107 North Main Street
City Directories and History: “William Edgar Brunson, the town founder, built this house ca. 1875 for one of his children. The house has a typical symmetrical Victorian style floor plan with two rooms on either side of a central hall. The double window configuration of the facade is one over one (1/1) sash. The verandah is supported by four paired square columns with lattice between the columns and brackets along the cornice. An original bay is on the north side of the house. The hip roof has two interior chimneys with corbel caps. The current owner is the great-granddaughter of Mr. Brunson.”
Information from: Historic Resources of the Lowcountry, The Lowcountry Council of Government, Cynthia C. Jenkins, Preservation Planner – Published, 1979
This is one of several sites on R&R pertaining to Mr. Brunson.
This home, also known as the Legatsy Caroline Brunson Williams House, was built and furnished prior to 1880 by William Edgar Brunson, Sr. for his daughter, Legatsy Caroline Brunson, when she married Thomas Wesley Williams. Vincent Fontaine also built this house. Original plaster and heart-of-pine floors remain in the front rooms. Original furnishings remained in the front three rooms until the house was sold in 1997, when the owner and granddaughter of William Edgar Brunson, Sr., Hugh Esther “Cooey” Williams Preacher, died. Until that time, the home remained in the family for four generations. When Leroy Franklin Brunson’s wife, Mary H., died in Orlando, Fla. in 1928, Frank moved back to Brunson to live with Legatsy Caroline and Leslie Arthur “Buster” until his death in 1936. He brought with him all his worldly possessions in a chest of drawers, now in the home of Legatsy Caroline Preacher Krueger, great-granddaughter and namesake of Legatsy Caroline Brunson Williams.
When Hugh Clarke Williams, the son of Legatsy and Thomas Wesley, died at the age of 39, his widow, Kate Youmans Williams and her two daughters, Katherine Clark and Hugh Esther “Cooey,” moved from a large columned house on Railroad Avenue to the home of Legatsy Caroline. When Legatsy died in 1936, “Cooey” and Wyman Preacher, her husband, moved in to help take care of Leslie Arthur Williams, “Cooey’s” uncle, a bachelor. Wyman and Cooey reared their three children, Legatsy Caroline, Hugh Wyman, and Thomas Mems, in this house, and “Cooey” lived here until her death in 1997. Wyman was killed in a car accident on Labor Day 1977 (hit by a drunk driver). The street in front of the home now called North Main was originally Matthews Bluff Road and was the first street in Brunson. The huge post oak in the front yard, which sadly is rapidly deteriorating, is the largest of its species in South Carolina. The Preachers were given a certificate from Clemson University in July 1972 citing its acclaim. This house in its past served as the headquarters for Methodist conferences and conventions. It is now owned by Mr. and Mrs. Hollis Chandler.
Information courtesy of the Brunson Driving Tour – Brunson Family Reunion Committee, 2006
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