoked Irishmen’. I never understood it until I started learning a bit of English history.


357 posted on 08/24/2010 12:11:13 PM PDT by RinaseaofDs
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 355 | View Replies ]

To: mstar
mean isn't this what you Yankees are so proud of . . .you know, beat us like what was it "a hired mule".

Rented mule. And y'all sure do enjoy whining about it, don't you?

358 posted on 08/24/2010 12:11:39 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 355 | View Replies ]

To: mstar
See, I'd think you'd be the one all bragging here. I look at that and see that, yeah, Sherman burned what looks to have been a wide spot in the road when he passed through in March, 1865. Despite that, the town seemed to recover just fine, actually growing enough that by the early 1900s it was able to incorporate, had "eight to ten stores," railroad connections, new schools, etc., and generally sounding not much different than a lot of other towns in South Carolina that never saw a United States soldier.

You seem intent, on the other hand, of pronouncing all of that growth to be no more than the prolonged twitching of a corpse in order to reinforce your southern martyr complex.

359 posted on 08/24/2010 12:14:44 PM PDT by Bubba Ho-Tep ("More weight!"--Giles Corey)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 355 | View Replies ]

To: mstar

Verse 1
Bring the good old bugle, boys, we’ll sing another song
Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along
Sing it as we used to sing it, 50,000 strong
While we were marching through Georgia.

Chorus
Hurrah! Hurrah! we bring the jubilee!
Hurrah! Hurrah! the flag that makes you free!
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea
While we were marching through Georgia.

Verse 2
How the darkeys shouted when they heard the joyful sound
How the turkeys gobbled which our commissary found
How the sweet potatoes even started from the ground
While we were marching through Georgia.

Verse 3
Yes and there were Union men who wept with joyful tears,
When they saw the honored flag they had not seen for years;
Hardly could they be restrained from breaking forth in cheers,
While we were marching through Georgia.

Verse 4
“Sherman’s dashing Yankee boys will never reach the coast!”
So the saucy rebels said and ‘twas a handsome boast
Had they not forgot, alas! to reckon with the Host
While we were marching through Georgia.

Verse 5
So we made a thoroughfare for freedom and her train,
Sixty miles in latitude, three hundred to the main;
Treason fled before us, for resistance was in vain
While we were marching through Georgia.


367 posted on 08/24/2010 12:41:02 PM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 355 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson