City Directories and History: 1917 – W.E. Meng (President of the Meng and Garrett Food Brokerage), 1948 – Luther C. Nabors, 1975 – Laurens Lumber Company
“The Joe Crews house, a sturdy building shrouded in legendary mystery, was another of the many landmarks to become a victim of the destructive agent fire.
The house, erected on the lot where the Laurens Lumber Company now stands, is thought to have been built in 1835 as a wide board on the rear of the building bore some chiseled names and the year 1835. Mrs. Bessie Watts Royall in a paper read before the Henry Laurens Chapter, D.A.R., and reproduced in the Laurens Advertiser of April 9, 1931, said “the Crews house was built by Mr. Hastings Dial, a cousin of Doctor W. H. Dial. . ..,” this being one of the forty-seven houses in the town of Laurens in 1857.
The hardwood sills and floor joists of hewn logs were put together with pegs. There was a wide piazza across the front of the house, and the windows of twelve panes in each section were made of old type glass with bubbles. The exterior was weatherboarded. In the interior there were oversized rooms with heart pine floors of wide boards and plastered walls. The rooms on the second floor, called a half story, were smaller than the first floor partitioned areas.
Mr. Crews was said to have been involved in a political movement which could not be sanctioned by a majority of the leaders of the local government. As a result, he was ambushed while making his way to the state’s capital and died from the attack.
The house was occupied at different periods by the Will Meng family, by the W. H. Glenn family and by Captain W. F. Byers of the State Highway system.
In 1946, Roy Bobo Owings and G. Edwin Owings, brothers, bought the Crews property to be used as sales office for the Laurens Lumber Company. During excavation, a rock wall was found deep under the present shop building, perhaps a part of the secret hiding place for ammunition supplies which Mr. Crews was accused of maintaining in support of some of his activities. Between the outer and inner sections of a wall in the house were found two swords of a very old type.All traces of the Joe Crews house were erased when a fire about three years ago made necessary the building of a new structure from foundation up in which to house the lumber company.”
Information from: The Laurens County Sketchbook, Author – J.S. Bolick, 1973
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