250 and Counting

Category: South Carolina History

  • June 19, 1775: The Father of Greenville

    Cover art for June 19, 1775: painting of Vardry McBee by William Garl Browne, Jr., 1854.

    Sometimes when you’re watching a movie or listening to music, you find yourself in the awkward position of separating the artist from the work, because it turns out that the artist has some shady stuff going on in the past, or even in the present. But the song/movie/book is just so good that you need to temporarily overlook that.

    Such is the case, we think, with Vardry Echols McBee, an entrepreneur and philanthropist who basically invented the town of Greenville, South Carolina. He was also a slave owner who sided with the Union but provided material assistance to the Confederacy.

    Mixed messages! Conflict of loyalty!

    But it’s also clear that he was instrumental in making the town of Greenville what it is today, even more than 150 years later. What’s more, by all contemporary accounts he did it “without pride, pretense or ostentation.”

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  • April 21, 1775: We Can Confiscate Arms, Too

    Cover art for April 21, 1775: portrait of William Henry Drayton, 1779. Detail from a larger engraving by Benoît-Louis Prévost and Pierre Eugene du Simitiere.

    Word spread rather quickly about the events at Lexington and Concord, and everybody mobilized to be ready for when (rather than if) hostilities broke out.

    Most people were arming themselves and avoiding confiscation of supplies by the British, but in South Carolina they turned the tables and did a little confiscating of their own.

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  • 250 and Counting: January 17, 1775

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    Cover art for January 17, 1775: the Second Regiment in South Carolina, late 1775

    In the early 1770s, the American colonies began feeling the need to defend themselves against British pressures. In some cases the activity was political, but there were plenty of people who saw that there could conceivably be a need to take up arms at some point, especially given the way they interpreted the Intolerable Acts. Although in popular culture, Boston was the center of attention for this sort of thing, the fact is that small, informal militias began springing up all the way up and down the Eastern Seaboard. These soon gave way to more formalized groups which were funded by their respective governments. And when hostilities finally broke out, these militias quickly reorganized themselves into official Regiments. Today we’ll learn about the militias in South Carolina.

  • 250 and Counting: January 12, 1775

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    Cover art for January 12, 1775: the gravestone of Joseph Gist

    Joseph Gist wasn’t an especially distinguished person, but you don’t have to be distinguised to get noticed on 250 and Counting.

    Gist was born in Union County, SC and while he moved to Charleston in his teen and college years, he moved to Pinckneyville to practice law. Pinckneyville was part of the Ninety-Six District, which we discussed in yesterday’s episode.

    Although the district court at Pinckneyville was abolished not long after he settled there, it was still a fabulous place to practice law, and he was in enough demand that he’d be pursued for representation by both parties in many suits. Later on he was elected to Congress and served in the House for six years, leaving of his own accord.