Chesterfield, South Carolina during Reconstruction: Land sales!

This blogpost continues a series of posts on Chesterfield County. Other posts are:

1. Reconstruction in Chesterfield County
2. Unionists in a Confederate stronghold: Chesterfield during the Civil War
3. The Melton Murders
4. Letters from the Fox Family: Violence in Chesterfield County
5. The law students of the Radical University: Henry A. Fox
6. The students of the Radical University: Clarence W. Fox
7. The prep students of the Radical University: Irving P. Fox
8. The law students of the Radical University: Gil Dixon Fox
9. Chesterfield during Reconstruction: A murder on election day!

One of the most ambitious post-war efforts to reconstruct South Carolina was the efforts to develop northwestern Chesterfield County, specifically the area around modern Pageland. The efforts ended in scandal when an investigation by the General Assembly revealed that the developers had sold land to the state government at an inflated price. In contemporary historical memory, a key role was by the developer Henry J. Fox. Fox is remembered as a villainous carpetbagger from New York City who displaced whole  families by arranging to buy their land in delinquent land sales for pennies on the dollar. The community finally freed itself of him when public anger erupted in Ku Klux violence, with Fox either fleeing in the night after being threatened or being murdered. Here we take a close look at the existing records and try to separate fact from myth from fact.

Henry J. Fox set out his goals for developing Chesterfield County in part of a May 1, 1869 letter published in the New York Tribune: 

My object in this communication is to call the attention of farmers, struggling on small farms, to a section of the South not named by you, but which I think offers sure advantages to the immigrant. The "South Carolina Improvement and Trust Company," incorporated by the last Legislature of South Carolina, and to which has been granted a charter of great liberality, undertakes to do the very work [establishing farming communities] you recommend Northern associations undertake.

Its object is to buy large plantations, and divide them into small farms of 50 and 100 acres each. The farms it sells to actual settlers at a sum just sufficiently above the original cost to pay expenses of transfer, surveys, and other incidental expenses. The corporations are well known Northern men, and it is their purpose to make each colony the center of such political education, social and religious influences as shall conserve the blessings brought by the war.

(The full letter can be found in the entry "Letters from the Fox Family: Violence in Chesterfield County"):

At the time of his letter, Fox was in his forties and was serving as a Methodist minister in the town of Carmel, New York, near Poughkeepsie. Fox was originally from England, but he'd been living in the northeastern United States (Connecticut, the Catskill Mountains, and New York City) for the past twenty-some years. Except for a few years spent running a college preparatory school in the Catskills, most of his time had been spent as a Methodist minister. Through church activities, Fox had become involved in the debates over slavery (a major issue for the Methodist church), and by the time of the Civil War, he was active in the abolitionist movement.

The people Fox worked with appear to have changed over time. His original financial backers appear to have been Watson Sanford and Haskel A. Hogel. Both lived in the New York City area. Sanford worked in stove manufacturing and held a number of stove-related patents. Hogel was also an inventor who worked in manufacturing, but he worked in the fertilizer machine industry rather than stoves. Neither man appears to have been politically active, so they were likely interested in developing Chesterfield as a financial investment.

Although it offers few details, Fox's letter sets out of his goals in developing Chesterfield. The colony was not a purely commercial venture. Fox hoped to help remake the South. Growing the colony presented him with an opportunity to expand the northern Methodist church. During the antebellum, the Methodist church had split into a northern and a southern branch because of disagreements over slavery, and the end of the war presented northern Methodists with an opportunity to start churches in the south. There was particular interest in attracting freedmen who often had an antagonistic relationship with southern Methodism. Developing Chesterfield also connected with Fox's political interests. Uplifting freedmen and bringing northerners to South Carolina were ways to increase the number of Republican voters in the state. 

Fox and his backers left no records of their decision to develop northwestern Chesterfield (rather than another region), but the region had a number of features that recommended it. The region was sparsely populated, so there was plenty of space to set-up a new community. The area contained valuable mineral resources including one of the most valuable gold deposits in the southeast. The pine forests had the potential to support industries in timber and turpentine. Fox expressed particular enthusiasm for farming, but he likely misjudged the prospects. He had very limited knowledge of farming in the south: he had never lived in region and his farming experience was limited to running a family farm in the Catskills for a few years. The sandy soil of northwestern Chesterfield was poorly suited to growing cotton (the main cash crop), although the climate was mild and favorable to growing fruits and vegetables.

A gold mine in Chesterfield County in 1927
Postcard from South Caroliniana Library 

The first record of the activities of Fox, Hogel, and Sanford in South Carolina is a September 18, 1866 deed for a land purchase. Fox and his backers purchased a 2,455-acre plot of land for about $12.40 per acre (a huge sum of money) from Richard L. Edgeworth. Ownership of the land did not include mining (or mineral) rights. Those were purchased separately (for about $14.26 per acre) by a mining company that Sanford ran (the Challenge Gold, Silver, and Copper Mining Company).

Richard L. Edgeworth was a member of one of the most prominent families in the region. He was the fifth in a line of Richard L. Edgeworth's that were descended from the Anglo-Irish politician and inventor of the same name. The original Richard L. had moved to the Pee Dee shortly after the Revolutionary War, and his family was among the first to settle in northwestern Chesterfield. The land sold had been inherited by the fifth Richard L. from his father, the fourth Richard L. By the time of the Civil War, the family had built up a diversified subsistence farm that they ran with the help of fourteen enslaved workers. On the farm, they raised cattle and hogs and grew corn, oats, and potatoes. They also planted cotton, albeit a small amount relative to the size of the farm. By 1850, the younger Richard L. had struck out for himself and had left South Carolina for Cobb County, Georgia, where he started his own farm. His father died of natural causes during the first year of the Civil War. 

The sale to Fox and his financial backers was the largest sale that the Edgeworth family made, but it was not the only one. Before the war, the family had sold smaller plots to other farmers in the area, including William H. Sowell and David T. Griffith. These plots were purchased by Fox and his backers in 1867.

Plat map for land that Fox purchased from David T. Griffith
From Archive Viewer – Chesterfield County

Most of the Chesterfield land that came to be owned by Fox and his business partners had been the property of the Edgeworth family and another old Chesterfield family, the Blakeneys. The Blakeney family settled in the area in the 1760s, and one family member, Captain John Blakeney, had fought in Revolutionary War. By the time the Civil War broke out, the Blakeneys were among the few Chesterfield residents who had reached the status of planters. The patriarch, John Blakeney, owned 4,000 acres of land and cultivated 250 acres with the help of his family and fifty-one enslaved workers. The plantation was one of the most productive in the region, growing 20,000 pounds of cotton in 1860.

The Blakeney family was ruined by the war. Most of the Blakeney sons (Hugh, Louis, John C., and George W.) served in the Confederate army, and one, Hugh, was killed at the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse. Towards the end of the war, Sherman's troops passed through the area and seized provisions from the family. The emancipation of the Blakeney's slaves left the Blakeneys without a labor force. 

Facing financial difficulties, John Blakeney sold the most of his land, three thousand, seven hundred and twenty-six acres, to Henry J. Fox on January 14, 1868. Statistics show the extent of the Blakeney's troubles. Even though cotton prices were high, the farm only produced 300 pounds of it in 1870, a precipitous drop from pre-war productivity. 

After purchasing land from John Blakeney, Fox purchased a 750-acre farm from John Blakeney's son, William W. Evidently frustrated by his prospects in the South Carolina, William then left for Texas.

William W. Blakeney's decision to leave South Carolina was an increasingly common one among established farmers. William sold his land on February 9, 1869, and the four years since the war had seen drastic changes in the political fortunes of the state's planters. Although the Union military victory had forced the planter class to accept unwanted changes like the banning of slavery, planters maintained their traditional hold on state government for the first few years after the war. However, in 1868, they abruptly lost power following a state constitutional convention that gave freedmen the right to vote. Shortly after the election, a new state government dominated by freedmen and northern Republicans was elected. Chesterfield County was represented in the senate by R. J. Donaldson, a Methodist minister from England. He is described in greater detail in the entry "Reconstruction in Chesterfield County." 

Donaldson soon became heavily involved in efforts to developments in northwestern Chesterfield. Exactly when and how he became involved is unclear. Since he and Henry J. Fox were both Methodist ministers, they could have met each before Donaldson moved to the south, through church activities. The first record of Donaldson's involvement dates to July 1, 1867, about half a year before the vote on the constitutional convention. On that date, he and Fox each purchased half of a plot of land that one resident (David T. Griffith) had purchased from the Edgeworth family.

Once elected to the senate, Donaldson threw his political powers into remaking northwestern Chesterfield. In 1869, he successfully proposed three bills that incorporated companies intended to aid in development efforts. A close look at the companies provides some insight into plans.

The first company was the South Carolina Trust and Improvement Company, the company mentioned in Fox's Tribute letter. The company appears to have been closely tied to efforts to remake Old Store township. To white conservatives, the board of corporators was rogue's gallery. Not only were Henry J. Fox and Senator R. J. Donaldson on the board, but it also included John McCulla (later criminally charged for an election fraud scheme to re-elect Donaldson), Middleton S. Gill (later accused of being party to a corrupt sale to the state Land Commission), and U.S. Senator B. F. Whittemore (later to resign from the US Senate after being accused of selling appointments to the U.S. Military and Naval Academies). Also on the board was Orrin L. Jeralds. Orrin worked as a burnisher in New Haven, Connecticut, but he likely was on the board because of a family relation to Fox. (His wife was an Englishwoman named Sarah C. Fox Jeralds, the maiden name and birth nation suggesting a blood relation.)

The history of the company is confusing. In December (a few months after Fox's Tribute letter), the state legislature gave the company the powers of a bank and renamed it the South Carolina Bank and Trust Company. The bank operated in Columbia, and it appears to have had minimal involvement with developments in Chesterfield. However, land transactions in Chesterfield County continued to be made under the original name at least March 1871.

Another company that was incorporated was the South Carolina Plantation Company. The company is not as well documented as the Trust and Improvement Company, but it also purchased land in Chesterfield.

The third company that was created was a railroad company, the South Carolina Central Railroad. The company was charged with building a railroad to connect Charleston to Charlotte, North Carolina. The train line was to start in northwestern Chesterfield and end in Williamsburg County, where it was to connect with an existing train line that ran to Charleston. The line was to have stops in the town of Manning (in Clarendon County) and in Sumter County. 

The South Carolina Central Railroad was to run from Gourdin's Station (in the bottom right) to Clarendon County, Sumter County, and ending in northwestern Chesterfield (top center)
Lloyd's map of the southern states via Library of Congress

A look at the original charter suggests the railroad company was founded to support business interests in the towns of Manning and Sumter, and Chesterfield was an afterthought. The founding corporators included Franklin J. Moses Jr., a Sumter planter and a major Republican political figure. Others were merchants who stood to benefit financially from greater market access. The political aims appear to have been minimal as the charter members included a number of ex-Confederates and a wealthy planter (John A. Salters). 

Fox quickly began playing a leadership role at the railroad company. He served on the executive committee and was elected treasurer. Three months after the company was incorporated, several colleagues of Fox's were added as corporations. These men included two people involved with the Improvement and Trust Company (F. A. Babcock and D. Thomas) as well as a Baptist minister (William S. Clapp) who had worked with Fox in Carmel, New York.

Fox began making land sales in February 1868. Between February and May, he sold a total of eight land plots to men from England. The lots were small (100 to 500 acre) portions of the Blakeney farm. Fox himself started a farm on a 550-acre plot and focused on growing cotton. To support the new famers, he maintained two gristmills, a blacksmith shop, and a cotton gin.

In addition to the farmers from England, Fox was joined by another minister from Carmel, New York, Saurin E. Lane. Lane was a Presbyterian minister. Like Fox, he set up a farm and became active in the Republican party, serving as a trial justice and receiving the party nomination for county school commissioner. 

In his Tribune letter, Fox wrote that South Carolinians treated him and other newcomers "with kindness and according to their knowledge and training, with deference and respect." Any kindness shown was quickly abandoned as political tensions increased. Angry South Carolinians began sending the newcomers threatening letters and destroying their crops. It's unclear when the situation began to fall apart, but it was before the murder of Robert Melton. By August 1870, most of the new farms had been abandoned. Only the families of Henry J. Fox, S. E. Lane, and two Englishmen (Robert Singleton and John Woodcock) remained. 

It would be natural to expect that Fox and his colleagues abandoned their plans to develop Old Store township after the 1870 election as Fox's political patron, R. J. Donaldson, lost his senate chair. However, it appears that his plans had fallen apart months before the election ended. In March 1870 (many months before the election), Fox sold most of the land he held (4,556 acres) to the state Land Commission.

The Land Commission was subject to a good deal of public criticism and was the subject of an investigation by the state legislature. The Fox land sale came under particularly scrutiny as it was among the largest sales made. The entire transaction was handled by Senator Donaldson. He sold two tracts of land to the commission: the Fox property and a 2,462-acre plot owned by Daniel Wadsworth, a white famer and long-time resident of Chesterfield County.

If Governor Scott is believed, the price of the Chesterfield land was inflated so that interested parties could benefit financially. As a member of the commission's advisory board, Scott's approval was needed for land sales, and he testified under oath that Donaldson approached and pressured him to approve the land sales. With remarkable candor, he allegedly told Scott that he hadn't profited off the Fox sale and encouraged him to approve the Wadsworth sale as "it is the only one in which I make any money." 

The Fox sale was almost universally regarded as a fraud. An agent for the commission surveyed the land and reported that it was, "One vast sand-bed from one of end to the other." Governor Scott said that the land was so unproductive that "a blue bird could not live on a thousand acres of it." Francis Cardozo, then serving as land commissioner, said he could not sell the land for even 50 cents an acre, a fraction of what the land had been purchased for.

The financial numbers on the sale work out as follows. The land commission bought the Fox tract at about $8 per acre. Fox had originally purchased land from the Edgeworth family at $12 an acre but paid much less for other properties. Both William H. Sowell and John Blakeney sold their land at $4 an acre. It's unclear exactly which properties the land commission purchased, but the $8 an acre price is what one would get if the commission purchased the entire Edgeworth farm at $12 an acre and then 2,101 acres of less valuable land priced at $4 an acre. Was the land worth this much? Certainly, many politicians and much of the public thought not, but their opinions should be taken with a grain of salt as they were formed in a politically charged atmosphere. Scott and Cardozo gave their testimony in February 1876, a chaotic time when conservatives and Republicans were disputing the election. Both had motivation for playing up corruption in Chesterfield as it drew attention from their own involvement in questionable activities. 

The fact that Fox abandoned his plans to develop Old Store township shortly after the sale to the commission suggests that he was trying to unload his investment on the state government. However, he  certainly did not realize any large profit. At most, he recouped his original investment. If the land was indeed "one vast sand-bed," as one commission agent stated, then the state land commission overpaid for the land, but they were repeating the error Fox and his financial backers had made when making the original purchases.

After the land commission sale, Fox sold the remaining land he owned to private individuals. The last sale he made was the September 1871 sale of William W. Edgeworth's farm to a white conservative and planter (Albert Evans). Again, Fox did not see any profit for the transaction. He sold the land at $5 an acre, slightly less than the price he'd originally paid. Other properties were later lost in lawsuits. 

By December 1871, he had left Chesterfield County for the city of Charleston. While Fox would stay in South Carolian for the remainder of Reconstruction, he would have no further involvement in Chesterfield. 

The South Carolina Central Railroad would remain active into the 1870s, but the company's activities moved away from Chesterfield County, and they ultimately did not achieve much. The company only had a running train line in 1873, when it built a short wooden railroad connecting the town of Manning to the Northeastern Railroad (which ran to Charleston). The company was never listed in Poor's Manual of United States Railroads (a national listing of railroad companies).

It's unclear what ultimately happened to the land purchased by the land commission. The South Carolina Encyclopedia states that much of the land was purchased by "Messrs. McGregor, Maynard, Godfrey, and Sowell," but no further details are given. In general, the commission's mission to increase the number of small landowners was abandoned by the end of Reconstruction. The state government focused on selling off the land purely as a source of revenue. The sale of land in Chesterfield appears to have been complicated because of legal issues. As late as 1889, the state government and William Augustus Evans were engaged in a legal dispute over ownership of land sold by the Wadsworth family.

Fox's broader goals for transforming Old Store township met with failure. The region would only see major economic growth in the 1900s when the township was connected to Cheraw by a railroad. Fox's political aims were completely defeated. Conservative Democrats, who had been galvanized to action by the Republican political victories in 1868, would remain in full control of local government for over a generation.

Sources

1. "The State Capital." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], March 12, 1869, p. 1.

2. "A Wooden Railroad." Yorkville enquirer. [Yorkville, SC], July 31, 1873, p. 3.

3. "The State of South Carolina v. Evans" in Reports of Cases Heard and Determined by the Supreme Court of South Carolina Volume XXIII. Columbia, SC. James Woodrow & Co. 1891. pp. 184–190.   

Chesterfield during Reconstruction: A murder on election day!

1865 map showing Mount Croghan
From Library of Congress

This blogpost continues a series of posts on Chesterfield County. Other posts are:

1. Reconstruction in Chesterfield County
2. Unionists in a Confederate stronghold: Chesterfield during the Civil War
3. The Melton Murders
4. Letters from the Fox Family: Violence in Chesterfield County
5. The law students of the Radical University: Henry A. Fox
6. The students of the Radical University: Clarence W. Fox
7. The prep students of the Radical University: Irving P. Fox
8. The law students of the Radical University: Gil Dixon Fox

In the town of Mount Croghan, the Confederate veteran Archibald Nicholson was killed by the freedman Jacob Brewer on election day Saturday July 24, 1869. This was a shocking act of violence. While Reconstruction-era South Carolina was a violent place, homicide was rare. In the entire county, only two people were convicted of murder that year, and neither crime had the political significance of the attack on Nicholson. (One involved the murder of one child by another.) Here we take a close look at the incident.

Mount Croghan is in the northern part of Chesterfield County. The town lies almost on the border with North Carolina and is about 10 miles west of the county seat of Chesterfield Court House. Across the border is the town of Wadesboro, 15 miles away. None of these towns were on a rail line, and the nearest train station was thirty miles away (about a day's trip by horse) at the town of Cheraw. 

Mount Croghan was and is small. Its population during the twentieth century never exceeded two hundred residents. I can't find statistics for the nineteenth century, but at that time, the population would have been even smaller. The town was home to a post office, and it served as a polling station on election days, but there was not much else. The town had been in the path of Sherman's troops during the last days of the Civil War, and significant parts of the town, including a schoolhouse, were burned by Union soldiers. Efforts to rebuild the town were hindered by the economic hardship that was prevalent during the early post-war years. 

In the greater area of Mount Croghan township were about 1,700 inhabitants, a little under one-third being freed slaves. Like most of the Chesterfield County, the vast majority of residents were small farmers who focused on growing wheat and corn and raising swine to feed themselves. The more ambitious farmer might grow a small amount of cash crops like cotton or tobacco, but the amount  produced in the township was minuscule compared to other parts of the state. Most of the black residents had been enslaved before the war, but they had typically worked on farms with fewer than twenty slaves rather than on large plantations. Living in the area were a few skilled workers, like blacksmiths and shoemakers, as well as merchants, but people seeking medical care often needed to travel to a place like Wadesboro. 

Map showing location of Sherman's Union army during the first week of March 1865
From Library of Congress

Like the rest of the south, Mount Croghan was going through rapid and dramatic political change in 1869. The previous year had seen the state constitution rewritten at a convention where a majority of delegates were black. Under the new constitution, freedmen (a majority of the state population) were given the right to vote, and a few months later they elected an overwhelmingly Republican state government.

In 1869, political changes were still taking place throughout the state. On September 26, 1868, during a special session, the new state legislature had reorganized local government (as Act No. 71) by subdividing the counties into townships with each township being served by several elected officials. The July election (the election where Archibald was murdered) was held to fill the newly created township offices, which were three selectmen, a town clerk, a constable, and at least one surveyor of highways. These offices were not as prominent as the governorship or a state senate seat, but they carried important powers. The constable had the ability to make arrests and could form a posse to suppress lawlessness. The selectmen had significant power over the electoral system as they were responsible for making voter lists. 

The outcome of the township election was particularly important as it was one of the first contests between the newly empowered Republicans and conservatives. State-wide, conservative leaders had encouraged their supporters to boycott the 1868 elections over the constitution. This strategy had proven disastrous, so they were now trying to organize to successfully contest subsequent elections. In Chesterfield County, their efforts had been successful in a June 1868 election for county offices, the first election held under the new constitution. The township election was the next political contest. Tensions were high throughout the state. In the press, the murder of Archibald was overshadowed by an election day riot in Barnwell County that left two men dead and a third seriously injured.

Who were the men involved in the election day murder? Jacob Brewer left few records. He was farmer in his late thirties. He was born in South Carolina and was almost certainly enslaved before the war. His family name "Brewer" is likely his enslaver's name, but it was a common one in Chesterfield County.

We know more about Archibald Nicholson and his brother John. They lived a few miles away from town and had grown up in the area. Their father James was a small farmer. Both Archibald and John worked as farmers and millers. There is no record of the Nicholsons enslaving anyone, but both Archibald and John had served in the Confederate army. They enlisted in the early years of the war and remained in the service for the war's duration. John was a private in an artillery unit (the Chesterfield Light Artillery), Archibald a sergeant in an infantry unit (the 26th SC Infantry). At the time of the election, both had settled down. They were middle-aged and headed large families. 

The Incident: Legal Records

The most careful account of the murder of Archibald Nicholson is the account given by the coroner's inquest. Following any violent or suspicious death, the county coroner was charged with gathering a fourteen-man jury responsible for determining the cause of death (homicide, accident, etc.). 

The inquest into Archibald's death was held on July 26, two days after his death. The local magistrate George W. Brewer acted as coroner, presumably because the county coroner was unavailable. The investigation was very straightforward. Three men testified that they had seen the freedman Jacob Brewer strike Archibald Nicholson on the head with a gun. The blow was "hard enough to kill a bull." When Jacob hit Archibald, the gun discharged. This surprised Jacob, and he ran away. Jacob took the gun (which wasn't his) with him, but he dropped his hat. Two other witnesses testified that they later saw Jacob hatless and carrying the gun. The blow did not immediately killed Archibald, and he returned home after the fight but died later that day. Two physicians testified that his death was caused by the head injury. Quite reasonably, the jury concluded that Jacob Brewer feloniously killed Archibald Nicholson with a blow to the head.

We can get some additional insight into the inquest by looking at the backgrounds of the people involved. The acting coroner and every member of the jury was white. Like most residents of the county, most jury members were farmers, but the jury included the merchant B. C. Evans and the shoemaker James K. Little. Three of the jurors were prominent in local politics. Alfred M. Lowry had been a state congressman during the antebellum, and both B. C. Evans and D. A. Redfearn would later serve in the state legislature. The jury's profile suggests that the members were not chosen at random, but rather an effort was made to select jurors who were seen as respectable even prominent citizens. 

The witnesses are also interesting. While it is not explicitly mentioned in the inquest records, the jury took testimony from both black and white men. Not counting the physicians who provided expert testimony, there were five witnesses: one white man and four black men. While the white man was literate, the black men were unable to even sign their names to their statements. Testifying about a serious and racially charged crime before prominent white citizens, the black witnesses (almost certainly only recently freed from slavery) would have been under considerable pressure. We can't know how this impacted their testimony, but the record does not demonstrate coercion in any obvious way. 

The record of the inquest convincingly establishes the cause of Archibald's death, but it leaves many important questions unanswered. Why did Jacob attack Archibald? One witness (Edward Moore) said that the attack took place during a fight between several parties, indicating that Jacob and Archibald were not the only people involved. Were their political motives? Was Jacob (or Archibald) trying to intimidate voters? The inquest record is completely silent on this. Nowhere does it even indicate that the murder took place on election day near a polling station. A close reading of the account suggests that people thought there'd be trouble at the polling station. The gun that Jacob wielded was one that a witness (Sandy Gordon, a black farmer) had brought from home.

The inquest record also does not say what happened to Jacob Brewer. The purpose of the inquest was to determine cause of death, not to hold perpetrators accountable. Certainly, the inquest records offered reasonable grounds for arresting Jacob, but any arrests would have been made after the record was completed. To learn more about the murder, we have to turn to other sources.

The Murder: Newspaper Accounts

The most detailed accounts of the murder of Archibald Nicholson that I have been able to find are newspaper articles, specifically an article in the Wilmington Morning Star and an article in the Cheraw Democrat. These accounts need to be used carefully as both newspapers generally promoted a conservative point of view. Indeed, the Star's correspondent argued that the incident proved that "radical [Republican] rule is productive of evil only. Riots and murders seem to be the order of the day."

Setting aside the political commentary, the newspapers reported that the murder played out as follows. On election day, Archibald Nicholson walked four miles from his home to town with his brother John. Archibald appears to have anticipated that there might be trouble as he armed himself with a rifle and a knife before heading out. While in town, Archibald decided to purchase some cider (probably "hard" or alcoholic cider) that was being sold near the polling station. He set down his rifle and queued in line to make his purchase. When his turn came, an unnamed freedman began pushing his way through the crowd and into the line. This angered Archibald. He shoved the freedman and told him to wait until the white men were finished. The freedman responded by shaking his fist and daring Archibald to step out, declaring that he'd whip him.

The freedman's threat infuriated Archibald, and he went for his rifle. To his surprise, someone else had taken it, so he drew his knife and charged the freedman. The freedman initially retreated, but after finding and picking up a rail on the ground, he stood his ground and fought back.

Archibald Nicholson's brother John tried to stop the fight but was spectacularly unsuccessful. Not only did Archibald and the freedman continue to fight, but an estimated thirty to forty people joined in. This was a huge crowd for Mount Croghan. It was more than a tenth of the military age men in the entire township. 

Jacob Brewer was among the men who joined the melee. Once the fight escalated, he grabbed a gun that another freedman (Sandy Gordon, who later testified before the inquest jury) had set down and struck Nicholson on the head with it. When he did so, the gun accidently discharged. This surprised Brewer, and he ran off.

The participants in the fight aligned themselves along racial lines, with blacks fighting for the unnamed freedman and whites fighting for Archibald. The newspapers reported that white men got the better of their opponents and chased off them off. Reportedly, several freedmen participating in the fight were seriously injured, but the white men took care not to abuse the freedmen who stayed out of the fight. This last bit seems suspicious as it fits too neatly into white southerners' self-notions of honor, self-control, and proficiency with violence.

After the fight, Archibald thought his injury wasn't serious, so he walked back home. Unfortunately, they proved severe, and he died several hours later at his home. 

What happened to Jacob Brewer? The newspapers provide conflicting accounts of what transpired in the immediate aftermath of the fight. The Cheraw Democrat reported that the local magistrate received an application for an arrest warrant, but he refused to issue one. The Evening Star reported that the magistrate, in fact, had issued a warrant on Monday July 26 (the day of the coroner's inquest), but Jacob had gone into hiding, and no arrest was made. It appears that Jacob never experienced legal consequences. There is no further mention of him in newspapers, and his name does not appear on lists of state convicts for the years 1870 and 1871.

It is also unclear what the outcome of the Mount Croghan election was. On August 4, newspapers reported on the electoral outcomes in the townships of Cheraw, Steerpen, Cole Hill but not Mount Croghan or any of the other four townships.

What to make of all this? The picture that emerges is that Mount Croghan township was a tense place in 1869. White residents were furious that former slaves now wanted to be treated as equals, while freedmen strongly defended their hard-won new status. Everyone was experiencing unprecedented economic hardship and political uncertainty. In this atmosphere, men felt so endangered that they would sometimes arm themselves with weapons before leaving home. Community events like election day turned into powder kegs as the town of Mount Croghan became filled with armed Confederate veterans and freedmen from the surrounding countryside, with many indulging in drinking and the other forms of carousing that the town offered. Basic rudeness could escalate to murder, and when this happened, the local government, never particularly strong and greatly weakened by four years of war, was often unable to restore peace and order. While one should reject the racism and political prejudice of the Wilmington Evening Star, the newspaper was not wrong in stating that "Riots and murders seem to be the order of the day."

Sources

1. "Miscellaneous." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], March 13, 1868, p. 3.

2. "Capture of an Outlaw." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], April 19, 1870, p. 3.

3. "S.C. Penitentiary: Report of Prisoners Received, Pardoned, Discharged, Removed to Asylum, Escaped, &c." in Reports and Resolutions.

4. Year: 1870; Census Place: Mount Croghan, Chesterfield, South Carolina; Roll: M593_1491; Page: 331A

5. "Conflict Between Whites and Negroes." The daily phoenix. [Columbia, SC], August 4, 1869, p. 2.

 July 26, 1869

6. "Chesterfield." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], August 2, 1869, p. 1.

7. "Unfortunate Affray." Wilmington Morning Star [Wilmington, NC], August 3, 1869. p. 1.

8. Militia Enrollments, 1869.

9. Jury of Inquest records: The State vs. The Dead Body of Archibald Nicholson. Via CSI: Dixie. 

Short biographies.

Main Actors

Jacob Brewer (b. abt. 1833) SC. Black. Occupation: farmer. 

Archibald Nicholson (b. abt. 1838). SC. White. Occupation: farm laborer, miller. Confederate veteran. Served as a sergeant in the 26th South Carolina Infantry from December 21, 1861 until the end of the war. 

John Nicholson (b. abt. 1825). SC. White. Occupation: farmer, miller. Confederate veteran. Served as a private in the Chesterfield Light Artillery from April 12, 1862 to the end of the war. 

Witnesses

Hardy G. Hendrick (b. 1847). SC. White. Occupation: farmer. Confederate veteran. Served as a private in the 5th Battalion South Carolina Reserves from September 15, 1864 until the end of the war.  

Jacob Lowry (b. abt. 1834). SC. Black. Occupation: laborer.

Essick Lowry (b. abt. 1829). SC. Black. Occupation: farmer.

Banjamin Blakeney (b. abt. 1839). SC. Black. Occupation: farmer. 

Others present at the murder

Oliver P. Edgeworth (b. 1831). SC. White. Occupation: farmer. Confederate veteran. Enlisted on March 13, 1862 for the duration of the war. Served as a private in the 4th South Carolina Cavalry. He was captured in Anson County, NC by Union troops on March 2, 1865 (the week that Sherman's Union army was in Chesterfield County.) 

Magistrate and Inquest Jury

George W. Brewer (b. 1820). NC. White. Occupation: farmer. Magistrate. Enslaved 3 people in 1850. 

Alfred M. Lowry (b. 1805). SC. White. Occupation: farmer. Served as inquest jury foreman. Enslaved 17 people in 1860. 

David A. Redfearn (b. 1846). NC. White. Occupation: farmer. 

B. C. Evans (b. 1845). SC. White. Occupation: merchant

James K Little (b. 1836). NC. White. Occupation: shoemaker

Lewis Rivers (b. 1811). SC. White. Occupation: farmer

Henry T King (b. 1812). SC. White. Occupation: farmer. Enslaved 5 people in 1860.

A T Robinson

George W. Redfearn (b. 1834). NC. White. Occupation: farmer. Enslaved 3 people in 1860.

Samuel D. Watts (b. 1843). NC. White. Occupation: farmer.

William H. Moore (b. 1800). NC. White. Occupation: farmer.

David T. Rivers (b. 1843). SC. White. Occupation: farmer

William H Helton (b. 1843). White. SC. Occupation: farmer

Robert F. Hancock (b. 1832). SC. White. Occupation: farmer.

Inquest Testimony

Evidence of Benjamin Blakeney after being duly sworn

says that he was at Mount Croghan on Saturday the 24th July and that he saw Jacob Brewer strike Archibald Nicholson a hard lick on the same [side?] of the head (hard enough to kill a bull) with a gun and run off immediately and the gun fired at the same time and Mr Nicholson and went to the ground and Brewer's hat fell off and he Brewer ran off and left it.

Drs Charles B Coppedge and John A. Rae

says they believe that Archibald Nicholson came to his death by violence (a blow to the side of the head) pressure of the brain

Evidence of Edward [Moore?] 

says that he was at Mount Croghan in this County on Saturday the 24th July and a fight took [place?] then between several parties he heard blows struck and about the same time he heard a gun fire and he saw Jacob Brewer off from the ground (with a gun in his hand that was exhibited to him at the inquest and says he believes it to be the same gun) near where Mr Nicholson was and he states that he said to Mr. O P Edgeworth it was Jacob Brewer that shot this

Evidence of Sandy Gordon 

says that he was at Mount Croghan on Saturday the 24th July he carried a gun with him the same one exhibited at the inquest that he sat the gun inside the [fence?] and a man came and took the gun of yellow complexion and went off in the direction of the crowd

Evidence of Hardy G Hundrick

says that he was at Mount Croghan in this County on Saturday 24th July he saw Archibald Nicholson struck with a gun and the person who struck the lick run off immediately and he thought at the time way as Blakeney a negro and abou[t] the same time he heard a gun fire and the person who struck the lick was inside of the fence and Mr Nicholson was outside in the road

Evidence of Jacob Lowry + Essick Lowry 

say they went to Mount Croghan on Saturday the 24 July and after they left Mount Croghan they overtook Jacob Brewer on the Lancaster road near the Campbell[s'] old house and Jacob Brewer had the gun exhibited at the inquest and it was Sandy Gordon's gun and Jacob Brewer said he picked it up at Mt Croghan and bought it off but did not know whose gun it was [?? off on] he [returned] to Essick Lowry and he carried it home and J Brewer was bear [sic 'bare"] headed.

Reconstruction in Chesterfield County

Northwest corner of Chesterfield County in 1825. The Blakeney plantation is roughly the location of modern Pageland. Note also location of the Wadsworth plantation
Mills, Robert. Chesterfield District, South Carolina. [1825] Map via Library of Congress

Chesterfield County after the War

At the end of the Civil War, Chesterfield County was left devastated. During Sherman's march, many families saw Union soldiers seize their food stores, often a full year's harvest meant to sustain them through the year. One out of every four white men eligible for military service had been killed, and many more were seriously injured. In Old Store township, Alfred Agerton had seen three of his five sons killed and one of his brothers sent to a Union prison. State-wide, civil government had broken down, and the emancipation of slaves had created rapid and unprecedented social and economic change.

During the first years after the war, many in Chesterfield County faced hunger if not outright starvation. In a May 1867 letter, Governor Orr reported that the county needed at least 10,000 bushels of corn to feed the poor. The situation was described in detail by "prominent citizens" from the county in a July 1866 public letter to the federal government requesting aid: 

There is now great suffering among the poorer classes of the white people of the District for want of the necessaries of life, and the distress is increasing and extending every day, while there are none there able to give relief or save these destitute ones from actual starvation.

This District suffered more severely by the march of Sherman's army than perhaps any other in the state, from the destruction of provisions and the means of providing for the future, and there is now neither grain sufficient to keep the population nor money to purchase it with. The state of affairs is becoming truly alarming. Every day, poor women are begging, in the streets of Cheraw for meal or corn to save themselves or children from starvation, and the petitioners would gladly afford it, if they had it

A close reading of the letter points to another source of tension. The authors ask for aid for the poorer classes of the white people but make no mention of the freedmen and their families who made up about one-third of the county. In many respects, they were left in the most straits. Emancipation had freed them from bondage, but would this mean anything other than a freedom to starve?

The federal government played a crucial role both in helping former slaves adapt to freedom and in having people of all races avoid starvation through the activities of the Freedmen's Bureau. Among its other activities, the bureau distributed rations to people of all races. Receiving rations was not easy for residents of Chesterfield. They had to travel twenty or thirty (at least a day's journey) to the bureau's regional headquarters in town of Darlington. 

Conditions in the county were dire enough that many regularly made the trip. A newspaper writer, publishing under the pseudonym "Traveler," reported on the scene in July 1867. On the days that the bureau distributed rations, he wrote that every road to Darlington was crowded with people traveling from Chesterfield County and other regions. They made for a sad sight, traveling in "non-descript, antediluvian vehicles, drawn by animals, that appear but remotely descended from the genus equus, poor and bony, spavined and scrawny, most piteous looking objects." After arriving, people would camp in the town square, waiting their turn for rations. Many were noisy and generally disruptive, and situation would get worse after rations were distributed as some would immediately trade for whiskey. 

To "Traveler," conditions in Darlington demonstrated problems with Republican policy. Republican politicians presented themselves as saviors of poor white farmers in the south. Bureau rations were to be only a first step towards uplifting them. The end of slavery and the break-up of plantations would bring even greater benefits by creating for them more opportunities to find wage labor and to purchase land. "Traveler" pointed to the scene in Darlington as evidence that this plan was failing. One Darlington farmer had expressed frustration because poor whites were spending two or three days every week traveling to town for bureau rations when they could feed themselves if instead they spent that time farming. The farmer had offered to employ some of the men on own farm, but the men illogically responded by saying that they could not leave their own crops, the very crops which they were abandoning to get bureau rations.

"Traveler" generally described the poor whites living the Sandhills as unfit for productive labor. During the past year, many had contracted to work for wages or to rent farmland, but they abandoned their duties when the blackberry season came, and they were able to live off the land. 

"Traveler" described the freedmen as even more debased than poor whites. Bureau rations were offered on a per-person basis, and freedmen would bring elderly and infirm relatives, some "more dead than alive," so that they could get a larger share. Every week in town, "[o]ld and diseased negroes may be seen ... crawling up and coming many miles, who three years ago, 'in slavy time,' could not have walked in a hundred yards." 

Freedmen's bureau distributing rations. 
The artist only depicts freedmen receiving rations, but the bureau also issued rations to white people
Taylor, James E., Artist. Glimpses at the Freedmen's Bureau via the Library of Congress

Throughout the region, land-owning farmers were frustrated at the difficulty in getting freedmen to work their land. In December 1868, the Cheraw Democrat reported that freedmen were seeking work on the railroads or establishing their own farms rather than working as house servants or farm laborers for whites. It disapprovingly described this as a "very doubtful policy."

Freedmen themselves were frustrated at their treatment by employers. Henry J. Maxwell, a free person of color who had served in the Union army and would later serve in the state senate, wrote about the condition of freedmen in the village of Oro in a July 26, 1867 letter to the head of the Freedmen's Bureau. While staying there, Maxwell became concerned because whites were taking "undue advantage" of freedmen. Cases where freedmen were mistreated were "too numerous and general" to describe in detail.

Henry J. Maxwell
From Radical members of the first legislature after the war, South Carolina

Maxwell's letter points to the difficulty of enforcing newly enacted laws. While the bureau was supposed to help freedmen resolve disputes over labor contacts and other legal matters, a lack of manpower limited what it could do. No bureau agent was assigned to Oro, and in his letter, Maxwell requested that one be sent. The request was declined as an agent was already stationed at Cheraw, but this was hardly a satisfactory solution. Freedmen in Oro seeking the agent's help needed to travel over thirty miles (at least a day's journey).

Even if they could secure help from a bureau agent, the agent was often limited in what he could. The federal government had only a limited ability to intervene in the county. Despite complaints of "bayonet rule" from white conservatives, few military forces were stationed in the area. Immediately after the war, roughly two-hundred Union soldiers were stationed in the county, half in Cheraw and half at Chesterfield Court House. This was a tiny contingent compared to Sherman's massive army, but it was more than enough to militarily overwhelm any resistance conservatives tried to offer. However, these troops were removed following a major nation-wide demobilization. For the remainder of Reconstruction, the nearest Union troops were more than a day's ride away, in towns like Darlington and Chester or in the city of Columbia. Freedmen and white Unionist could expect the government to offer only limited protection.

The Political Situation: Presidential Reconstruction

During the first years of Reconstruction, there was little need for conservatives to resist the government as political power remained in the hands of the men who had led the state during the antebellum. In June 1865, President Johnson appointed a provisional governor and directed the state to convene a convention for the purpose of revising the state constitution so as to repudiate secession and ban slavery. Once this was done, Johnson intended to restore the state to its normal relations with the rest of the country. 

Chesterfield County sent to the constitutional convention two of the men who had promoted secession at the 1860 convention: John A. Inglis and Henry McIver. A new state constitution was adopted, and a new state legislature was elected. Only white men who had lived in the state for the last two years were allowed to vote, and they elected an all-white legislature in which the antebellum elite were strongly represented. Chesterfield county was represented by the planter/lawyer elite that had long dominated local politics. In the legislature, the county was represented by senator Alexander McQueen and congressmen S. W. Evans and M. J. Hough. Evans and McQueen were planters, while Hough farmed and also maintained a law practice. Both McQueen and Evans had served in the legislature during the antebellum and had served in the Confederate army during the war. 

Not only was the new state government run by the men who had run it during the antebellum, but those men sough to preserve traditional race relations. While the government banned slavery, it denied freedmen important political rights, including the right to vote and serve on juries, and used vagrancy laws to force them into the workforce. 

John A. McInglis
From Dickson College

Henry McIver
From Wikipedia

National politics resulted in an abrupt change in state government in 1867. Following conflict between President Johnson and Congress, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts which placed each former Confederate state under military rule and required it to make further revisions to the state constitution before civil government would be restored. Central to the requirements was that freedmen be granted the right to vote.

The Political Situation: Congressional Reconstruction

Following the Reconstruction Acts, the South Carolina government was transformed at a dizzying speed. That fall, a state-wide election – the first one in which Freedmen were able to vote – was held to determine whether to hold a convention and, if so, who should act as delegates. The election came out in favor of a convention, and the newly elected delegates met in January to draft a new constitution. Over the summer, the new constitution was ratified, and a new state government was elected. The outcome was a shocking change. A legislature dominated by planters and ex-Confederates was replaced by one in which a majority of members were former slaves.

In Chesterfield County, the electoral outcomes followed those state-wide. The election for holding a convention had 1,927 registered voters in the county, of which 1,094 were white and 833 black. The vote went in favor of the convention with 877 votes for, 245 against, and 805 abstaining. The vote on ratification was similar: 722 voted for ratification, 644 against, and 550 abstained. Abstaining was essentially the same as voting against as passage required a majority of registered voters voting in favor.

The electoral outcome was the result of conservatives' political strategy. Arguing that military rule was preferable to a civil government where freedmen could vote, they encouraged whites to stay at home or cast a "no" vote. Chesterfield whites appear to have been convinced. The Cheraw Advertiser reported that the vote split along racial lines, and this is consistent with the reported votes. For both the vote on holding a convention and the vote on ratification, the combined number of abstentions and votes against is close to the total number of registered white voters. 

The conservatives' strategy backfired disastrously. The convention delegates were determined by the ballots in favor, so the delegates were chosen by Chesterfield's black minority. Instead of the former secessionists who represented the county at the 1865 convention, Chesterfield –  a county of poor white farmers – was represented by two Republican politicians: a black man from Charleston and a white preacher from New Hampshire. 

The black man was H. L. Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury was from a prominent family of free persons of color living in Charleston. He had moved to the town of Cheraw only a year earlier to work as a Freedman's Bureau teacher. He received as much acceptance as could be expected. In general, affluent free persons of color in Charleston were positively regarded by conservatives as they had avoided challenging race relations and maintained good relations with the planter-elite during the antebellum. Shrewsbury was also able to avoid becoming entangled in the political corruption that was endemic during the early years of Reconstruction in South Carolina. Raised in urban environment and educated in common schools, he cut an unusual figure in backwoods Chesterfield, but the Charleston Mercury reported that "his neighbours speak well of him." By 1870, his standing was so high that the Chesterfield Democrat endorsed him as the Union Reform candidate for US Congress. (Ultimately, the nomination went to a Captain Dunn, a white former Union army officer.)

H. L. Shrewsbury is pictured in the center
From Radical members of the first legislature after the war, South Carolina

The New Hampshire preacher, R. J. Donaldson, was another matter. Donaldson (also spelled "Donelson," "Donalson," and even "McDonald") was born in Ireland, although he considered himself to be an Englishman. He had left Europe for America six years earlier. It's unclear what he did during the first few years, but by 1865, he was serving as a Methodist pastor in the town of Raymond, New Hampshire.

Donaldson moved to South Carolina around late 1867. The Methodist church stationed him in the village of Oro in Chesterfield. However, Donaldson appears to have had other ambitions as well. He ran two stores: one in Cheraw and one by a gold mine near Oro. These stores likely represented part of a coordinated effort by New York-based investors to develop northwestern Chesterfield. We'll explore this topic in a later blogpost on land sales and Henry J. Fox. 

In contrast to Shrewsbury, Donaldson was hated by conservatives. The Charleston Mercury newspaper described him as motivated by "vile ambition." Among Chesterfield residents, it reported that he had a reputation as someone whose character was "not an enviable one." At least among conservatives, his reputation would only decline over time. Three years later, he was called "Chesterfield's most inveterate enemy" by citizens in a public letter to the state government.

Unfortunately for conservatives, Donaldson gained even more political power shortly after the ratification of the new constitution. He was elected state senator for Chesterfield. Shrewsbury received one of the two seats in the House. The other was held by a Republican, D. J. J. Johnson. Johnson was a black man living in Cheraw. He was not very active as a legislator, and little is known about him.

It is not entirely clear how Republicans were able to win all the legislative seats. The vote on ratification was determined by state-wide votes, so with the state's large black population, the outcome was bound to be in favor. This was not the case with the votes on elected offices. In fact, several counties with large white majorities elected conservative Democrats to both the senate and the house. Chesterfield would have been represented in the legislature by conservatives if they had managed to convince 78 of the 550 voters who abstained to show up and cast a vote for them. Yet it appears that conservatives did not even run candidates. In seeking to explain why electoral outcomes in Chesterfield were different from those in other majority-white counties, there are many explanations that one could point to, such as the county's lack of wealth or its underdevelopment or the greater destruction it experienced during the war, but all such explanations are speculative.

Already by June, conservative Democrats in Chesterfield had rallied. Local elections for county offices were held, and white Democrats won a number of offices in Chesterfield County including sheriff, coroner, and county commissioner. Developments in December further suggested upcoming political difficulties for Republicans. The election for US senator for the First District, which included Chesterfield, was held that month. In Chesterfield, the Democratic candidate Harris Covington, a former Confederate soldier, received a comfortable majority of 240 votes over his Republican challenger B. F. Whittemore. (Covington received 960 votes against Whittemore's 720). Whittemore had a strong showing in other counties and won the election, but it was becoming increasingly clear that Republican political control of Chesterfield County was tenuous. 

Efforts to consolidate Republican political power were led by Senator Donaldson. Donaldson had multiple tools at his disposal. In addition to the legislative powers that his senate seat provided, he also had significant control over the local electoral system as he was given a gubernatorial appointment as election manager. Donaldson used these tools to promote his business interests. He successfully proposed a bill to incorporate a railroad company charged with connecting the Low County to Old Store township. In turn, he used his business interests to strengthen his political base. A land development company he was involved with sold plots of land to people from the north and from England. He hoped these newcomers would become Republican loyalists who would shift voter demographics in his favor. He also tried to protect freedmen from economic retaliation. When freedmen were evicted by their landlords for supporting the Republican party, the land development company offered them land leases, and a mining company Donaldson worked with offered jobs to freedmen. With all this, he built up a network of political supporters. His brother-in-law Alfred T. Peete moved to Cheraw and received employment as a deputy tax collector. 

The Election of 1870

In seeking solidify political power, Donaldson had set a challenging task for himself.  Donaldson's term of office was only for two years. Under the new constitution, only senators elected after 1868 would serve a full four-year term. During his two years in office, Donaldson needed to overcome the support that opposing Democratic politicians could draw from the county's two-thirds white majority.

A positive development during this time was that agriculture in the region was beginning to recover. In June 1869, the Cheraw Democrat reported that it had been a good growing season, and it looked like farmers would harvest a solid crop of corn and cotton. The Charleston Daily News was similarly positive about the prospects for farming. In addition to favorable weather, it reported that the labor problems were subsiding and "both whites and blacks are doing all they can to improve their conditions."

The political situation was very different. Tensions between Republicans and conservatives began to escalate to violence. In August 1869, township elections (for offices like selectman, constable, etc) were held. In the town of Mount Croghan, a fight broke out on election day between an (unnamed) freedman and a former Confederate soldier and farmer laborer, Archibald Nicholson. Archibald was struck on the head with a gun wielded by a second freedman, Jacob Brewer, who came to aid the first. Archibald's brother John joined the fight and was struck by a rock. The fight ended when some young men drove the freedmen away. Later that day, Archibald died from of the blow to his head. (John survived his injury.) In confirmation of conservatives concerns about how law had broken down, no legal actions were taken against Jacob Brewer even through a court of inquest found that he had feloniously murdered Nicholson.

R. J. Donaldson himself was present at the fight at Mount Croghan because he was serving as an election manager. Never passing up an opportunity to criticize Donaldson, the Charleston Daily News reported that, when the fight broke out, Donaldson ran off with some of the ballot boxes, although he returned with them after the fight was over. 

The county was also subject to arson attacks that year. In Old Store township, two white farmers, Henry W. Funderburk and Naret Dees, were victims of such attacks. In December, Funderburk lost his barn, and Dees lost his home and an outhouse. The arson attack on Dees's property took the lives of a white boy and a black girl (both unnamed in newspapers). The incendiaries were never caught, but attacks of this nature were often thought to be perpetrated by freedmen for political or economic reasons (for example, to enact revenge against a landlord). After reporting on the attacks, the Charleston Daily News remarked that many residents of Chesterfield County were leaving the county for the west.

General state elections were to be held in October 1870, and as election day drew nearer, political pressure on Donaldson increased. State-wide, conservatives sought to make electoral gains by allying themselves with moderate Republicans seeking political reform. They united as the Union Reform party. The proposed electoral ticket was a fusion of the two political parties. The candidate for governor was the moderate Republican Richard N. Capenter, a circuit judge who had recently moved to Charleston from Kentucky. Reformists ran a conservative, M. C. Butler, for the lieutenant governor's office. Butler was an ex-Confederate officer and planter living in Edgefield. He later led efforts overthrow the Reconstruction government. 

In Chesterfield County, local candidates were nominated at a meeting held at Chesterfield Court House in mid-August. The meeting drew several hundred whites and a "considerable number of colored people." The meeting was not announced as a meeting of the Union Reform party, but a list of the speakers shows that it was organized by the county's traditional conservative political leaders. The audience heard speeches by former state senator Alexander McQueen, prominent Cheraw lawyer W. L. T. Prince, and Henry McIver, one of the signers of the state's Ordinance of Secession. The upcoming election was described not as a political contest but rather as an existential fight for the county's future: "Old Chesterfield calls upon every one of her sons, native and adopted, white and colored, to do their duty; to ... never relax their efforts until ... our good old district [is] redeemed from carpet-bag rule."

Despite the brief appeal to Chesterfield's "colored sons," no effort was made to reach out to freedmen or moderate Republicans. Meeting participants nominated a ticket consisting of the local elites who had dominated politics during the antebellum. At the meeting, the proposed candidates were Alfred Moore Lowrey for state senate and Minor Jackson Hough and Gideon Walker Duvall for state congress. The nomination was changed after the meeting, and G. W. Duvall ended up running for senate while M. J. Hough and Burwell Christmas Evans ran for state congress. This ticket represented no real effort to reach out to moderate Republicans. G. W. Duvall was a wealthy farmer in Cheraw, M. J. Hough a lawyer in Chesterfield Court House, and B. C. Evans a merchant in Mount Croghan. All were white, and Evans and Hough were ex-Confederate officers. 

B. C. Evans
From Debbie Gibbons via FindAGrave

Donaldson ran for re-election on the Republican ticket, but the state congressmen did not. Shrewsbury appears to have had a falling out with Donaldson and his supporters over problems with political corruption. The candidates for congress were two men new to local politics: William Littlefield and J. P. Singleton. Singleton was a black mason living in Cheraw about whom little was recorded.

William Littlefield, the other candidate, is described as a "colored Republican" in Reynold's history of Reconstruction in South Carolina, but this is an error. Littlefield was a thirty-something year old white Union army veteran from Pennsylvania. In 1870, he was living in Cheraw and working as a printer. He likely came to South Carolina with John J. Patterson. Patterson was a highly influential and controversial figure in Reconstruction South Carolina. Although he would later serve in US senate, he originally moved to the state to pursue businesses interests in banking and the railroad industry, work that brought him into close contact with legislators. Patterson was widely regarded as corrupt and was alleged to have secured legislation by bribing officials. In an 1878 report, conservatives alleged that Patterson was behind efforts to get Littlefield and Singleton elected.

During the electoral campaign, Union Reformists ran on a platform of good governance and a commitment to fighting the political corruption, a growing problem for the state. Donaldson was a particular focus of criticism. A major issue was his involvement in land sales. In 1869, the state government created a commission charged with purchasing land, subdividing it into small plots, and then selling it to landless farmers on favorable terms. The commission soon became a vehicle for corruption as politically connected landowners bribed officials to buy worthless land at inflated prices. During the summer, the press began publishing reports of these transactions, and Donaldson was accused of being at the center of two of them. In July, he was accused of helping facilitate the purchase of 1,004 acres of land in Lancaster County from J. F. G. Mittag, a prominent lawyer known for his scientific writing. The land was sold to the commission for $8032 even though Mittag had purchased it for $1507 only eighteen months earlier. Donaldson was alleged to have shared in the profit.

Donaldson was a target of further criticism in September. That month the Reform gubernatorial candidate Judge Carpenter was on the campaign trail, touring the state. To provide conservative representation, he was joined by John Doby Kennedy, a planter/lawyer who had fought with distinction for the Confederacy.

Judge Carpenter launched new accusations against Donaldson. He accused him of making a large fortune in bribes while serving in the legislature. As an example of the fraud and corruption that Donaldson had been involved with, he produced a deed for a plot of land in Old Store township. With help from Donaldson, Henry J. Fox had recently sold the plot to the state commission for $36, 000, more than triple the original $10,000 price he'd purchased it for.

Carpenter further accused Donaldson of using his ill-gotten fortune to bribe people into supporting him and misusing his political office. One of his schemes, Carpenter claimed, involved changing the location of voting precincts. Some of Donaldson's strongest political support came from blacks living near the Pee Dee river. Using his authority as Commissioner of Election, he had consolidated two voting precincts in the area into one that was located in the middle of a black community. In doing so, he sought to suppress the conservative vote as many white voters lived over thirty miles away. 

In the lead-up to the election, more rumors spread about Donaldson's plans to engage in voter fraud.  On October 11, the Charleston Daily News reported a rumor that Donaldson was openly telling people that he was going to misuse his position as an election commissioner to win: "Yes; I'm certain of it [i.e. my electoral victory] -- I count the votes." 

The Daily News also reported that Donaldson had asked the governor's office for military aid on election day. At the time, there were only about 250 federal soldiers in the entire state, but Governor Scott controlled two armed forced that had been newly created by the legislature: the state constabulary and the state militia. Of the two, the militia was the most controversial as it was to be racially integrated. White conservatives scorned the militia as the "negro militia" and avoided service. By fall 1870, the government had purchased and distributed over seven thousand firearms to militia, but the distribution was uneven. On paper, Chesterfield County was supposed to be home to three companies of troops, but by election day, the government had not only failed to issue arms to the units, it had not even appointed officers.

State-wide, the constabulary force consisted of about one hundred and fifty constables, many of whom were armed with state-issued Winchester and Spencer rifles. Two constables were assigned to Chesterfield County: one John H. Donaldson and William Littlefield, one of the Republican candidates for state congress. (It's unclear if J. H. Donaldson was related to Senator Donaldson.)  In October (the month of the election), J. C. Bonsall (a constable stationed in Union County), was assigned to Chesterfield. He was joined by three other constables including J. P. Wharton.

Conservatives complained that Governor Scott planned to misuse the militia and the constabulary to intimidate Democratic, but the effectiveness of the organizations was hindered by widespread fraud. Men received pay and rations despite performing no service, and tens of thousands of dollars earmarked for purchasing firearms were given to state officials as "commissions." Officers felt the militia was overmatched by white paramilitary groups. In a letter to the chief constable, one militia officer (B. G. Yocum) wrote that his troops were "ignorant colored men with clumsy muskets" who were militarily overmatched by conservative paramilitary groups which included "experienced soldiers on blooded horses." In the run-up to the election, the "negro militia" was a source of tremendous anger and anxiety among conservatives, but their activities were largely limited to drilling and marching. 

On election day (October 19), federal troops were stationed in up-state counties like Union to prevent violence, and special police were appointed to Charleston, but the forces in Chesterfield were limited to a few constables. It appears that election day in the county passed without major public incident. Senator Donaldson would later allege that Republican voters at the precincts of Cole Hill and Alligator were prevented from voting by fraud and threats of violence, but he never produced convincing evidence. The day after the election, the Daily News triumphantly declared on the front page that "Both Chesterfield and Marlboro give heavy reform majorities." It appeared that Donaldson had been defeated, and conservatives in Chesterfield were among the first to "redeem" local government. The announcement proved premature as it would take months to establish who had actually won the election.

Election Day 

The Daily News's announcement that Reformists had won elections in Chesterfield County was based on "private sources," and the ballots had not yet been counted. The counting process would drag out for weeks. Two days after the election Daily News quantified the margin of Reform victory: a rumor held that the party won by 900 votes. If true, this number represented a major Reformist victory as it was only possible if the Reform party had picked up about half of the county's black voters. As time passed, the rumored margin of victory became smaller and smaller. On October 24, the Daily News reported a margin of victory that was about half what was originally reported, 436 votes. Republicans were reported to have won at Cheraw (where blacks made up a majority) and came within 19 votes of winning Oro. At the end of the month, the Daily Pheonix reported that the rumored margin of victory had shrunk even further, to only 140 votes (less than a quarter of what was first reported). 

The official outcome of the election was supposed to be declared by the state board of canvassers on November 4. However, on that day, the board announced that it had rejected the report that Donaldson had submitted. As conservatives had feared, Donaldson, as election commissioner, reported that he had won the election by a small margin. The board privately deliberated on what to do and announced its decision on November 8. After adjourning, it announced that it had overturned the result Donaldson had reported and awarded election certificates to the Reform candidates. 

The reasons for their decision became clear as time went on: Reformists alleged that Donaldson had won the election by stuffing the ballot boxes. The alleged ballot stuffing had occurred in the northwestern part of the county, at the Oro and Old Store precincts. Members of the local Reform party had their tickets printed with numbers as a precaution against voting fraud. When the ballots for the Old Store precinct were counted, a total of 379 ballots were counted with the Republican party receiving a majority of 89 votes. However, there were only 215 people registered to vote, and by consulting a list of the numbered Reform tickets, they found that the Reformists should have won by 128 votes.

A different scheme was alleged at the Oro precinct. There a number of the Reform ballots were missing from the ballot box. Some ballots had been replaced by ballots where the Donaldson's name was pasted over the name of the Reform candidate. Other ballots were replaced by ones with typographic errors (e.g. the name of "M. J. Hough was misprinted as "M. L. Hough") which rendered the ballots invalid.

In an article reprinted in the Charleston Daily News, the Cheraw Democrat even described the manner in which the fraud was committed. On the Saturday before the election, Donaldson had asked the newspaper to print 500 Republican tickets and suspiciously asked that they be printed using the same paper and type-setting that was used for the Reform ballots. Then he conspired with his brother-in-law Alfred T. Peete and one John McCulla (an Irishman working as a farmer in Mount Croghan) to use the printed ballots to stuff ballot boxes. After polls closed, the paper claimed Donaldson gave the ballot boxes to McCulla. McCulla brought the ballot boxes to Chesterfield Court House for counting, but on his way, he met with Peete who allegedly removed valid ballots and inserted fraudulent ones. 

Even with the alleged ballot stuffing, Donaldson and the other Republican candidates hadn't received a majority of votes, so Donaldson took another step. He had the county board exclude the votes from two precincts (likely Cole Hill and Alligator, the two with the largest white majorities), claiming that the Republican vote had been suppressed by voter intimidation. This last measure was enough to change the electoral outcome to a Republican victory.

After the allegations of ballot stuffing were made public, arrest warrants were made for Donaldson, the chairman of county election commissioners (J. H. Donaldson), and ten precinct managers of election. A preliminary examination held on November 4 (the day election certificates were issued to the Reform candidates). One precinct manager testified that he had received a list of fictitious names written in Senator Donaldson's handwriting that were to be added to the poll list. Senator Donaldson, his brother-in-law Alfred T. Peete, John McCulla, and one Aaron Plyler were bound over for a January trial.

On November 22, the newly General Assembly met for regular session. The Reform candidates from Chesterfield were sworn into office after presenting their credentials. The speaker of the House then declared Robert K. Scott the elected governor after presenting the official returns he had received from the secretary of state. These returns recorded that Chesterfield County had returned a 147 vote majority for the Reform party candidate. Throughout Chesterfield, conservatives celebrated the overthrow of the local "carpet-bag" government that they'd been burdened with. As we'll discuss in a later blogpost, these celebrations proved premature.

Sources

1). "Suffering in South Carolina" The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], May 8, 1867, p. 1.

2) "On the Wing." The Charleston daily news. [volume], July 11, 1867, Image 1

3) "The Election for Convention." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], December 18, 1867, p.  2.

4) "Additional Election Returns: Chesterfield." Charleston Daily News [Charleston, SC]. April 22, 1868. p. 1.

5) The daily phoenix. [Columbia, SC], December 5, 1868, p. 3.

6) The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], December 28, 1868, p. 4.

7) "Chesterfield." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], February 08, 1869, p.  1.

8) "Colonizing South Carolina." Yorkville enquirer. [Yorkville, SC], May 13, 1869, p. 2.

9) "Affairs in the State: Chesterfield." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], June 7, 1869, p. 4.

10) "Chesterfield." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], June 09, 1869, p. 1.

11) "Chesterfield." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], August 02, 1869, p. 1.

12) "Fires in the State" The Charleston daily news. [volume], September 21, 1869, p.1

13) "Shreds of State News." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], December 14, 1869, p. 3.

14) "Proposed Nomination of a Respectable Man." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], March 8, 1870, p. 1.

15) "The New Regime." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], March 14, 1870, p. 1

16) "A Colored Man for Congress." The Sumter watchman. [Sumter, SC], April 13, 1870, p. 2.

17) The Anderson intelligencer. [Anderson, SC], April 14, 1870, p. 2.

18) "Chesterfield." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], May 30, 1870, p. 1.

19) The daily phoenix. [Columbia, SC], May 29, 1870, p. 2.

20) "Another Land Swindle." The daily phoenix. [Columbia, SC], July 23, 1870, p. 1.

21) "The Reform Meeting at Chesterfield." The Fairfield herald. [Fairfield, SC], September 21, 1870, p. 1. 

22) The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], October 11, 1870, p. 2.

23) The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], November 03, 1870, p. 2.

24) "Local Items." The daily phoenix. [Columbia, SC], November 09, 1870, p. 4.

25) "Radical Justice" The Camden journal. [Camden, SC], November 17, 1870, p. 2.

26) "Chesterfield Election Fraud." The Anderson intelligencer. [Anderson, SC], November 24, 1870, p. 1.

27) The Camden journal. [volume], November 24, 1870, Image 1

28) "The Chesterfield Democrat and the Reform Movement." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], June 28, 1870, p. 2.

29) "The Chesterfield Democrat and The News." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], July 05, 1870, p. 2.

30) "Our People Suffering." The daily phoenix. [Columbia, SC], July 10, 1866, p. 2.

31) "Contest of Mr. Ducall's Seat."  The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], December 16, 1870, p. 1.