J.W. Shockley House and Highland PO
City Directories and History: “The old Highland Home post office (later changed names to Barksdale PO), stands today on a state highway connecting Laurens and Greenville and looks very much as it did when built more than two hundred years ago. From information given by older residents of the Barksdale community, it has been determined that the house was erected by John Shockley and designated as a post office, the date of erection not clear. John Shockley served as postmaster. He, with other members of the family, is buried in a plot to the rear of the old house.
The Reverend Jodie Martin, Baptist minister in Laurens County for half a century, told the present owner more than fifty years ago that he, Reverend Martin, could at that time trace the history of the house for 165 years. A Table of Post Offices in the United States, No. 5, October, 1875, (supplied by Senator Strom Thurmond of Washington, D. C.) lists Highland Home in Laurens County. The Postal Guide of January, 1898, lists the post office as Barksdale, with apparently no change in location. The old pigeonhole cabinet was still in the house when the place was purchased from the Shockley family.
Mr. Thomas W. Barksdale of the vicinity remembers the “mail grab” (mail pouch attached to a pole at arm’s length from the railroad track in front of the old house) some years after the rail line was extended from
Laurens to Greenville (1886). Prior to the rail mail service, the stagecoaches brought in and picked up postal matter.
Mr. and Mrs. Walter Dorroh Patton bought the property from members of the Shockley family. After Mr. Patton’s death, his widow later married P. W. Manley, and they occupy the home at this time.”
Information from: The Laurens County Sketchbook, Author – J.S. Bolick, 1973
Post Offices via Elmer Parker’s S.C. Post Office History Book, 1989 states: the Highland Home PO operated from 1856 / the Civil War with James Brewster – Postmaster
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