“Nephew of Capt. W.L. Roddey….”
The Herald on March 25, 1940 reported, “Mr. and Mrs. J. Ray King have moved from Marion Street to their new home at the corner of Myrtle Drive and Charlotte Avenue.”
City Directories and History: 1908 – Edward Roddey, 1922/23 – Mrs. Fannie Roddey and W.B. Klugh,
“Next to the W. L. Roddey lot was the J. E. (J. Edwin) Roddey home, built in 1893. There had once been a much older house on this lot. Mr. Roddey was a nephew of Capt. W. L. Roddey. He was in the mercantile business (Roddey-Poe Mercantile Company). Bass Funeral Home was located in this house in the 1930’s and 1940’s.” [Robbins – White Tour History]
Undesignated Lot—As mentioned above, this lot was the location of the residence (built 1893) of J. Edwin Roddey, son of David C. Roddey. Some years after the house was razed, the lot was occupied by the C. & S. Building and the C. & S. Bank. The owner of the lot was Anna Reid (“Nan”) Roddey, widow of Tom White of Chester, S. C. She was the only surviving heir of Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Roddey. Her closest of kin was a cousin, Betsy (Poe) Ratterree, widow of Charles H. Ratterree, Jr. of Spartanburg, S.C.
No deed to the “Undesignated” lot was recorded at York. It is likely that the original deed from A. T. Black to David C. Roddey for this lot was among the papers of Mr. Roddey, who died young and in financial distress. And those papers were in Rock Hill for a time, in Fairfield for a time, and probably in Chester during the time when the Court of Equity was dealing with the partition and final settlement of Mr. Roddey’s bankrupt estate. The writer would like to believe that the original copy of the deed may yet come to light when the unsuspecting owner of the surviving family papers decides to take the time to go through the papers and organize them according to purpose and date.
A considerable historical interest attaches to this particular piece of property because it has changed hands fewer times than any other piece of property on Main Street, except for the First Presbyterian Church, directly across the street from the lot in question. As far as the writer knows, the “Undesignated” lot was in the hands of the Roddey family from the early 1850’s until the holdings of Nan Roddey White were dispersed in the third quarter of the twentieth century—and no researcher has yet found any document to prove otherwise.
Since the eastern boundary of the Roddey “Undesignated” lot was also the boundary between the lands of A. T. Black and those of Mrs. Ann H. White, there is more than the usual interest attached to any land transaction that might have taken place at that particular site. This
eastern boundary of the Roddey lot was not perpendicular to Main Street, as were the north-south lines of the other Black lots on the same street. When the heirs of Mrs. White deeded the lot adjoining the Roddey property on the east to the Presbyterian Church so that a manse (minister’s home) could be built there in 1888, they kept for themselves a fenced alley (about 10 or 12 feet wide) between the Roddey line and the manse line. The White lands in that area were a part of the old George P. and Ann (Hutchison) White homeplace lands. Their oldest child, a daughter, Miss Mary E. White, was still living at the old White home when the gift was made to the Church; and staunch, devout, strict Presbyterian that she was, Miss Mary, never absent from the House of God when there was a stated worship service there, was accustomed to going the entire distance from her house to the Church property without ever having to walk on any land but her own. “God did not make the asphalt,” as Miss Mary remarked to one of her neighbors. Hence, the alley reserved from the gift of the land. Finally, in the late 1920’s, after Miss Mary’s death, Mrs. Ed Roddey (born Fannie Poe), who owned the Roddey lot next to the manse lot, as noted above, persuaded the Presbyterian Church officers to straighten the boundary line between her land and theirs. She wanted to erect a commercial building (filling station) where her rose garden had always been. The author remembers the gas station/garage there as late as the 1950’s. When Mr. Hiram H. White surveyed and opened Elizabeth Lane in the 1920’s, he named the street after his beloved aunt, the late Miss Mary Elizabeth White.
The Rock Hill Journal reported on June 15, 1901 – “This spring Capt. W.L. Roddey conceived the idea of establishing a hospital to be called the Rock Hill City Hospital, for the better care of the sick and afflicted among the poor, and he had generously given $3,000. to be put into the building. The Kings daughters gave $800. and the community is raising $1,500. to buy a lot. The effort is called the Medical Society of Rock Hill.” Click on the More Information > link found below the picture column for additional data.
The Rock Hill Record reported on July 13, 1908 – “Mr. J.E. Roddey has made quite an improvement on his already handsome home on Main Street by adding a large piazza and giving it a fresh coat of paint.”
[Information provided via Along the Land’s Ford Road – Vol. I, 2008 by William B. White, Jr.]
The McElwee Store ledger of 1915, states that J. Edward Roddey and wife Fannie P., (VP of Roddey Mercantile), were account holders at the store.
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