Richard A. Spring (1807 – 1874) and Susan J. Springs ( – 1881) The Springs family was one of the wealthiest and highly educated members of the planter class. Richard Alston Springs had grown up in Fort Mill but moved to the westside of the Catawba and built his magnificent Springsteen Plantation overlooking the river, facing east.
On October 31, 1849, Susan Jane Bobo was married to Richard Austin Springs (1807-1874), a scion of one of York District‘s oldest and wealthiest families. He was the son of John Springs and his wife, Mary Laura (Springs) Springs. Known as ―Austin by his family and as ―Dick‖ by his intimate friends, Richard Austin Springs was a man widely known for strength of character, genial disposition, loyalty to friends and family, and freedom from pretense of any type or kind. Though he was twenty-two years older than his wife, theirs was a congenial companionship seldom found even among younger couples. His devotion to her was absolute: he could never discern a flaw, either in person or in character. The reader will find it of interest to know that Mr. Springs was a classmate and personal friend of Edgar Allan Poe, at the University of Virginia.
Springstein, the great plantation seat of Mr. and Mrs. Springs, was the showplace of the District, noted for its broad fields, its extensive orchards, and its almost limitless forests. Located about three miles to the east of Rock Hill, Springstein was, together with Col. Cadwallader Jones‘s Mount Gallant and Frederick L. J. Pride‘s Wyoming, the social mecca of the area about Rock Hill in the days before and immediately following the War Between the States. The Springses were lavish in their hospitality, particularly so to the Methodist clergy who happened to pass along the road or who were appointed to preach in any of the neighboring churches. And, too, the Springses were equally interested in supporting the work of the Baptists and Presbyterians, be they black or white. Their openhandedness to high and low alike was common knowledge. Their acts typified the highest and the best motives that characterized the planter aristocracy of the Old South. [Much of this information was taken from Wm. B. White’s book, Along the Lands Ford Road, Vol. II]
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