Agriculture

For most of its history, agriculture virtually defined South Carolina, and no other single force has so profoundly influenced the state’s economy, history, demographics, and politics.

A staunch Democrat, from 1864 to 1866 Aiken represented Abbeville District in the S.C. House of Representatives. During Reconstruction, the link he had earlier made between southernism and agrarianism grew stronger.

As a Unionist, Governor Aiken opposed the radical views of Robert Barnwell Rhett and members of the so-called “Bluffton Movement,” which called for secession if Texas was not annexed to the United States as a slave state.

In 1828 Aiken and others received a charter from the General Assembly authorizing the creation of the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company (SCC&RR). Aiken, the railroad’s largest investor, was soon chosen as president of the company.

As it has for generations, the family run milling company continues to produce cornmeal, mixes, feed, and breeders in addition to Adluh Flour.

Construction of the Savannah River Site after World War II briefly transformed Allendale into a boomtown. But when Interstate 95 opened east of Allendale County, the tourist-oriented economy along U.S. 301 collapsed

Allendale is South Carolina’s youngest county, yet it contains the oldest known human habitation in the state.

In 1828 he launched his formal political career and won election to the S.C. House of Representatives, where he represented Prince George Winyah Parish from 1828 to 1831. He was subsequently involved in several disputed elections involving the Prince George Winyah S.C. Senate seat, in large part because of his staunch support of nullification.

Much like another prominent nineteenth-century political figure, James Chesnut, Alston is primarily remembered as the husband of his legendary wife.

The Ashwood Plantation project was a government sponsored agricultural community established as a resettlement site for tenant farmers displaced by the Great Depression.

With cotton prices low and the boll weevil creeping ever closer, farmers in the “Ridge” counties of Aiken, Edgefield, and Saluda began planting asparagus to supplement their dwindling cotton incomes.

Located in the coastal plain, Bamberg thrived with the railroad and became the commercial center for surrounding farms and plantations.

The Bamberg area was originally populated by the Edisto tribe of the Muskhogean Indians. German, Swiss, Scots-Irish, English, and Huguenot settlers began arriving during the mid-eighteenth century. Early in the twenty-first century, despite a declining agricultural economy, Bamberg County remained a heavy producer of corn, soy-beans, wheat, cotton, and sorghum.

Perhaps Barnwell’s most enduring feature is the 1858 freestanding vertical sundial located in front of the courthouse. It was given to the town by Joseph Duncan Allen, a wealthy planter, politician, and soldier. In 1907 a portion of the five acres given by Benjamin Odom, later containing the Confederate Monument, was named Calhoun Park honoring Clinton Calhoun, longtime mayor of Barnwell.

For its first 150 years, the Barnwell economy had an agricultural base, but in 1950 the U.S. Government announced plans for the Savannah River Site, a massive nuclear weapons facility that would be located in Aiken and Barnwell Counties. This had a profound effect on Barnwell’s geography and economy.

William Bartram’s interests were broader than his father’s (John Bartram). In addition to botany, his book contains a great deal of information about animal life and both English and Indian societies.

Although separated by only a narrow strip of land, the two towns nevertheless developed distinct identities.

In the antebellum era, Beaufort became a summer retreat for rich Sea Island cotton planters and even richer mainland rice planters, who maintained a wealthy and cultivated society in the town.

The first half of the twentieth century was a time of hardship in Beaufort, which by then had declined into one of the poorest places in America.

Named for the beech trees growing in the wetlands of the nearby Savannah River swamp and possibly a dead river island, Beech Island began in the 1680s as Savano Town, an important Indian trading center.