The Rock Hill Herald reported on Oct. 4, 1888 – “The boiler room in Mr. Politzer’s gin house exploded on Sept. 28th. The explosion carried part of the engine and the boiler through the end of a store owned by E.A. Sheper and occupied by J.W. Allison, a furniture dealer. The piston head was blown an entire block and struck a house nearly killing Tolly, a shoe maker. The engineer and foreman were killed and two boys in the street named Alston were also killed.”
City Directories and History: Located in the heart of the commercial district of Port Royal, the store served the community of Port Royal from its construction by German immigrant F.W. Scheper in 1885 until the store closed for business in 1950. The store is one of the last remaining nineteenth century commercial buildings in Port Royal and is a vivid reminder of the town’s early history and brief period of economic prosperity in the 1870s through the 1890s. A ship chandler, Scheper was a wholesale and retail grocer and a dealer in hay and grain. The store was located within short distance of the railroad terminus which was the debarkation point for the marines who arrived in Port Royal for transport to the growing naval and marine base on Parris Island. The store is a large two-story frame commercial building that is the focal point of historic downtown Port Royal. The largest historic commercial building remaining in the town, the store retains a good degree of physical integrity. A one-story addition at the southeast corner of the building was constructed between 1905 and 1912; it served as the Port Royal post office. Listed in the National Register June 22, 2004. [Courtesy of the SC Dept. of Archives and History]
F. W. Scheper left Germany in 1860 and settled in Charleston. He was in Beaufort by 1868 and soon became a leader in the business community. The original store in Port Royal, which burned in 1883, was operated in partnership with Jonathan D. Manett. In 1885 F. W. Scheper bought out the Manett heirs. It was about this time the present F. W. Scheper Store was built. It is a two-story wood structure in the Victorian Commercial style. The first floor is three bays the “ABA” pattern, and the central doorway is recessed. Windows are two two (2/2) lights and originally had exterior blinds on the second floor. is hipped and had four chimneys.
A small, one-story frame structure attached to the east side of the Store served as the post office for a number of years.”
Information from: Historic Resources of the Lowcountry, The Lowcountry Council of Government, Cynthia C. Jenkins, Preservation Planner – Published, 1979
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