The South Carolina Encyclopedia Guide to the Counties of South Carolina

Series Editor’s Preface

The South Carolina Encyclopedia was published in 2006 to be a people’s encyclopedia, a comprehensive single-volume print reference for anything that anyone wanted to know about the Palmetto State’s rich cultures and storied heritage, from prehistory to the present. Including nearly two thousand entries and five hundred illustrations, the encyclopedia was the result of a six-year collaboration between the Humanities CouncilSC, the Institute for Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina, and the University of South Carolina Press. Nearly six hundred contributors came together to write more than one million words depicting our state’s representative people, places, and things. The encyclopedia is an authoritative and entertaining compilation of essays covering an array of topics ranging from war and politics to arts and recreation, from agriculture and industry to popular culture and ethnicity. As diverse as the populations that live within the thirty-one thousand square miles that make up the Palmetto State, the entries included in The South Carolina Encyclopedia were chosen to best represent the many facets of our shared experiences that remind us of who we are, where we come from, what we have in common, and why we are distinctive.

Thanks to the generosity and vision of the Humanities CouncilSC and the collaboration and cooperation of the University of South Carolina Press, selected portions of the multiyear project that became the widely praised and best-selling print encyclopedia are now available in a new way through this South Carolina Encyclopedia Guides Series. The guides highlight, in an easy-to-access digital format, specific topic areas from the original print version. Where appropriate, entries have been updated or added. For example, the guide to the counties has been updated to include more recent population data, and the guide to the governors has been expanded to include all individuals who have been governor—whether elected or constitutionally succeeding to the office. Where possible, illustrations have been included and, in some cases, new illustrations not part of the print edition have been added.

In March 2012 the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica announced that after 244 years, it would cease publishing its print edition and focus solely on the digital version of its content. This transition is indicative of an unquestionable trend toward the digitization of reference materials to serve better the needs of the diverse range of users who have embraced the technology that brings this content to you via a whole host of devices—a technology that continues to revolutionize the ways that sound scholarship is made available and useful for an interested public.

The South Carolina Encyclopedia Guides Series—because of its digital format and its focus on thematic segments—expands the accessibility and functionality of the content created in the print encyclopedia and invites new readers to understand better the hundreds of people, places, and things that have defined the South Carolina experience.

WALTER EDGAR

Counties, districts, and parishes. County government in South Carolina represents both the old and the new. It represents the old in the sense that county government can trace its roots to the early colonial period in South Carolina. It represents the new because amendments to the South Carolina constitution passed in 1973 and the Local Government Act of 1975 (also known as the Home Rule Act) gave county governments limited home rule that granted authority to provide services ranging from animal control to zoning.

In 1682 the Lords Proprietors created three counties, Berkeley, Craven, and Colleton; Granville County was added later. The primary functions of these counties were administering justice, granting land, and the election of representatives. The Church Act of 1706 established the Church of England in South Carolina and also created ten parishes to carry out the church’s work. These parishes obtained a civil function to join their ecclesiastical one in 1716, when parishes became election districts for the colony. Besides serving as election districts, parishes recorded vital statistics, cared for the poor and orphans, provided doctors, and operated free schools.

New parishes were added throughout the colonial period, although the development of parishes in the backcountry did not keep pace with its rising population. In 1770 there were twenty-four parishes, of which only three were in the backcountry. Demands for better government led to the creation of seven judicial districts in 1769 that incorporated all the settled area of the colony. These districts brought some legal services to the backcountry but did not supply all the benefits of the parishes.

Counties, districts, and parishes all existed in South Carolina after independence from Great Britain. Under the 1778 constitution, the parish and the district were election districts for the General Assembly. This gave the lowcountry, with its numerous small parishes, a distinct advantage. Despite having over half the white population in the state, the backcountry received less than half of the seats in the House of Representatives. Although each district or parish was allotted one senator, Charleston had two parishes, inflating its power. A survey of uniform counties within the seven judicial districts was commissioned in 1783. In 1785 the General Assembly created twenty counties and established a small claims court in each county. Nevertheless, the creation of the new counties did not change the role and duties of district courts. District justices continued to hold sessions at district courthouse towns.

By 1800 this early experiment with counties came to an end. Despite serious efforts, counties were unable to establish clearly their identity and utility as extensions of state government. Most of the counties that existed became districts that assumed judicial responsibilities for their geographic areas. Although roughly the same size, these judicial districts had overlapping jurisdictions and responsibilities. It is noteworthy that few changes were made prior to the end of the Civil War. During this period there was little consistency in the manner in which services that had previously been provided by the counties (for example, education and road construction) were delivered. The Compromise of 1808 settled the issue of apportionment. By apportioning seats based on population and tax collection, the lowcountry finally acknowledged the growing power of the upcountry.

Parishes, 1775

After the Civil War, counties in South Carolina underwent a significant transformation. In 1868 the state constitution abolished the parishes and designated judicial districts formally as counties. It also created a three-man board of commissioners in each county. These boards of commissioners had the power to collect taxes and spend revenue for a limited range of services, including roads, bridges, schools, and public buildings. Their authority to tax and spend was limited to purposes specified by the General Assembly. Because of this limited authority, this view of the responsibilities of county government became known as the county purpose doctrine. This long-standing doctrine continued until passage of the Local Government Act of 1975.

It was also during this period that Dillon’s Rule became the prevailing principle on the roles and responsibilities of county government. Named for Iowa Supreme Court justice John F. Dillon, a leading authority on municipal government, Dillon’s Rule held that local governments were solely the creature of state government. As such they had no authority beyond that delegated to them by the state legislature. This became the accepted view in South Carolina and served to further limit the authority of county governments to provide services. Combining the county purpose doctrine and Dillon’s Rule resulted in county government being limited to those powers expressly identified by the legislature. Hence, county government had little if any discretion and their very existence relied on the goodwill of the General Assembly.

Election Districts ca. 1776

For a brief period in the late nineteenth century, counties were legislated out of existence. In 1890 the constitutional provisions relating to counties were repealed by the General Assembly. However, the constitution of 1895 re-created counties and specified their duties and powers. In general those duties and responsibilities included the authorization or provision for schools, roads, bridges, and public buildings. Counties continued to have a limited role in local governance, being primarily an extension of state government.

During this period a county’s legislative delegation (the state senator and representatives) was the de facto governing authority for county government. The South Carolina General Assembly could pass legislation directed at any single county. It also annually passed the supply bill, the county’s operating budget. The delegation’s power was further enhanced because the General Assembly tended to defer to individual county delegations in all matters related to the counties they represented.

Election Districts ca. 1790

Changes to the state constitution in 1973 (ratified as Article VIII) and passage of the Local Government Act of 1975 changed the landscape of county government in South Carolina by expanding and clarifying its duties, responsibilities, and authority. After these changes, the powers of county government were characterized typically as limited home rule because the General Assembly still retained the substantial authority to expand or restrict the powers of county government. For example, through the Local Government Fiscal Authority Act of 1997, the General Assembly clearly defined the limits of county government’s authority to generate revenue to meet local needs.

In the early twenty-first century counties could best be described as general-purpose governments having general powers and providing a range of local services, such as law enforcement, construction and maintenance of roads and bridges, water and sewer service, collection and disposal of solid waste, land-use planning, public libraries, economic development, recreation, buying and selling property, entering into contracts, eminent domain, assessment of ad valorem property taxes, and establishing uniform service charges.

The 1975 statute authorized four forms of county government. The council form vests all responsibilities for making policy and administering county government in the county council. The council has both executive and legislative power. In the council-supervisor form, a supervisor is elected at large. The supervisor is both the chairman of county council and the chief administrative officer of the county. In the council-administrator form, the council hires an administrator who is the chief administrative officer of the county and is responsible for all departments for which the council has control. The council-manager form is similar to the council-administrator form with one major exception. In the council-manager form, the auditor and the treasurer may be appointed by council rather than elected. Once appointed, they report to the county manager. As of November 2004, the bulk of South Carolina’s counties had the council-administrator form (thirty-four counties), followed by the council form (six), the council-supervisor form (four), and the council-manager form (two).

Unlike municipalities, created in response to the needs of a group of residents, counties were created as creatures of the state. Their power and authority are limited to what is approved by the General Assembly. County governments still provide and support state-level services. However, their powers and responsibilities have also increased so that today in many ways they are similar to municipal governments. As the needs and expectations of the citizens continue to change, county government in South Carolina can be expected to continue to evolve. Dennis Lambries

A Handbook for South Carolina County Officials. Columbia: South Carolina Association of Counties, 1999.

Hannum, Eleanor. The Parish in South Carolina, 1706–1868. Master’s thesis, University of South Carolina, 1970.

Krane, Dale, Platon N. Rigos, and Melvin B. Hill, Jr. Home Rule in America: A Fifty-State Handbook. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2001.

Long, John Hamilton, Gordon DenBoer, and Kathryn Ford Thorne. Atlas of Historical County Boundaries: South Carolina. New York: Scribner’s, 1997.

Stauffer, Michael E. The Formation of Counties in South Carolina. Columbia: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, 1994.

Tyer, Charlie B., ed. South Carolina Government: An Introduction. Columbia: Institute for Public Service and Policy Research, University of South Carolina, 2002.

Abbeville County (508 sq. miles; 2010 pop. 25,417). Abbeville County was one of the six counties created in 1785 out of Ninety Six District. Its border to the north was the pre—Revolutionary War Indian boundary line. The Savannah and Saluda Rivers marked its eastern and western borders. The boundary with Edgefield County was surveyed from the mouth of Little River to Island Ford on the Saluda. Abbeville lost much of its area to Greenwood County in 1897 and gave up further territory in 1916 to McCormick County.

Before the Revolutionary War, the most significant early settlement in this area was in the Long Canes, the name early given to the watershed of Little River and its main tributary, Long Cane Creek. Beginning in 1756, the Calhoun family and other settlers from Virginia took up land grants along these streams. In the 1760s, under the direction of Governor Thomas Boone, colonies of poor Protestants (Scots-Irish) settled the township of Boonesborough at the headwaters of Long Cane Creek.

Most settlers joined the Whig or patriot cause in the Revolution. The best-known patriot leader was Andrew Pickens, who was aided by such neighbors and friends as Andrew Hamilton and Robert Anderson. Pickens resided near the center of what later became Abbeville County, and it was through his influence and that of Andrew Hamilton, who bought his land, that the site of a courthouse for the new county was located near Pickens’s blockhouse, or fortified post. Dr. John de la Howe, one of the commissioners appointed to choose the location, was given the honor of naming the county. Some surmise that he may have been born in Abbeville, France, but it is known only that he was a native of France.

Robert Mills later called Abbeville the original seat of learning in the upper country, and it quickly distinguished itself as the mother of some very famous Carolinians. The most notable of these native sons was John C. Calhoun, but there were others who won acclaim, such as Langdon Cheves, Patrick Noble, James L. Petigru, as well as adopted sons George McDuffie and Moses Waddel, whose Willington Academy drew students from throughout the South. Schools in Cokesbury and Due West also attracted students from a wide area.

The coming of cotton planting to the upcountry after the 1790s accelerated the introduction of slavery to Abbeville District and increased migration westward of small farmers. In 1790 one-fourth of the white families owned slaves. By 1850 two-thirds owned slaves and slaves comprised two-thirds of the population. Ten planters owned more than one hundred slaves, and one planter, George McDuffie, owned more than two hundred. This wealth manifested itself in the fine homes on plantations and in the town of Abbeville, which flourished in the 1850s.

Following the election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860, Abbeville held one of the earliest public meetings in support of secession, and an Abbeville native, Francis H. Wardlaw, is considered by many to have authored the Ordinance of Secession. The Civil War brought bitter losses. At least 349 men from the district died in the war. Safely removed from the battlefields, the district attracted refugees from the coast and from the West.

Emancipation destroyed much of the planters’ wealth. The postwar economy chiefly rested upon small farmers, largely through the expansion of tenant farming and sharecropping. In the 1850s the Greenville and Columbia Railroad ran through the eastern end of the district with a branchline from Hodges to Abbeville. In the 1880s the Savannah Valley Railroad connected the western part of the county with Augusta and Anderson. In the 1890s the Seaboard Air Line connected Abbeville and Greenwood with cities to their north and south. In 1895 the businessmen of Abbeville organized the Abbeville Cotton Mill Company and later secured the financing of northern textile magnate S. M. Milliken, which ensured its success.

In the first decade of the twentieth century, Calhoun Mills, a textile corporation under the experienced leadership of James P. Gossett and Judge W. F. Cox, from neighboring Anderson County, built a mill and village at the junction of the Savannah Valley Railroad and the Seaboard. The resulting town of Calhoun Falls soon became the second largest town in the county. The town of Due West ranked third with its male and female colleges, respectively Erskine College and Due West Female College.

During the twentieth century Abbeville County’s agriculture experienced a transition from cotton to cattle, and its dependence on textiles gave way to more diversified industry and small businesses. In later years its population stabilized, with most concentrated in and around the city of Abbeville. By 1990 whites were a two-thirds majority of the county residents.

The creation of an industrial park and the aggressive pursuit of new investments resulted in the arrival of industries such as Pirelli Cable Corp., Flexible Technologies, Karistan-Bigelow, and West Point Pepperell. However, the absence of an interstate highway limited industrial expansion.

Despite a century of change, Abbeville County still managed to retain its rural character. The Long Cane District of the Sumter National Forest was established in 1936, featuring a recreation area around Parsons Mountain with a lake, trails, and camping as well as