The Kershaw County Historical Society invites you to our Society Program on Sunday afternoon, June 5, 2022, 3 p.m. at Liberty Hall, Revolutionary War Visitor Center, 212 Broad Street, Camden, SC (beside Historic Camden).

Come early. A great place and date to be hosting our program! Nearby:

• Observe the Bonds Conway House, moved to Historic Camden. Anticipate evolving Living History displays in the house where we’ll keep an office.
• Catch the final hours of SC Ag-Art artisans and farm at Historic Camden.
• Enjoy the Revolutionary War Visitor Center’s great features, some new.

Tom Poland, Guest Speaker, at 3 p.m.
“Growing Up Southern—Then and Now”

“I prefer forgotten backroads and places where the pace crawls, where old mansions crumble, and orchards go untended,” says Tom Poland. Long a Columbia, S.C., resident, the Georgia native calls himself “a blue-collar historian” and writes about “memories, special places, and unforgettable characters” in the South he knows best, calling his area “Georgialina.”

Author of a dozen books and a thousand-plus articles and columns, journalist-professor Poland is a former editor of SC Wildlife. His widely distributed column appears regularly in the local Chronicle-Independent.

A lively, popular speaker, he is a recipient of the Order of the Palmetto.

The Kershaw County Historical Society has been ON THE MOVE—literally.

The historic Bonds Conway House, which has served for 42 years as the Society’s headquarters at 811 Fair Street, Camden, was moved with great excitement on March 30 to a more visitor-accessible setting on the grounds of Historic Camden, which is at 222 Broad Street beside the new Kershaw County Revolutionary War Visitor Center, 212 Broad.

On the Historic Camden campus, the House will sit with other period buildings in a village setting, east of the Craven House and west of the McCaa Tavern, as seen in photos here. (More photos of the move process will be posted soon, and other photos will appear in weeks ahead as the house continues its transition to reopening.)

The Society has donated the House and its collected antique furnishings to the Historic Camden Foundation to become part of the interpretative history of the area. KCHS will continue use of the House’s office and upstairs storage for Society purposes, and will work with HCF, the Camden Archives, and Conway family researchers on developing related historical presentations.

Take a look at the history of Bonds Conway as presented in a popular KCHS-distributed account and recently updated on its webpage.

In 1977 the Society purchased the then-unnamed house under condemnation at 411 York Street, saving it from demolition, and then purchased the Fair Street property on which to renovate and use the house while continuing to research its history. The Society retains ownership of the 811 Fair Street property.

Over the years, as interest in the Bonds Conway house and its history increased, the concept of moving the house to Historic Camden was talked about at other intervals for the same visitor-accessible reasons, but the pieces finally came together after specific planning which began before and continued in the long months of Covid.

Read here about some of the Society’s other recent and ongoing activities. The Kershaw County Historical Society is excited to continue MOVING AHEAD!

To a large audience of more than 80 persons, the Kershaw County Historical Society and the Camden Archives and Museum co-hosted a program Nov. 7, 2021, featuring detailed new research on the Wateree River and its fascinating history. The main points were the river’s importance in the Revolution and Camden’s development as an inland port.

Open to the public at the newly developed Kershaw County Revolutionary War Visitor Center, the meeting was held in the spacious facility Liberty Hall, 2l2 Broad Street, Camden, S.C.

Based on years of persistent study, historian Lon D. Outen presented extensive research and revealing perspectives in his talk and slides on the topic:

The Wateree River, Inland Port at Camden

From canoes to steamboats, Outen’s program traced the evolution and demise of the Camden port, which evolved from pre-colonial days to Revolutionary times through nineteenth century succcesses and twentieth century attempts at revival.

A graduate of the University of South Carolina in education and history, Outen has been employed at the Camden Archives for about a dozen years. He has served on the Board of the KC Historical Society and was its past treasurer. He and his wife live in Kershaw.

Among his other publications, Outen is also the author of a book about Kershaw County’s other important river system. It is entitled A History of Lynches Forks and Extended Areas on Big and Little Lynches Rivers, S.C.

On Nov. 7 program attendees were able to arrive early to view the adjoining Visitor Center museum exhibits (Sunday hours 1-5 p.m.). The program also recommended visits sometime soon to public park sites along the old Wateree River port areas–the Riverfront Environmental Park (Camden side) and the Wateree River Veterans Park (Lugoff side).

Outen’s books may be purchased at the Camden Archives and Museum as well as other area book outlets.

You will know about this true story if you are following the Historical Society’s monthly column!

Are you reading it?

The Kershaw County Historical Society column appears by permission for first printing on the second or third Friday of the month in the Camden, S.C., newspaper Chronicle-Independent, a print publication also available digitally to subscribers.

 “Mystery of a Wateree Swamp Skeleton,” by Joan A. Inabinet, appears in the October 15, 2021, Chronicle-Independent. (Its content is described in the catalog below.)

A catalog of recent KCHS columns follows:

The Society also plans soon to post the recent columns on this website. (They are archived as well on the digital Chronicle-Independent and may be searched there.)

Author of the following columns is Joan A. Inabinet. All columns include recent or more detailed research, or a fresh focus on historical topics, all directly related to Kershaw County past and present.

In 2020

1. May “1918—What Happened Here?”  The 1918 flu epidemic (“Spanish influena”), schools, churches, and public entertainments closed by public health directives.
2. June “We Must Not Forget Again.” Events of the time that obscured public memory of the 1918 flu epidemic, continuing previous column.
3. July “A Centennial for Women Voters.” Reactions to women registering to vote.
4. August “Kershaw County’s First Women Voters.” Details on individual women (A-K).
5. September “More KC Women First-Time Voters.”  Continued (L-Z).
6. October “A Long Tradition of Sharing Historic Treasures.” Details of a sample 1957 KC Historical Society meeting that set a pattern of work and programs.
7. November “A Fresh Perspective on Collective Community Preservation.” 1960-1980: The Historical Society, District Heritage Foundation, Historic Camden, the Camden Archives and Museum. KCHS’s rescue, move, restoration, and use of the historic Bonds Conway House.
8. December “A Very Noisy Christmas to You!” Fireworks of years gone by. Carton by Jak Smyrl.

In 2021

1. January “Yep, He Sure Would Take It!” Smallpox, pest houses, local outbreaks, vaccination, turn of century. Photo grave of victim Joanna Morris.
2. February “Hearts and Valentines—1921 Style.” Customs of the time. Old photo of couple at the Precipice.
3. March “A Shout-Out to Teachers”—Teachers’ names/addresses at Camden and county public schools (white and “colored”) and at private Mather Academy, from a 1925 phone directory.
4. April “Historic Home Recalled in Memoir.” The Douglas-Witherspoon-Reed House, from early 1900s memoir of Sarah Mickle Marsh. Illustrated by a painting by Mary Ellen Jenkins.
5. May “A Gardening Book, A Love Story, and Life in 1800’s Camden.” Story of Phineas and Elizabeth Thornton. Illustration from book.
6. June “Mission in Mind—An 1819 Visitor to Camden Area.” Englishman William Faux’s visit regarding his relative Revolutionary Loyalist Col. Henry Rugeley.
7. July “Outside Camden—An 1819 Visitor in ‘the Wilderness.’” Continuing William Faux’s mission to learn more, visiting Rugeley’s kin. Image of Drakeford House. moved to Historic Camden.
8. August “Terrible Gale and Conflagration.” Horrifying woods fires with widespread outbreaks statewide and beyond, bring great damage on March 9, 1855, to county areas. Image, modern controlled burn by foresters.
9. September “A Legacy of Change and Roots.” A 1976 Bicentennial article on early 1900s Cassatt in Kershaw County Legacy inspires a review and update.
10. October “Mystery of a Wateree Swamp Skeleton.” In 1943, an extensive and futile search of the dense Wateree Swamp for a Shaw Field pilot trainee whose plane was lost. In 1946, discovery by chance of a skeleton in the swamp. Who was this young man?

Thanks if you are reading along with us! Please start and catch up if you have not been reading! Your responses and suggestions are welcomed.

Rain storms and high winds brought broken limbs, and grass and fences required regular attention outside our headquarters at the Bonds Conway House. Thanks to our volunteers who helped out! Our old-time pear tree, transplanted years ago we are told from an old plantation garden, produced abundantly all summer. Just one collection of fine pears, donated to Food for the Soul, yielded 45 pounds of fresh fruit. We also had three families of bluebirds to hatch out of our weathered handmade birdhouse and fly away.

Nature outside mirrored the way our Society’s work progressed fulfilling other goals–some plans were damaged but are repeatedly being repaired with attention of persistent volunteer efforts. We find our work also bearing fruit and we are ready to keep moving forward!.

THANKS TO ALL OUR FAITHFUL SUPPORTERS!
Your contributions of funds, efforts, and positive words constantly encourage us and are much appreciated.

An audience of more than 50 persons, socially distancing with lawn chairs and masks, encircled the front of the Camden Archives and Museum April 25, 2021, for the first Kershaw County Historical Society public program since the local outbreak of the Covid-9 pandemic.

Sunny spring sunshine and gentle breezes invited lingering conversations sparked by the timely program, co-sponsored by the Archives. Speaker John Miller informed and entertained as he told vivid stories of the Battle of Hobkirk’s Hill, fought only a few blocks north of the meeting site exactly 240 years ago that same day.

Before and after the outside program, meeting guests visited the inside Archives exhibits on two Revolutionary War “turning points,” the battles of Camden and of Hobkirk’s Hill. Society members hoped the meeting would prove a “turning point” in opportunities to return to active programming.