108 East Home Avenue
City Directories and History: (Hart-Mills Cottage) The John L. Hart House is strongly associated by citizens of the town with the events and persons that have given Hartsville its unique characteristics. Hartsville is characterized by its post-Civil War development through the energies of the Coker family and families associated with them in the development of a variety of
imaginative business enterprises. Enterprises such as Sonoco Products Company, the Coker Pedigreed Farms, the J.L. Coker Company, and other similar businesses gave opportunity to local residents and attracted some of the brightest minds in the state to locate here. A number of those individuals were owners or residents of the John L. Hart House. The building is believed to have been constructed ca. 1850 as the home of John Lide Hart. There is no question that the house as originally built was antebellum and stood on land owned by Hart. The house is a small, one-and-one-half story, frame dwelling located on a residential street adjacent to the central business district. Alterations and additions to the original building in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries changed its appearance without destroying its basic configuration. Listed in the National Register November 10, 1983. [Courtesy of the SC Dept. of Archives and History]
R&R NOTES: R&R took a tour of the house in Feb. 2017. The preservation of this early Hartsville house was under the direction of architect, Henry Boykin of Camden, S.C. and local contractor – preservationist, Bill Segars. The house is a nice interpretation of the way family members would have resided in the area, leaving numerous plexiglas viewing areas of the historic construction of the dwelling. Initial impressions of the home suggest the date attributed to the dwelling is inconsistent with the dwellings technical and architectural creation, leaving open the question; did the house predated the Hart’s acquisition of the property in ca. 1845? Comparing it with others in the region, R&R was left with the distinct impression that further research may be useful in clarifying the construction date, one R&R believes is in the early 19th century.
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IMAGE GALLERY via photographer Bill Segars – 2010
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