43 South Congress Street – Rose Hotel / Palmetto Hotel

The Yorkville Enquirer contained an ad on March 11, 1863 – “Dr. Alfred Craven is the resident surgeon dentist on the east side of Main Street, south of the Palmetto Hotel.”

The Yorkville Enquirer reported on Dec. 21, 1865 – “Alfred Craven is offering for sale his house and lot in Yorkville adjoining the Roses Hotel.  It contains five rooms, the necessary outbuildings, and a splendid office, which could be converted into a store house.”

The Yorkville Enquirer, quoting the Columbia Union reported on Oct. 17, 1872 – “Mr. Wm. E. Rose, of Rose’s Hotel, has been making extensive improvements.  Two billiard tables have been added and he may build a wing to provide 40 additional rooms.”

On July 3rd 1873 the Yorkville Enquirer reported – “Last Tuesday the kitchen on the premises of Mr. J. Ed. Jefferys narrowly escaped destruction by fire which spread from the stove to kindling on the floor.  The fire was extinguished, principally by the efforts of the soldiers stationed at Yorkville.”

The paper contained an ad on Feb. 15, 1877 – “For a valuable hotel property for sale. The commodious three story b rick building on Main St., in Yorkville, nearly opposite the courthouse for many years, known as Rose’s Hotel will be sold. It contains 50 guest rooms, separate building for servants, a good stable, a garden, and a yard lot.  There is a well with fine water.  The Chester and Lenoir railroad runs to the rear. Contact W.E. Rose at Rose’s Hotel in Columbia, S.C.”

On April 5, 1877 the paper reported – “The work of renovating and repairing the Rose Hotel is progressing rapidly.  Carpenter, plasterers and painters are working under the supervision of Mr. Rose, and he hopes to reopen soon.”

The paper also contained an ad on Sept. 27, 1877 – “The prop. of Roses Hotel wishes to thank the general public for their patronage received during the recent term of court. Mrs. Elizabeth Smith, Prop.”

The RH Herald reported on Sept. 2, 1880 – “The roof of the kitchen connected with the Roses Hotel in Yorkville was recently found to be on fire.  The flames were quickly put out.”

The Yorkville Enquirer of July 27, 1882 reported – “Mr. C.G. Parish has broken ground for the erection of a two story brick building on Congress Street on the lot south of the bank.”

The Yorkville Enquirer contained an ad on Dec. 20, 1883 – “H.W. Smith gave notice that he had taken charge of the hotel, which will hereafter be known as the Yorkville Hotel.  We are available for the traveling public and permanent borders.” Also on the same date the paper ran an ad for – “James Reese, late of Columbia, is a practical barber and informs the citizens of Yorkville that he has opened a shop two doors below the Yorkville “Roses Hotel”.

The Yorkville Enquirer reported on Aug. 21, 1884 – “Dr. J.F.G. Mittag, a gentlemen well known by many of our citizens in years past and an artist of no mean reputation, is now in Yorkville and will make his home here with his daughter Mrs. Craven.” (It is unclear which Mrs. Craven they refer.) The paper contained an ad on Nov. 13, 1884 placed by J.F.G. Mittag which stated – “During my recent stay of several months in Yorkville I have had pleasant connections with the citizens.  I am returning today to Lancaster.”

The Rock Hill Herald reported on Nov. 29, 1888 – “The Yorkville Hotel, which has been operated by Mr. H.W. Smith, has been leased by Mr. John E. Thames, a veteran hotel man of Charleston.  The building is being thoroughly renovated and should reopen in January.  Mr. Thames will be assisted by his son in law, Mr. A.S. Withers, who has experience in the Hotel Business.”

The Yorkville Enquirer of Feb. 13, 1889 reported – “On Feb. 2, Dr. D.C. Atkinson moved his drug store from Chester to Yorkville opening in the Dr. Craven House near the 3C’s Hotel.  He dispensed whiskey to a number of patients, writing the prescriptions himself.  He has now been arrested.”

City Directories and History:  Rose’s Hotel 1908 – Mary E. Buggeln, prop. Yorkville Hotel, 1958 – Carolina Carpet Mills, Inc., Budyed Yarn Inc., 1966 – Carolina Carpet Mills, York Rug Mills, Inc., Cloniger Brothers Real Estate

This historic Rose hotel was built in 1852 by Dr. James Rufus Bratton and Dr. E. A. Crenshaw. It was called the Rose Hotel after the Rose family who operated it for many years. The Rose Hotel was referred to in Columbia and Charleston newspapers as being “one of the most palatial hotels in the Up-Country.” The building is an example of classical commercial architecture with its brick and

Image courtesy of photographer Bill Segars – 2015

concrete stucco pilasters and Greek Revival double gallery. This building remained a hotel until the end of World War II, when it was purchased by the Cloniger Brothers and used as a carpet manufacturing plant. After standing idle for decades, it now has become apartments and offices. At the end of the War Between the States, Confederate States Secretary of War Breckenridge, fleeing the fall of Richmond with Jefferson Davis, spent the night in York and made a speech to the populace from its second-story gallery, telling the people to “keep the
faith”.

During post-war Reconstruction, the Rose Hotel housed six companies of the U.S. 7th Cavalry and two companies of infantry, “Occupation troops”. The notorious Captain Merrill and his troops remained here until 1876, when former Confederate Cavalry General Wade Hampton was elected Governor and restored order. President Hayes relieved them in 1877. The building was completely renovated and turned into apartments and offices in 2000.  [Courtesy of the Yorkville Historical Society – 2002]

The Yorkville Enquirer of Nov. 2, 1870 reported the Colonel Merrill has made additional arrest and also two hundred people have made confessions of KKK activity.  Arrested since the last list was printed:  S.C. Sadler, W.H. Snider, W.H. White, Riley Moss, Dr. T.B. Whitesides, D.R. Neely, L.H. Neely, Reuben McCall, Leander Spencer, H.Z. Porter, W.B. Sherer, S.H. Sherer, Sherrod Childers, R.H. Mitchell, J.J. Waters, J.S. Poag, R.W. Wylie, Samuel Stuart, Minor Moore, Frank Fewell, and Cornelius Pride. The last four men listed are African American.  Several men previously arrested have been released.  These include Perry Moss, Cillas Moss, W.G. Gaffney, Lewis Ramsey, James Ratterree, Dr. J.B. Allison, and W.T. Spencer.  A total of 103 men have been confined to the jail, 88 are still under confinement. Two negros area in the jail while others are in the guard house.

The Yorkville Enquirer reported on Jan. 4, 1888 – The Yorkville Hotel, which has been advertised for rent by the owner W.E. Rose, will be conducted this year by its former manager, Mr. H.W. Smith.”

The Yorkville Enquirer reported on Dec. 19, 1888 – “The management of Rose Hotel may change.  For the past eleven years Mr. Henry W. Smith has been the manager.  Mr. Thomas W. Clawson of Yorkville is in negotiations with the owner of the hotel Mr. William E. Rose of Columbia to take over management.”

On June 19, 1889 the YV Enquirer reported – “Mr. C.G. Parish has leased the Parish Hotel to Mr. T.W. Clawson, who since the first of last Jan., has been conducting the Rose Hotel under the name of the 3 C’s Hotel.  Mr. Parish has taken a railroad contract in Virginia.”

The Yorkville Enquirer reported on Jan. 7, 1891 – “Mr. T.W. Clawson, Prop. of the CCC Hotel, has reopened in the Rose Building.”

The Herald reported on March 11, 1896, concerning the death of General Merrill, “This name does not recall pleasant memories in York County, being associated with the cruel persecution of the KKK.”

The Rock Hill Herald reported on Jan. 15, 1902 – “Mr. James Ratterree has moved from his home in York County to Blacksburg, S.C.” (It is likely that this James Ratterree is the same as that mentioned previously.)

*** The 1910 Sanborn map lists this location as #50 South Congress.

CRENSHAWS OF YORK
(Found in The Gist Family of South Carolina and its Maryland Antecedents by Wilson Gee, privately printed for the author by Jarman’s Incorporated, Charlottesville, Virginia, 1934, pp. 67-68.) William C. Gist was married to Frances Dorothy Caroline Crenshaw, December 31, 1860, at the home of Dr. E. A. Crenshaw, the bride’s father in Yorkville, South Carolina.. \A footnote identifies the bride.] Frances Dorothy Caroline Crenshaw was bom at Yorkville, South Carolina, September 17, 1840. She was graduated from the Yorkville Female College in the Class of 1857. Her descent is as follows: Paternal Crenshaw line – Robert Crenshaw, Sr., native of the State of Virginia, ‘Whig of the American Revolution,’ married Elizabeth Beaufort (born December 3, 1738) of or near Prince William County, Virginia. After the Revolutionary War, he removed to South Carolina, Union District, and became a farmer. There are relatives in Culpepper, Fauquier and Prince William counties, Virginia.

Robert Crenshaw, Jr. was born July 8, 1775; married Dorothy Abell, December 18, 1802; died February 21,1816. He lived on a farm on Tyger River, Union District, South Carolina. Ephraim Abell Crenshaw, only child, was born September 16, 1804. He was licensed to preach in the Independent Presbyterian Church in November, 1833. He declined that church’s jurisdiction in 1840, joined the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., October 3, 1840, and recommenced mercantile business in Yorkville, South Carolina in 1842. His death occurred on April 9,1876. For more than thirty years he was a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church in Yorkville, South Carolina. His second wife was Margaret Ewart Adams, whom he married on April 11, 1839. Mrs. Augusta Evans Wilson, famous Southern author, was the granddaughter of Mrs. Patsy (Martha) Crenshaw Evans, who was the aunt of Ephraim Abell Crenshaw and helped to care for him in his motherless infancy.  (Information courtesy of and from: YCGHS – The Quarterly Magazine)

SAMUEL B. HALL & MAJ. LEWIS MERRILL by Louise Pettus
In the dark days of the Reconstruction era, it was easy for the unscrupulous to take advantage of the situation to line their own pockets and to advance in political office. Two men of totally different background, happened to find their opportunity to profit in the county seat town of York. Their lives crossed in a strange way. The first man, Samuel B. Hall, a native of York with a good classical education, married, a father, and politically ambitious, joined the Republican Party’s radical branch, as he frankly admitted, “to make money out of it.”

Hall joined the Union League in March 1870 in an initiation ceremony with a half dozen other whites and blacks who he thought shared his motives and “had no scruples as to how the money was made.” The Radical Republicans saw to it that Hall became probate judge of York County.in the fall of 1870. A part of Hall’s eligibility was that he had not served in the Confederate forces. The second man, Maj. Lewis A. Merrill, was a graduate of West Point, where he earned the nickname “Dog” Merrill, had headed a Union cavalry unit during the Civil War and came to York in 1871 to head the federal occupation forces and to subdue the Ku Klux Klan activity in a nine-county area. Merrill and Co. K. Seventh Cavalry soon were rounding up anyone suspected of possibly being a Ku Klux Klan member. The arrests were generally made after midnight with the head of the household routed from his bed and taken away without any explanation to the terrified family. Later it was written that “even Merrill’s subordinate officers were ashamed of his ruffianism in 1871.”

During the August political campaigning of 1872, Samuel B. Hall spoke to about 500 York citizens from the courthouse steps. He was defending himself against Merrill’s charges that Hall had used the probate judge’s office to line his own pockets. Indignantly, Hall struck back with the accusation that Merrill was guilty of the “most infamous lie that was ever told on the streets of Yorkville, even in the State House at Columbia.” Hall charged that Merrill, “by the use of money and having men swear lies, thought he could go to work to have the Writ of Habeas Corpus suspended” but that, instead, Merrill was thwarted by Pres. U. S. Grant’s pardon of Merrill’s chief intended victims. Hall contended that Merrill, nevertheless, threatened the innocent and extorted money from them. To press his charges further, Hall wrote a little book titled “A Shell in the Radical Camp” in which he gave an account of York’s Union League members and their behavior. Hall also recounted stories he had heard of Merrill’s cowardice during the Civil War.

Hall’s shocking little book didn’t help his own cause. He was arrested by the party he had lately been a part of, tried and convicted of “official misconduct.” He was sentenced to one year in the county jail and was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine. Major Merrill, who had recently passed the S. C. bar examination and become a practicing lawyer, persuaded the S. C. legislature to award him $15,000 for his “services”. The impropriety of a Union officer acting as an attorney in court cases that he instigated, plus requesting a reward for army services, was questioned by people even of his own party. Perhaps this is why Merrill was quickly transferred to Fort Dakota in the west. However, Merrill stayed only a short time in Dakota before being transferred to Louisiana to head the military district of northern Louisiana.

While Hall was in jail, a Union officer named Benner, who was drunk at the time, “foully and grossly” approached the teen-aged daughter of Hall. Infuriated, Hall wrote a letter to a Charlotte, N. C. newspaper, Southern Home, owned and edited by the Civil War general, D. H. Hill, a York County native. After the newspaper printed the “insult”, Benner, thinking that Hill was to be the speaker at a Sunday School convention at York County’s Bethel Church, sent a posse to arrest Hill for libel. Hill did not appear (and said he was not invited), but word got around of Benner’s intentions and he was soon transferred. When Benner and his Union detachment left, Southern Home editorialized that it was good riddance of “the herd of a band of rough riders as ferocious and unfeeling as the dragoons of Cleverhouse.”

(Information courtesy of and from: YCGHS – The Quarterly Magazine)

R&R HISTORY LINK: 
THE RUFUS BRATTON HOUSE (DEMOLISHED)

R&R HISTORY LINK: 
THE LATTA HOUSE

In 1832, Yorkville had the Village Hotel (location unknown), where George P. White of then Fort Mill, S.C. and later Rock Hill, S.C. stayed. Courtesy of the White Family Collection – 2008

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