Johnsonville South Carolina History

Henry Edison Eaddy (1832-1912) was a turn of the 20th century Johnsonville correspondent for the local paper. He was known to his readers as the "Sage of Possum Fork" for his articles in the Kingstree County Record. In an April 1, 1909 entry, he discusses mad dogs, river steamships, the need for better roads, and the soon to be completed line bringing trains across the Pee Dee River.  Eaddy laments in his article, "We are looking for the railroad to start up again; we can hear the locomotive whistle over on the Marion side, where they are tramming logs to the Pee Dee to be towed to Georgetown, so we keep hoping to hear the trains passing.  It will not seem so lonesome." 1911 Rand McNally Map showing G & WRR through Andrews but no line running North to Johnsonville This was 2 years before passenger rail service was completed through Johnsonville. The Georgetown & Western Railroad was first chartered as the Georgetown and Lane's Railroad in 1881 by the S.

In the shadows of a sleepy branch gully outside of Johnsonville, where the echoes of history whisper through the ancien t trees an d across the rustling tobacco fields, the Hanna family's story has unfolded for generations. Thomas and Nekoda Hanna, descendants of the legendary Hugh Hanna who marched south with General Greene in the American Revolution, carved their existence into the land that echoed with the footsteps of Hanna forebears.  Before that, the same land was heavily trod by native peoples who left thousands of arrowheads and other talismans of their presence.  The Hannas toiled tirelessly to make a living on this land - the  custodians of fertile soil exposed by clearcutting forestland by hand. Thomas and Nekoda's homestead near The Branch They build a small cabin-style home near a gully they called "the branch." Thomas carved his and Nekoda's initials into at least one support beam under the new home.  One legend held that the bricks forming the found

This article was originally published to the Johnsonville SC History Exhibits page , where more details are available.  Facts and data gathered by Josh Dukes. Aimwell Church location on the Robert Mills map of Marion County (1825) and current mapping. The church is incorrectly shown as Hopewell, which is further up Old River Road . Aimwell Presbyterian Church was a Presbyterian congregation located along what is now Old River Road, approximately at the intersection of Old River Road and McWhite Circle. The approximate GPS coordinates are 33°56'28.2"N 79°29'50.4"W.  The Robert Mills Map of Marion County (1825) incorrectly lists the Aimwell Meeting House as Hopewell Meeting House.  Hopewell on the Mills map is simply listed as "Meeting House" which was not an uncommon mistake with early maps of unfamiliar locations. On Jan 29, 1791 several inhabitants of the area around the newly constructed Aimwell Meeting House petitioned the House of Representatives to inc

This story was originally published in the First Families Exhibit on the Johnsonville South Carolina History web page . Facts gathered by Josh Dukes. Henry Edison Eaddy (1832-1912) Henry Edison Eaddy (1832-1912) was a local citizen of some renown in his day. Eaddy was the son of Henry Eaddy Sr (1778-1855) and Rebecca Ard (born 1782). He was a self-taught engineer, mathematician, and writer. He put those writing skills to use for The County Record out of Kingstree, where he was known by his column pin name "The Sage of Possum Fork." He was married to Eliza Louisa Huggins Eaddy (1834–1916) with whom he had several children. One of their daughters was Rosa Belle Eaddy Woodberry Dickson , Johnsonville's first woman mayor and the first woman mayor in South Carolina (elected 1925). Henry Edison Eaddy's granddaughter Ruth Dorrill Thomas shared a memory of her grandfather in The Promised Land by Elaine Y. Eaddy: ______________________________________________________

The following information is quoted from A Survey of 22 Cemeteries in the Johnsonville-Hemingway Area of Old Williamsburg District of South Carolina by Elaine Eaddy, circa 1979, with additional updated commentary from Josh Dukes following: Lake Chapel Baptist Church and Cemetery as seen on a 1946 map "Lake Chapel was a small nest of Baptists surrounded by Methodism at Prospect, Ebenezer, and Old Johnsonville. All were a little too far to make traveling easy and comfortable by horse and buggy. The writer [Elaine Eaddy] has not been successful in determining what influences led to the establishment of a Baptist Church at that particular time and place, nor has a precise date been determined. The deed was not recorded; indirect evidence, however, indicates that the church was built about 1890. Julian Tanner Sr, born in 1880, was a small boyfollowing in his father's footsteps when the beams and sills were being hewn for the building. More than 50 years later, when the building

  Johnsonville's old middle school on Midway Highway was originally The Stuckey School, an "Equalization School" during segregation.  The building was constructed in 1954 on a 10-acre tract of land two miles west of Johnsonville.  Prior to this time, black students attended school through 8th grade at the "Johnsonville Colored School," a Rosenwald School building constructed in 1924 and located where the Johnsonville City Pool was later built.  In its first year, this school employed 4 teachers. This school served Johnsonville's black students before the Rosenwald School Fund built the more modern Johnsonville Colored School in 1924 Everlina Jacobs  recalls her time at the Johnsonville Colored school before the Stuckey School was completed: "Where the swimming pool used to be, the school house I went to was there. It was a big old school house. It was 4, 5 rooms. We had to walk from up here - that's when I was young - we walked from over there at th