CHAPTER X.

TOWNS OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

The urban population of the United States was 3.8 per cent. of the aggregate population in 1790. By the last census it has risen to 22.5 per cent. The facilities offered to trade and manufactures during the present century by the introduction of the use of steam, by improvements in machinery, by the telegraph and cheaper and better postal arrangements, has promoted everywhere this increase in city populations. In South Carolina this tendency has been less obvious than in most countries similarly located. Nevertheless, with the abolition of slavery, the barriers which isolated the State have been removed, and it is plain that she is making haste to take part in this as well as in the other great movements of the age.

Governor Drayton enumerates forty-two towns and villages in South Carolina in 1800, the population of which may be estimated at not exceeding 30,000, or twelve per cent. of the inhabitants of the State. Mills, in 1820, makes the number of towns and villages sixty-one, with a population of near 45,000, being eight per cent. on the enumeration of the census for that year. William Gilmore Simms counts, in 1840, of towns, villages and hamlets, some seventy-five, with a population not far from 65,000, being ten per cent. of the people in the State. The census of 1880 counts one hundred and five towns in the State. This count, however, includes only a small proportion of the lesser villages and trading settlements, which are increasing with great rapidity, and are effecting marked changes in the social and industrial condition of the population. The growth of the larger towns has been set back by the destruction and losses attendant upon the war, and by the radical revolution it affected in the industries of the State, disturbing all the established methods. of trade. But along the lines of railways, and every where in the rural districts, there has been a remarkable increase in the number of establishments engaged in trade. The cross-road store has become an important factor in the organization of labor and in the distribution of wealth. Established in the first instance as an adjunct to other industries, as commissariats for farm hands, or those employed in saw mills, turpen

tine or phosphate works, they have gained a foothold of their own, drawing round them small but growing communities, which find such locations eligible for the diversified industries and pursuits demanded by civilized life. Originally, the Indian traders, following the trail of the hunters and trappers, opened the interior of the State for settlement. Graziers and stock raisers, known as "cowpen keepers," were the first to follow them. In their wake, and to supplement for their uses the short-comings of the seasons, came the tillers of the soil. These throve and prospered until in the fullness of time they became large planters and great landlords, supplanting and overshadowing all others. Then came the war, and the destruction of the plantation system. The thirty-three thousand plantations of 1860 are divided out among ninety-three thousand small farmers in 1880. Wholly occupied by their struggle with the soil and the seasons, these small farmers, of necessity, intrust their trading interests to the care of the country storekeeper. And thus the crossroads store stands again, as stood formerly the Indian trading post, a pioneer in a new industrial departure. The blacksmith, the wheelwright, and the trial justice settle near them, and when two or three stores are gathered together, churches and schools are opened, and a town which, from its very commencement, has instantaneous communication through the telegraph with every quarter of the globe, is admitted into the great fellowship of cities, and takes its growth.

The attempt is here made to express numerically the character and distribution of these towns and trading points. As in some sort, a first attempt, it is necessarily defective. The defects are, however, those of omission, and these can be supplied by more accurate enumerations in future.

In the following statements, trading settlements alone are considered. Health, educational or social resorts, as such, are not included, nor are mills or manufactories entered unless stores are connected with them.

REGIONS.

Towns, Trading Points, Stores &c. in South Carolina.

I. Coast........

II. Lower Pine
Belt.

III. Upper Pine 99

Belt.

IV. Red and

34

25

78

...

30

16 9,095 6 330
20 21,538 9 1,009 5,630,000 14 693 215 33 13 55
6 7,403 10 221 1,816,000 4 143 62
3 13.

1,473,000 4 295 23

3 1 8

5

16

3

& V. Sand Hill VI. Piedmont...... 244 49 50,788 12 1,750 10,546,000 26 973 506 114 71 86 8 2 3,084 33 166 369,000 1 99 53 4 6 4 Totals. 493 100 150,664 15 4,645 $40,156,000 100 2,390 1,519 316,184 286

VII. Alpine

49

It may be roughly estimated that the annual sales are about one hundred and fifty millions of dollars. In this connection, a general view of the condition of the

BANKS

in South Carolina, in the present and also in the past, is exhibited on the following page.

Principal Resources and Liabilities of Banks in South Carolina for the Years 1849, 1859, 1869 and 1881.

Loans and Discounts Capital and Deposits.

1881.

1882.