City Directories and History: Alexander Black II , the father of Alex. T. Black, was born probably in County Antrim, Northern Ireland in 1761, and immigrated to America well before the Revolution. He married Isabella Wilson. Some years before 1812, the Blacks and their children removed from the neighborhood of Moore’s Branch to the area that was to become the site of the town/city of Rock Hill. A reliable history of the Black family tells us that Alexander Black bought the Rock Hill lands from a Johnston (or Johnson) family that was planning to move to the West, probably to Tennessee. Two witnesses to the will of Alexander Black I were Joseph Johnston and Alexander Johnston who are both shown in the United States Census of 1790 as residents of York County, S.C. It is likely that one or more of the men in this family sold the Rock Hill lands to Alexander Black II. The date of the transaction is not known and no deed has survived.
(Along the Landsford Road, by Wm. B. White, Jr. Vol., I – 2008)
“This house, a weather boarded log structure, dated from the early years of the nineteenth century and stood on the western side of
Watson‘s Branch and faced the stream. In the twentieth century the Harris Manufacturing Company was built nearby. The site was sold later to the Rock Hill Body Company. After WWI the Black homestead was moved several hundred feet to the west, coming to rest on the western side of what is called today Lee Street. Todd Lumber Company eventually occupied the land just north of the Black house, which was torn down in the spring of 1964. From the photograph found in the Evening Herald, April 2, 1964.” (Courtesy of Along the Land’s Ford Road, Vol. I, p. 119 by Wm. B. White, Jr.)
The Herald reported on Oct. 15, 1902 – “On the death of Isabella White, the widow of the late William White of Spartanburg. She was the daughter of Alexander T. Black and was born in a house that still stands at the rear and not far from the home of Mr. F.W. Hall. This is the old home of the Black Family, who were then the owners of much of the land which is now the City of Rock Hill. Mrs. White returned to Rock Hill upon the death of her husband.”
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