S. B. Poston: Johnsonville's Modern Founder

For more on S. B. Poston, visit Johnsonville SC History on the web

Sylvester Briley "S. B." Poston (1867-1933)

When I come home to Johnsonville and stop to photograph or admire the vacant but still proud storefronts, I can’t help but think of Sylvester Briley “S.B.” Poston. Every brick and beam of the old business district owes its existence to him. He didn’t just help build Johnsonville—he literally owned much of it, from the bank that held residents’ savings to the hardware store where farmers bought their plows. To appreciate just how deeply this one man shaped a town, it helps to start at the beginning.

From Half Moon to the Pee Dee

Poston was born on May 20, 1867 (some sources say 1869) in the Half Moon community along the Lynches River, the son of turpentine and farm operators Simon P. Poston and Sarah Frances Bartell. He grew up learning how to tap pines for sap, plant cotton and handle customers. By the turn of the 20th century he’d launched the S.B. Poston Company with his father, buying and selling naval stores, farm products, and timber. 

In 1900 he married Claudia Belle Weathersbee of Williston, and the couple moved a year later to a sandy tract near what is now Broadway and Highway 41. At the time, Highway 41 was the stagecoach road that connected Johnson's Ferry (previously Witherspoon's Ferry) to Georgetown.  The Postons were considered the first residents of what would become Johnsonville. Their home doubled as a community gathering place and even hosted Methodist services before a church was built.

Conceiving a town

By 1912, the Georgetown & Western Railroad was running trains just across the Postons' pastures. Years of dealing in lumber and cotton had taught him that merchants thrived when customers were brought to them. He decided to turn part of his pasture into a town. But this wasn’t going to be just any land auction; Poston treated it like a fair. He hired the Atlantic Coast Realty Company of Greenville, North Carolina to manage the sale and brought in the well‑known Burton Brothers to cry the bids. He took out ads in newspapers across the state and personally paid the railroad to run free excursion trains from Georgetown and Mullins. On Thursday, September 12, 1912, more than four thousand people—some said five thousand—poured into his pasture. A reporter who had witnessed the unveiling of the Confederate monument in Kingstree two years earlier wrote that the Johnsonville crowd was even larger.

Map showing the 1912 survey for the Johnsonville Land Sale

The sale was delayed while everyone waited for the auctioneers’ train to arrive, but the mood remained festive. Poston had already built a depot on his property, and the railroad maintained a regular schedule as far as the Pee Dee River, so out‑of‑towners didn’t feel stranded. When the bidding finally began, one hundred business and residential lots were offered; seventy were sold by day’s end for a total of about $18,000, averaging more than $250 apiece. On paper, Johnsonville was still just a collection of stakes and chalk lines, but the County Record predicted big things. The town site lay two miles from Ards Cross Roads and two miles from Lynches River, in “one of the most healthful and well‑to‑do sections of the county.” The writer even speculated that someday a new county might be carved from parts of Williamsburg, Georgetown and Florence, with Johnsonville as its seat.

Perhaps as impressive as the real estate figures was the hospitality on display. Poston and his wife Claudia returned from a mountain vacation to prepare for the event, and they fed the throng with what reporters described as a “bountiful picnic dinner of barbecued hog and beef, rice, bread and coffee.” Claudia’s energy and devotion, the paper noted, contributed greatly to the sale’s success. By sunset, visitors from across Eastern South Carolina knew that Johnsonville was on the map, and many went home having bought a slice of Poston’s pasture. The spectacle showed that Poston was not only a sharp businessman but also a showman who understood how to sell an idea.

"Johnsonville South Carolina 1911" by John Carroll Doyle depicts S.B. Poston
and the land sale of 1912 that led to Johnsonville's current downtown commercial area.

Poston Block and the bank

Incorporation came the following year, and residents elected Poston as Johnsonville’s first mayor. Almost immediately he set about giving the town a commercial core. At the northwest corner of Broadway and Railroad he erected the imposing Poston Block—a two‑story brick structure with seventeen‑inch‑thick walls and oversized plate‑glass windows. He intended the block to stand the test of time and even planned for a future second story.

The building’s corner wareroom housed the Farmers & Merchants Bank, organized in 1911. J.S. McClam served as president, C.J. Rollins managed it day‑to‑day and Poston acted as vice‑president. A 1916 statement of condition shows the bank held more than $74,000 in loans and discounts, nearly $7,800 in furniture and fixtures and had capital stock of $10,000. Poston was one of three directors who attested to the report, and his signature graced the bank’s letterhead. For a town barely a year old, the bank gave farmers a place to deposit cotton proceeds and merchants access to credit. Poston personally guaranteed many of the loans and encouraged locals to save.

Next door, the middle wareroom became S.B. Poston’s General Store. The space was stocked floor to ceiling with groceries, bolts of cloth, shoes, enamelware and the latest household conveniences. Farmers came for flour, sugar and seed; families browsed hats and ready‑made clothing; children eyed jars of penny candy along polished wood counters. Poston had learned early that you didn’t get rich by catering to a single market—so he sold everything, and his purchasing power kept prices low enough that competitors struggled to match them.

The Farmers and Merchants Bank, circa 1915

Johnsonville Hardware Company and other ventures

On the other side of the bank, Poston opened the Johnsonville Hardware Company. He served as president and hired Arthur Rogers as general manager. Rogers kept the shelves lined with plows, hoes, harnesses, nails and stoves, while Poston oversaw finances and used his lumber contacts to secure tools at favorable prices. The hardware store became the go‑to place for local farmers and turpentine workers, offering credit to those who needed it. Customers might leave with a sack of nails and a sack of cornmeal, then stop at the general store for fabric and kerosene before depositing cotton receipts at the bank—all without leaving the Poston Block.

Poston’s ambitions didn’t stop there. He invested heavily in timber land across Florence and Williamsburg counties, running sawmills that shipped longleaf pine, cypress and cedar to buyers in Charleston and beyond. He operated turpentine stills and sold rosin and spirits of turpentine to naval stores brokers. Seeing opportunity in tobacco, he and partners C.C. Richardson, J.L. Crook and J.D. Haselden formed the Pee Dee Tobacco Warehouse Company in 1913. Their warehouse provided farmers a nearby place to auction their bright‑leaf tobacco rather than hauling it to Mullins or Darlington, and the warehouse company collected commissions on each sale.

County records from 1918–1920 show that Poston supplied road plows, tractors and provisions to Williamsburg County’s chain‑gang crews. He delivered hay, grits and meat to feed the laborers, and the county rented or purchased tractors and plows from his hardware company. Although some questioned whether a sitting mayor should profit from county contracts, the improved roads benefitted Johnsonville merchants and farmers who needed better access to markets.

S.B. Poston (left) stands with other workers in a store in the "Poston Block" at the NW corner of Broadway St. and Railroad Ave

S. B. Poston (Left) poses with workers in the storage area of his General Store

A pillar of the community

Poston’s business success made him one of the wealthiest men in the Pee Dee, but he never withdrew from public life. He and Claudia were founding members of the Methodist congregation that built its sanctuary at Broadway and Highway 41. He donated lumber and money and was instrumental in building both the sanctuary and the parsonage. He gave land in 1916 for a twelve‑room schoolhouse so local children wouldn’t have to travel miles for education. He sat on the executive committee of the Williamsburg County Fair Association, helped organize county agricultural exhibits and was appointed by Governor Richard I. Manning as a South Carolina delegate to the Southern Commercial Congress in Norfolk in 1916.

His ventures sometimes landed him in court. In 1907 he sued Midland Timber Company when it refused to pay him for logs, and the South Carolina Supreme Court sided with him. During World War I he sued Western Union for damages after a telegraph message about a cotton transaction arrived late. The state courts awarded him compensation, but the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the verdict because the federal government was controlling the telegraph lines at the time.

Final years

Sylvester Briley Poston

By the 1920s, Poston’s businesses dominated Johnsonville. Photographs from the era show him standing in his storeroom, shelves stacked high with canned goods and dry goods. He continued to run the bank, general store, hardware company and timber operations while maintaining his farms and attending to civic duties. On December 23, 1933, he died at a Florence infirmary after several months of declining health. He was buried at Old Johnsonville Methodist Church cemetery. Newspapers remembered him as a public‑spirited citizen who built churches, banks and schools and who helped put Johnsonville on the map.

Legacy

It’s difficult to overstate S.B. Poston’s role in Johnsonville’s creation. He envisioned a town when there was nothing but pasture, convinced railroads to run free trains to his land sale and then reinvested his profits into brick buildings, banks, hardware stores and warehouses. He dominated local commerce without squeezing out competitors and used his wealth to support schools, churches and county fairs. Thanks to his energy, risk‑taking and community spirit, Johnsonville grew from a single homestead to a bustling little town. His bank, hardware store and general store may be gone, but the Poston Block still stands, and the grid of streets he laid out in 1912 remains the backbone of Johnsonville today.

Information compiled by Josh Dukes - view more at www.johnsonvilleschistory.org 

County Record article from 1912, describing the land sale that created
Johnsonville's business district