3594 Stevenson Road
City Directories and History: Following the establishment of the South Carolina Presbytery in 1790, members of the Rocky Creek Meeting House moved their place of worship by 1795 to what is today Union ARP church near Richburg, SC. They constructed a log house of worship measuring 40-50 ft. and on May 30, 1796, when the report was given from the Presbytery of the Carolinas and Georgia which reads that “Mr. Hemphill had served the churches of Hopewell, Ebenezer (now New Hope) and Union.”
As the church membership grew this log building was remodeled and enlarged until 1848 when a new larger building was erected. The log house of worship continued being used as the “session house.” By 1878 the church had reversed its orientation toward that of the cemetery on the east side of the old church. In 1913 Union Church was removed from behind the cemetery to its current location on the north side of the cemetery. It was necessary to remove the steeple when the church was move and it was not rebuilt. In 1952 the Union congregation added the education building at the back of the church. Mr. Rogers Reid served as the Chairman of the building committee.
On the church grounds of Union near the highway the local Lafayette Strait Chapter of the UDC erected a monument honoring the members of the church who died in the Civil War; John R. Adams, Henry Adams, John W. Baird, Isaiah Cherry, John H. Cherry, David Dickey, James Hamilton, John Hamilton, Jackson Hindman, William Kitchens, Charles Kitchens, John Kitchens, James Lyle, Samuel Martin, John martin, John A. Millen, Robert McClintock, William McFadden, Edward Mcfadden Jr, Thomas McFadden, Samuel Millen, Henry Smith, Calvin Smith, Isaiah Thomas, Albert Thomas, John Waters, and William Westbrook.
Ministers at Union ARP:
John Hemphill (1795-1832) was a student of the Rev. Joseph Alexander of Bullock’s Creek community in York County. He accepted a call at Union Church in 1795 and in 1828, Jefferson College in Penn., conferred upon Rev. Hemphill the degree of Doctor of Divinity. He died on May 30, 1832 and is buried at Hopewell Cemetery in Chester County, S.C.
Warren Fleeiken (1832-1839 was born on Jan. 9, 1805 in Mecklenburg County, NC and was educated by Lawson Caldwell at the McAlphin’s Creek school. In about 1824 he began his studied at the Ebenezer Academy in Rock Hill, SC and received instruction under the Rev. Eleazar Harris. He later studied theology under both Rev. James Lowry and Rev. Samuel Pressly. In Nov. of 1832 he became the minister at both Hopewell and Union churches. He continued serving here until April of 1839. He died on July 13, 1851 and is buried at Hopewell Cemetery.
Laughlin McDonald (1839-1870) was the 3rd minister of Union Church. He was born in Elbert, Ga., on Oct. 3, 1810 and graduated from Miami Un. in Ohio in 1836. He studied theology at Erskine College at Due West and preached at Providence Church in Laurens, SC prior to coming to Union Church on Dec. 10, 1839. Later in 1853 he also took over the pastorate of Neely’s Creek ARP church in York County. In 1870 he gave up both churches. The Rev. McDonald died on March 26, 1874 and is buried at New Hope Cemetery, Fairfield County, SC.
The Rev. McDonald owned land at Lewisville (2020), and sold it in 1859.
Charles Bowen Betts (1870-1903) was born in Charlotte, Tenn., on Nov. 12, 1828. He was prepared for college at the Viny Grove Academy in Tennessee and graduated from Jefferson College in Penn., in 1851. During the Civil War Rev. Betts served as a chaplain of the 6th Reg. SCV and later the 12th SCV. The Rev. Betts served as the minister of Union ARP for some 33 years. He died on Dec. 1, 1903 and is buried at Union Cemetery.
*** Address is approximate. (Church is across the street from the Lewisville Elem. School near Richburg, SC)
“When you turn left on #9, the first house on the right was Uncle Jim Reid’s, now known as the Rogers Reid place (about a month ago, Rogers moved the house to a lot on the Lizzy Melton road). The Lizzy Melton road runs into the McDaniel road or Knox Station road from #9. The next house on the right after the Reid house was the Tom Ford place, then the Joe Whiteside place, here #9 turns into #901 to Lando. On the left on #9 was the John Taylor house, the next road ran behind the Whiteside place, on the left next to the Whitesides, the Marion store, on the right across the road was the Marion place; on the left going down – the John Neely place, the Henry Maybin place, then the Will Reid place where the big house burned, there Elizabeth Reid and Charlton Kirkpatrick built their home here. From the Whiteside and Marion place on the right, we come to Dr. Young’s house and office and orchard. Dr. Young moved to Chester and sold his place to Mr. Will Reid after his home burned.
Next we come to the Henry Melton place and Union A.R.P. church and cemetery. Across the road is the Richburg School. From here we leave #9 and go on #901 into the town of Richburg.”
THE ROAD TO RICHBURG by Arthur S. Lynn – October 19, 1986 (Information courtesy of and from: CDGHS Bulliten)
“One of the first stores in Rich Hill was built by Frank M. Hicklin of the Bascomville Community in the late 1800’s. It stood on the present site of Mrs. Alma Cauthen’s home. Her father, Mr. W.H. McFadden, purchased the building from Mr. Hicklin and later remodeled it into a home. The left side of the house was once part of the store building, with the new part being added to it in 1903. An early plat of the town made in 1876 and a later one in 1878, shows the Hicklin store and most of the land around it belonging to O. Barber.”
(Information in part from: Chester County Heritage Book, Vol. I, Edt. by Collins – Knox, Published by the Chester Co Hist. Society – Jostens Printing, 1982)
“The History of Richburg Is Interesting” by Wade B. Roddey, originally printed in The Chester News on March 20, 1968
There was a preacher by the name of Miller, who came from Low Hampton, New York. He was not an educated man, but he was sincere and was very persuasive. He had worked out a chart that proved to him that the world would come to an end on March 15, 1843. He had lots of followers all up and down the Atlantic seaboard, and they were called Millerites. The Millerites in this area selected a high elevation from which to view the coming to an end of the world. They put up temporary shacks, settled their affairs, and awaited the coming of the great day. Only the well-to-do people could afford to stop work and live on accumulated supplies of food. The poorer people who could not afford to stop work, ridiculed the Millerites, and called the place where they settled, the Rich Hill. The night before the fatal day the Millerites put on white robes, prayed and sang all night long. Some lost their minds. But the night passed without mishap, and the sun rose as usual the next morning. The Prophet Miller wanted to revise his chart, but the people had lost faith in him. They found the so-called Rich Hill a pleasant place on which to live, so they went about building permanent homes. All this is described in a book written by The Rev., L. L. Dunnington, Pastor of First Methodist Church of Iowa City, Iowa. He said he had Prophet Miller’s chart.
TIME, the news magazine in its issue of Dec. 31, 1956, showed a picture of Prophet Miller, and claimed that the sect known as Seventh Day Adventists grew out of the movement started by Prophet Miller. Some people have asked about the people who settled here. They were the finest people in the world. It would take a lot of explaining to tell all about them. In the old days what is now Scotland was known as Alba, and what is now known as Ireland was known as Scotia. The people who live in Scotia were known as Scots. The word Scot means a raider. The Scots crossed over into Alba, and drove the original inhabitants known as Piets, back into the hills, and took over the government, and ruled what is now Scotland for hundreds of years. Alba then became known as Scotia Minor that is Little Scotia.
These people were known as Celts, and their language was Gaelic. See your New Testament, and read St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. The people of what is now known as Ireland were converted to the Christian faith by St. Patrick in about 450 A.D. St. Patrick got his religion from Rome, and that is why Ireland has always been so strongly Roman Catholic. The Irish trained hundred upon hundreds of missionaries who crossed over into continental Europe and made converts by the thousands. The little island of Iona off the west coast of what is now Scotland came near being the center of the Christian religion instead of the Vatican at Rome. This little island is being restored today by a Scottish nobleman, and is becoming one of the beauty spots of the world.
When the English under Oliver Cromwell invaded Ireland in 1650 A. D. the English persecuted the Irish severely. They dispossessed the Irish of their lands and homes, giving them to the English soldiers, so that the Irish had to rent their own land from the English. English soldiers would snatch a baby from and Irish mother’s arms, pitch it up into the air catch it on the point of a bayonet, saying “Nits make Lice”. The meanest thing and old Irish woman can say to a person she dislikes is: “The curse of Cromwell on you”. When Martin Luther started the Reformation a great many Scottish people joined the Presbyterian Church. There was a bitter struggle between the Catholics and the Presbyterians, so much so that the Scottish king deported thousands of Presbyterians to North Ireland, the places then known as The Plantations. Today this part of Ireland is known as Ulster, and it is still a part of the English Commonwealth.
The people who were forced to settle in Ulster became dissatisfied, and as the New World was then being opened up thousands of them came to the Colonies along the Atlantic coast. In one year one-fourth of the people of Ireland came to the new colonies in America. That is how the term Scotch-Irish. Originated. It does not mean the marriage of the Scots and the Irish, for they are already of the same race. It simply means that the people who left Scotland for Ireland were not satisfied in Ireland, so came on over to the American colonies. Thus they became know as Scotch-Irish. At first most of the Scotch-Irish settled in the Northern colonies, but when the English general named Braddock was defeated at what is now know as Pittsburgh, all the colonies were exposed to attack by the French and Indians. Great numbers of the colonists were slaughtered. It was then that the Scotch-Irish colonists began coming South. They filled up the Waxhaws, as many as five hundred wagons a day would pass Fayetteville N. C., on the way South. After that part of North Carolina was filled the colonists crossed over into South Carolina, settling in what are now the five great Irish counties in South Carolina, called Lancaster, York, Chester, Fairfield and Newberry.
During the War of the Revolution Colonel Banastre Tarlton, Lord Cornwallis’ cavalry leader said in his memoirs that of all the colonists the Irish were the most averse to English rule. He ought to have know, for after the colonists won the battles of Fishing Creek, Brattonsville, and Beckhamville, all in Chester County, the morale of the colonists was so high that they went on to Kings Mountain in York County to wipe out the English army in this part of the Southern colonies.
Let’s get back to the day following March 15, 1843. There were already a few houses in this area later to be known as the Rich Hill. Mrs. Sally Barber, wife of Alex Barber, built the first frame house in this locality in 1840. And in the comer of the lot now occupied by the house build by the late J. O. Barber was the Echols home. The house was built of squared logs weather boarded on the outside, and papered on the inside with fine French wall paper. Just across the road and south of the Echols house. In the comer of the lot formed by the old Chester Road running east and west, and by the Columbia road running north and south now called Broad Street was the old Alex Barber store. The main part of the store ran south, and the grocery wing ran west. There was a large porch in front, and during the Civil War the enlistment office of the Confederacy was in this building. The Western Union Telegraph office was in the south end of the building. After the Civil War was over Mr. Alex. Barber took in Mr. James S. Drennan as a partner. Then later Mr. Barber sold his interest to Mr. Drennan and to his brother-in- law Mr. George C. Gill, the firm them being called Drennan & Gill. They did a large country business, had a full time bookkeeper to keep records of liens on crops given by cotton farmers.
The people now wanted a post office, and applied for a post office for Rich Hill. The post office department said that there was already a post office in Lancaster County known as Rich Hill, and that there could not be two post offices with the same name in the state. So it was decided to ask for a post office to be known as Richburg. We do not know the exact date of the founding of Richburg post office, but the writer has some of the cancelled stamps used at that time. They did not have a stamp to cancel the stamps, were cancelled by the postmistress drawing a cross with pen and ink across the stamp. Postage on a first class letter was just two cents. Richburg became quite a large cotton market; as many as eight thousand bales of cotton were marketed here in a single season. North Carolina cotton mills would keep a cotton buyer here the entire cotton season.
The writer has not investigated the exact date that the Georgia, Carolina & Northern Railway was organized. It was called the great G. C. &N. It was surveyed to run a line from Chester, S.C. to Monroe, N. C. Richburg was on direct line between these two points, and the engineers drove the stakes on a line right through Richburg. The writer saw the stakes when he was just a little boy. The Richburg merchants were enjoying a fine country trade then, and they did not want another railroad to be run through here. They said that railroad would bring more stores, and the merchants did not want more stores. So the G. C. & N., later known as The Seaboard Air Line, went around Richburg, building up Edgemoor and Rodman.
The school house was built at the top of a hill just south of the house now owned by Mrs. Joe Anderson. We do not know when the school house was built, but it was the best school in Chester County outside the county seat. The county allowed only twenty-five dollars per month for a teacher, who had to board among the patrons to supplement the meager salary. Most of the teachers out in the county were women. But the local school board took the money allowed by the county, and then asked patrons to pay fifty cents per pupil per month, so as to employ a man teacher. This was surely voluntary. Richburg School usually had about sixty pupils, but some of these had to drop out at cotton planting time, and again at cotton picking time these pupils had to drop out again to help harvest the cotton crop. These pupils did well to learn to read and write, and get the rudiments of arithmetic. The writer remembers well his first day in school. Mr. Charles H. Ragsdale taught the older pupils, and his daughter taught the beginners. This arrangement lasted only one year when Mr. Ragsdale took over the whole school. Mr. Ragsdale wanted to build a home here, but not land owner would sell him land, so he had to move to Lancaster. The next teacher was R. Fred Ezell. I think he was an honor student at Captain Bell’s Military Academy in Kings Mountain, N. C.
Following Mr. Ezell came W. R Crawford, who raised us on the Bible and on Shakespeare. We had to read and entire chapter in the Bible every morning and then we had to read from Shakespeare’s plays every morning. When Mr. Crawford read Cardinal Wolsey’s soliloquy he made and impression never to be forgotten: “Had I served my God with half the zeal served my king he would not have left me thus in mine old age naked to mine enemies.” Next came, J. Marion Moore, Ben M. Sullivan, and John Walkup Douglas, all devoted teachers. When I last heard of Mr. Douglas he was pastor of a large church in Druid Hill, Baltimore.
Many boys and girls came to Richburg and boarded here to get the advantage of our school. Some spent the week here, and rode horses and mules to go home on the week-end. Lots of people wanted to buy lots and build homes here to give their children the advantage of our school, but nobody would sell them a lot. Richburg once had a population of about three hundred every census taking, but that number has now dwindled down to about half that. Some have facetiously remarked that Richburg’s future lies in the past. Maybe, but Richburg was once a most pleasant little town in which to live. There were two churches with large membership inside the town limits. There was preaching every Sunday, prayer meeting every Wednesday evening. There were frequent picnics and barbeques when the politicians were running for office, all of them all-day affairs. One of the most delightful affairs ever observed was when the Lancaster Sunday Schools came over and spent the day here, ending up with a big picnic. There were four mail trains a day, and it seemed as if the entire population went down to the station to meet the various trains. We had plenty of preachers, doctors, and druggists by no lawyers. After all it was a real nice place in which to live. (Re-print courtesy of the CDGHS Bulletin)
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