City Directories and History: The W.M. Lawton Co., of factors included: W.M. Lawton, R. Wainwright Bacot, W.M. Taylor, and Joseph T. Dill.
The importance of Charleston’s factors can not be over emphasized. They provided extremely important functions as agents for farmers and individuals all across South Carolina. As a farmer’s agent, the factor would provide information on crop pricing, sales and shipments. As their factor, the firm also insured and often sold cotton and other agricultural commodities as directed by the local farmer. Often the agent was also asked to extend financial credits to their clients as well as make suitable purchases of finished goods for shipment to their clients.
Anne H. White of Rock Hill, S.C., often directed her factor to purchase furniture and other household goods and ship them to her home. Factors were not only found in Charleston but in nearly every town across the state. In some cases, the factors and cotton buyers worked in conjunction with one another, providing services for their clients which would have otherwise been prohibitive due to travel difficulties and geographic barriers.
The Southern Wharf was just that, the most Southern of the shipping docks along the Cooper River – East Bay Street area. Excerpt courtesy of the Sanborn Map Co., 1888.
Other sources of interest: Charleston Tax Payers of Charleston, SC in 1860-61 and the Dwelling Houses of Charleston by Alice R.H. Smith – 1917
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