South Carolina from A to Z

“B” is for Bull, William, II (1710-1791). Lieutenant governor. Born in South Carolina, Bull served in the Commons House of Assembly for thirteen years. While Speaker of the House, he collaborated with his father--a member of the Royal Council--to expand colonial authority. In 1749 he joined the Royal Council. In 1759 Bull became president of the Council and lieutenant governor—a post he held until 1775. During that time span he was acting governor on five occasions--for a total of eight years of service. In 1777 he refused to take the oath of allegiance to South Carolina’s revolutionary government and was banished from the state. When British forces captured Charleston in 1780, Bull returned home. With the end of the American Revolution, William Bull,II sailed back to England into a second, permanent exile.

“B” is for Bull, William (1683-1755). Planter, lieutenant governor. A native South Carolinian, Bull had a long political career that began in the proprietary era and continued for thirty-five years after South Carolina became a royal colony. He represented Berkeley and Craven Counties in the Eighth, Tenth, and Fifteenth Assemblies and was appointed by the Lords Proprietors to the Grand Council. During the 1720s Bull was a valuable member of the government. He served continuously on the Grand Council from 1719 to 1755 and as its president, and he was lieutenant governor from 1738 until his death in 1755. As a long-serving, native-born Council member, Bull’s attachment to colonial prerogative increased the power of the Commons House of Assembly. From 1737 until the arrival of Governor James Glen in 1743, William Bull was acting governor of South Carolina.

“B” is for Bryan, Hugh (1699-1753). Planter, evangelist. As a youth, Bryan was captured by Indians during the Yamasee War of 1715. According to later testimony, while a captive he “met with the Bible among the Indians,” which sustained him during his ordeal and laid the groundwork for his future spirituality. A leading rice planter in St. Helena’s Parish, Bryan actively evangelized among his slaves and prophesied that the colony would be destroyed by “African Hosts” unless it repented and turned from its misguided ways. In 1742 the Commons House ordered his arrest. He fled and underwent a crisis of faith. Shortly thereafter Hugh Bryan wrote to the Speaker of the House apologizing for “the Dishonour I've done to God as well as the Disquiet which I may have occasioned to my Country.”

“B” is for Brown Fellowship Society. The Brown Fellowship Society was established in 1790 by free persons of color in Charleston. It is one of the earliest institutions funded by free African Americans in South Carolina. During its early history, free Blacks received minimal benefits from public services and had to provide for their own needs. The organization maintained its own cemetery and if a deceased member left insufficient funds for the care of survivors the society provided assistance. Membership was originally limited to fifty men drawn from Charleston’s free mulatto elite and their descendants. Affiliation with the society became a marker of aristocratic status within Charleston's Black community. The society had its own buildings and held regular banquets and celebrations. The Brown Fellowship Society continued as a social and burial society into the 1990s.

“S “is for Spillane, Frank Morrison (1918-2006). Author. Nicknamed “Mickey” by his father, Spillane was born in Brooklyn. After service in World War II, he returned to New York and the comic-book business. Needing money for a house, he turned out his first novel, I, the Jury (1947) in three weeks. The protagonist, Mike Hammer, a hard-drinking private investigator fond of buxom women and vigilante justice, became a household name by 1953, with five more Hammer novels selling millions of paperbacks.  The Mike Hammer character was developed for radio, movies, and TV. In 1953 he moved his family to Murrell's Inlet, where he resided until his death. In 1995 he received the Grand Master Award of the Mystery Writers of America. As of 2025 Frank Morrison Spillane's books had sold somewhere between 200 and 225 million copies.

“S” is for Spencer, James Alexander (1850-1911). Legislator, educator. Spencer was born in Charleston, the son of free persons of color. He acquired a good education and like his parents was a practicing Catholic. As a member of the SC House of Representatives, he introduced and worked for legislation to improve funding for public education. In Charleston when he was denied membership in the White-dominated Charleston branch of the Catholic Knights of America, he organized a separate chapter for Blacks. Spencer played a leading role in the national Black Catholic lay congresses held from 1889 to 1894. He presided over the third Congress in 1892, making an impassioned plea for education. James Alexander Spencer was president of the fourth Catholic Lay Congress in 1893 where he deplored the establishment of special churches for African Americans.

“S” is for Spence, Floyd Davidson (1928-2001). Legislator, congressman. Spence was born in Columbia. In 1956 he was elected as a Democrat to the South Carolina House of Representatives. In 1962 he switched to the Republican Party, one of the first legislators in the state to do so. In 1966 he was elected to the South Carolina Senate, where he served as minority party leader. In November 1970 Spence was elected to the U.S. Congress representing the Second Congressional District. Spence was a strong supporter of the military as well as an advocate for limited government. He began his service on the House Armed Services Committee in 1971 and from 1995 to 2001 he was chair of the committee. The Army Reserve Center at Fort Jackson, SC is named in honor of Floyd Davidson Spence.

“B” is for Bull, Stephen (died 1800). Soldier, legislator. Born in South Carolina, Bull was descended from one of the first families of colonial South Carolina. He represented Prince William’s Parish in the Commons House of Assembly (1757-1760), the First and Second Provincial Congresses (1775-1776) and the First and Second General Assemblies (1776-1778). With the onset of the American Revolution, unlike most members of his family, he supported the American cause. He led his regiment in the occupation of Savannah in 1776 and was promoted to brigadier general. With General William Moultrie, he participated in the American victory at the Battle of Port Royal. After the fall of Charleston, Bull went into self-imposed exile in Virginia. After the war Stephen Bull was a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1783 to 1790.

“B” is for Brown, William Melvin, Jr. (1934-1994). Manufacturer. A native of Charleston, Brown was a graduate of South Carolina State College and later earned a master's degree from Atlanta University. In 1972 he created American Development Corporation (ADCOR,) the first minority-owned manufacturing plant in the Southeast. By the early 1990s ADCOR was realizing revenues of more than $30 million annually and employed 350 men and women. The manufacturing equipment and environmental testing facilities were geared mostly to sophisticated defense contracts. By the time of Brown's death, ADCOR was the largest minority-owned manufacturing company in the United States. William Melvin Brown, Jr., was the first African American named to the Palmetto Business Forum, the State's Ports Authority Board, the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame, and the South Carolina Public Service Authority (Santee Cooper).

“B” is for Brown, Thomas (1750-1825). Soldier. Brown was among the most notorious loyalist commanders in the South during the Revolutionary War. He immigrated to Georgia in 1774. In 1775 the local Sons of Liberty seized and tortured Brown when he refused to renounce his allegiance to his king. He escaped and fled to the South Carolina backcountry where he joined an active group of loyalists. In 1779 he commanded the King's Carolina Rangers, a regular provincial corps. That same year he was appointed one of two British superintendents of the Southern Indian Department, thereby putting Creek and Cherokee relations under his control. In 1780 Brown established his headquarters at Augusta and directed the activities of Tories and Indians against the patriots. After the Revolutionary War, Thomas Brown settled on St. Vincent Island in the Bahamas.

“B” is for Brown, Thomas (1750-1825). Soldier. Brown was among the most notorious loyalist commanders in the South during the Revolutionary War. He immigrated to Georgia in 1774. In 1775 the local Sons of Liberty seized and tortured Brown when he refused to renounce his allegiance to his king. He escaped and fled to the South Carolina backcountry where he joined an active group of loyalists. In 1779 he commanded the King's Carolina Rangers, a regular provincial corps. That same year he was appointed one of two British superintendents of the Southern Indian Department, thereby putting Creek and Cherokee relations under his control. In 1780 Brown established his headquarters at Augusta and directed the activities of Tories and Indians against the patriots. After the Revolutionary War, Thomas Brown settled on St. Vincent Island in the Bahamas.

“S” is for Spartanburg Pellagra Hospital. The pellagra hospital in Spartanburg was the nation's first facility dedicated to discovering the cause of that baffling and serious disorder. Established in 1914 with a special congressional appropriation to the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) and set up primarily for research, the hospital was the result of mutually reinforcing factors. One was pellagra's growing threat: 1,306 reported pellagra deaths in South Carolina during the first ten months of 1915; 100,000 southerners infected in 1916. Another was the need of the PHS for a clinic to conduct metabolic studies on pellagra to establish its probable dietary origin. By the time the facility closed down in 1921, the Spartanburg Pellagra Hospital had helped scientists prove the dietary basis of pellagra and enabled hundreds of South Carolinians to rid themselves of a life-threatening disease.

“S” is for Spartanburg Methodist College. The college traces its origins to the Textile Industrial Institute (TII), founded in 1911 by David English Camak then pastor of Duncan Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, South in the Spartan Mill Village. Concerned with the plight of southern cotton textile workers Camak determined to devote his life to ministry among mill workers. He persuaded the president of Spartan Mill to provide space near the church for an elementary and secondary school. In 1927 TII began to offer the first two years of college level work, preparing students for transfer to four year institutions or for immediate employment. Because of the increasing availability of public schools to the families of textile workers, TII dropped high school courses in 1940. In 1942 the institution became Spartanburg Junior College until 1974 when it became Spartanburg Methodist College.

“S” is for Spartanburg County (811 square miles; 2020 population 328,000). Spartanburg County is located in the northwestern section of South Carolina in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The signing of a treaty with the Cherokees in 1755 made land grants available to British settlers. During the Revolutionary War fighting in the area resembled a civil war between Patriots and Loyalists. In 1785 Spartanburg was one of six counties established in the South Carolina interior by the General Assembly. In the latter part of the nineteenth century textile mills were built throughout the county, making Spartanburg an important textile center in the state and the nation. Peaches have replaced cotton as the county’s major cash crop.  In the years after World War II, Spartanburg County became internationally renowned for its successful recruitment of foreign industry. 

“S” is for Spartanburg (Spartanburg County; 2020 population 38,732). The town of Spartanburg was incorporated in 1831, its name originating from a local Revolutionary War regiment: the Spartan Rifles. During the antebellum years, the village was the commercial center of an overwhelmingly agricultural district in which cotton and corn were major crops. In the years following the Civil War the city's commercial and financial role expanded following a flurry of cotton mill building. In 1930 the first commercial radio station in the state, WSPA, went on the air. After World War II, the city's Chamber of Commerce, working in conjunction with state officials, endeavored to diversify the area's industry beyond its dependence on textiles. During the last half of the twentieth century, opposition to annexation severely limited the growth of Spartanburg and reduced its tax base.  

“C” is for Coram, Thomas (circa 1757-1811). Engraver, painter. Born in England, Coram emigrated to Charleston in 1769. He was largely a self-taught artist. By1778, he advertised his skill as an engraver and was designing money for South Carolina as early as 1779. Few examples of his engravings survive, but his own book plate, a seal for the Charleston Library Society, and several bills of credit created for the state of South Carolina evidence his skill. In 1784 Coram advertised the opening of a drawing school and one of his most noted pupils was the South Carolina artist Charles Fraser. The first known professional artist in the South to explore the art of landscape for purely aesthetic purposes, Thomas Corum derived his initial style and approach by studying and copying picturesque English books and engravings.

“C” is for Cooperationists. Cooperationists believed that slavery could ultimately be preserved only through disunion, but they differed with radical secessionists over the feasibility of South Carolina seceding alone. During the secession crisis of 1850 to 1851 the state was divided into three political factions: unionists who opposed secession outright; secessionists who wanted South Carolina to secede regardless of whether other states joined her or not; and the cooperationists. Cooperationists invoked the experience of nullification, when the state was without a single ally in an impending armed confrontation with the federal government. The scheduled October 1851 election for delegates to the now chimerical Southern Congress became a referendum on separate secession. The Cooperationists triumphed, collecting 58.8% of the votes cast and carrying all but one of the state’s congressional districts. The Cooperationists’ victory postponed South Carolina’s secession for almost a decade.

“C” is for Cooper River. The Cooper River and its tributaries drain much of the central portion of the lowcountry. The river flows out of Lake Moultrie, which is in turn fed by Lake Marion. The river combines with the Ashley to form Charleston harbor. English colonists named both rivers in honor of one of the Lords Proprietors, Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper. Cooper River rice planters assumed an important place in South Carolina politics. With the failure of rice culture in the early twentieth century, the banks of the Cooper River were turned to other purposes. There has been no single bigger developer of the Cooper than the U.S. Navy. In the twenty-first century the Cooper River has continued to be an industrial hub for the Charleston area and remained the center of the busy shipping industry.

“C” is for Cooper, Thomas (1759-1839). Educator, scientist. A native of England, Cooper attended Oxford. Discouraged by England's conservative reaction to the French Revolution, he immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1794 where he was active in politics.  In 1811Cooper returned to teaching chemistry and worked at several schools before arriving at South Carolina College in 1820. In South Carolina he completed his philosophical journey and became an ardent proponent of states’ rights. He became the second president of the South Carolina College in 1820 and taught courses in chemistry, mineralogy, and political economy. In 1824 he wrote his first pamphlet that espoused states’ rights philosophy, and he later became a strong supporter of nullification. Although he was not politically active in the movement, his writings led opponents of nullification to recognize Thomas Cooper as the intellectual leader of the nullifiers.

“C” is for Cooper, Robert Archer (1874-1953). Governor. A native of Laurens County, Cooper served two terms in the South Carolina House of Representatives. In 1919 with the support of outgoing governor Richard I. Manning, Cooper won the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial primary. In November he won an uncontested general election. Emulating the progressive policies of his predecessor, he proposed an ambitious reform program. Cooper and his legislative allies enacted measures that guaranteed seven month public school terms, as well as higher salaries for public educators. Buoyed by the optimism of a strong war-time economy, South Carolina voters approved of the governor's ambitious agenda and re-elected him in 1920. Unfortunately, Robert Archer Cooper's second term as governor was marked by a serious agricultural depression and post-war economic recession that undercut public support for his progressive programs.

“P” is for Purvis, Melvin Horace, Jr. (1902-1960). Federal agent. Born in Timmonsville, Purvis gained national fame during the 1930s as the nation’s “ace G-man.” After earning a law degree at the University of South Carolina, he joined the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation, the forerunner of the FBI. In 1932 Purvis, as senior agent in charge of the bureau’s Chicago field office, organized the operation that led to the death of John Dillinger (America’s “Public Enemy Number One”) during a shoot-out with agents. Three months later Purvis led a team that tracked down and killed Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd. Reporters made the modest agent a national celebrity. Unfortunately, the FBI’s director was jealous of Purvis’s publicity and basically ran him out of the agency. Melvin Horace Purvis, Jr., returned to Florence County where he remained until his death.

“P” is for Purrysburg (Jasper County). The town of Purrysburg, located on the Savannah River in present day Jasper County, was named after its founder, Jean-Pierre Purry. Born in Switzerland, Purry was a wine merchant who developed colonization plans for areas in the Dutch and British empires that could be suitable for agricultural development. The township plan initiated in 1731 under Governor Robert Johnson, provided the necessary impetus for the foundation of Purrysburg the following year.   In 1732 and 1733 some three hundred French-Swiss and German-Swiss colonists arrived in South Carolina with Purry to settle the 48,000-acre township. The inhospitable terrain and severe climate, land encroachments by British settlers, and bickering between French- and German-speaking settlers over linguistic matters, and most importantly, the relocation of many enterprising Purrysbergers to Charleston and Savannah condemned Purrysburg to remain a marginal southern frontier town. 

“P” is for Punches. Punches have been prominent at South Carolina social gatherings for centuries. When Eliza Lucas Pinckney recorded her favorite receipts (recipes) in 1756, she included a potent rum-laced punch. Though men often drank at home, they also enjoyed drinking in the rowdy atmosphere of the city's many taverns. Women also drank socially, at the parties and balls that were frequent in Charleston and on the neighboring plantations. Punches, which were much favored throughout the colonies, were made to serve a crowd, and individual recipes were named for particular social clubs such as the St. Cecilia Society. The tradition has continued for three hundred years. When the Junior League of Charleston published its fundraiser cookbook Charleston Receipts in 1950, it began with sixteen pages of recipes for beverages, many of them for punches that serve hundreds.

“S” is for Spanish moss. Spanish moss is gray tree-borne epiphyte native to the coastal plain of the southeastern United States. As an epiphyte, Spanish moss gets water and food from the air and does not harm the host tree. It is not a true moss but a relative of the pineapple family. Spanish moss produces small, yellow green, three-petaled flowers in the spring in early summer. Seedpods, carried by the wind, typically lodge in the bark of rough-barked trees. Individual mosses can extend over twenty feet in length and are host to red bugs and spiders. Many people find Spanish moss restful and comforting, while to others it suggests more sinister feelings. Draped in live oaks and cypress, Spanish moss is a familiar and evocative symbol of the South Carolina lowcountry.

“S“ is for Spanish. On a monument at the tip of Parris Island, a tile plaque proclaims, “Aqui estuvo España” (“Here was Spain”). The plaque refers to the colony of Santa Elena, located at this site (1566 to 1587), but the Spanish presence in South Carolina extended much longer than those twenty-one years. Some of Spain's earliest efforts at exploration, evangelization, and settlement in the present day United States Southeast took place within South Carolina's boundaries. In 1521 Spanish explorers on a slave-raiding expedition stopped in the area of Winyah Bay. In 1540 Hernando de Soto and his army of six hundred crossed the Savannah River seeking a route to Mexico. The settlement of Santa Elena  on Parris Island founded in 1566 (and the capital of the Spanish colony La Florida), was Spain's most significant venture in South Carolina

“P” is for PTL Club. Based first in Charlotte, North Carolina, and then Fort Mill, South Carolina, the PTL Club (launched in 1974) was one of the most successful ventures in televangelism for much of the 1970s and 1980s. PTL stood for both “Praise the Lord” and “People that Love.” Jim Bakker and his wife Tammy Faye used the popular program as a springboard to develop a Pentecostally oriented resort, theme park, shopping mall, cable network, and entertainment center called Heritage USA in Fort Mill. The complex drew more than five million visitors annually by the mid-1980s. When a sex scandal involving Bakker erupted in 1986 and 1987, he resigned in disgrace. Bakker went to prison and his wife divorced him. He turned over the PTL Club and Heritage USA to Jerry Falwell who remained at the helm only briefly.

“P” is for Provincials. When warfare broke out between the colonies and Great Britain in 1775, in addition to British soldiers and German mercenaries, British officials organized loyal Americans into conventional fighting units commonly referred to as provincials. A provincial soldier was a volunteer subject to the same control, benefits, and hardships as a British soldier. In 1780, the South Carolina Royalists (a unit actually formed in East Florida from loyal refugees who were chiefly from Ninety Six District), the King's American Regiment, and the British Legion were provincial units instrumental in the British victory at Charleston. Other provincial units –formed after the fall of Charleston--were the South Carolina Rangers and the Black Carolina Corps. With the end of hostilities, the officers and men of the various provincial units chose to relocate to Canada, Britain, and the West Indies.

“P” is for Promised Land (Greenwood and Abbeville counties; 2020 population 555). Located just off of S.C. Highway 10 south of Greenwood, this rural African American community was created by freed slaves in the early 1870s. The South Carolina Land Commission had acquired a 2,742-acre tract and in 1869 began selling fifty-acre lots to freed African Americans. By 1872 some forty-eight families resided in the community. The name derived from their “promise” to pay the commission for the land. Residents of Promised Land exerted a significant influence over the political, economic, and social life of rural Abbeville and Greenwood Counties. World War I, the boll weevil, and the Depression stimulated migration from Promised Land.  Many residents remained, however, and descendants of the original purchasers of Promised Land acreage occupied the land continually into the twenty-first century.

“C” is for Cooper, Anthony Ashley (1621-1683).  Lord proprietor. Born in Dorset, England, Cooper attended Exeter College, Oxford. In 1661, for his role in the restoration of the monarchy, he was elevated to the peerage and named Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1663 the king granted the joint proprietorship of Carolina to Lord Ashley and seven other English noblemen. With the aid of John Locke, Lord Ashley wrote the Fundamental Constitutions for the colony and oversaw arrangements for the expedition that brought the first permanent English settlers to South Carolina. In 1672 the king made him Lord High Chancellor and elevated his rank in the nobility by titling him the first Earl of Shaftesbury. As Anthony Ashley Cooper's political fortunes plummeted, he considered moving to Carolina but instead in 1682 went into exile in Amsterdam, where he died.

“C” is for Cooke, William Wilson (1871-1949.) Architect. Born in Greenville, Cooke attended Claflin College and later studied architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and art history at Columbia University. Between 1902 and 1907 he was a practicing architect working primarily in the Orangeburg area. In 1907 he passed the federal civil service examination and was assigned to the office of the supervising architect at the U.S. Treasury Department. In 1909 he was transferred to field operations where he supervised the construction of federal courthouses and post offices. He remained in the position until 1918 when he was promoted and transferred to the War Department. After World War I he practiced architecture in Gary, Indiana. The Depression ruined his business and in 1931 William Wilson Cooke returned to the supervising architect’s office as a construction engineer.

“P” is for Prince George Winyah Parish. Comprising portions of modern Georgetown, Horry, Marion, and Dillon Counties, Prince George Winyah Parish was established in 1721 to accommodate a wave of European settlers who had taken up residence north of the Santee River following the Yamasee War. One year earlier the inhabitants of “Winyaw” a burgeoning settlement on “Sampeet Creek,” had petitioned the assembly for parish organization because they were “so far distant from the next parish church to them that they had received no benefit from the same.” By the 1730s rice cultivation had begun to dominate the local economy, the port of Georgetown had been founded, and the parish’s center of population had shifted to the coast. With the abolition of the parish system in 1865, Prince George Winyah Parish became part of Georgetown, Horry, and Marion Counties. 

“S” is for Southern Wesleyan University. Southern Wesleyan University is a private Christian liberal arts institution. Founded in 1906 as Wesleyan Methodist Bible Institute, the university is affiliated with the Wesleyan Church, an evangelical denomination with Methodist roots in the American holiness tradition. The school was chartered as Wesleyan Methodist College in 1909 and in 1959 became Central Wesleyan College. The institution changed its name to Southern Wesleyan University in 1995. The university offers bachelor's degrees in disciplines ranging from the sciences to humanities and graduate programs in business, education, and religion. In 2000 Southern Wesleyan became the first school in the nation to offer a major in internet computing. A number of Southern Wesleyan University’s students are in non-traditional programs that offer evening and weekend classes to working adults at teaching sites across South Carolina.

“S” is for Southern Quarterly Review. The Southern Quarterly Review originated in New Orleans in 1842 but later moved to Charleston. It had the advantage of being not a literary magazine but rather a magazine open to any branch of knowledge. The Review was unabashedly a conservative southern magazine, advocating classicism in literature, agrarianism and slavery in economy, and Protestantism in religion. The antagonists were French philosophy, Voltaire, and the leaders of the French Revolution, all of whom were viewed as dangerous to government and to the South's predominant Protestantism. No magazine sketched better the idea of the southern gentleman with his “polished manners” and “moral excellences.” More than any other periodical, the magazine sought to define the incompatibilities that would necessitate the South’s becoming a separate nation. The Southern Quarterly Review’s last issue appeared in February 1857.

“S” is for South of the Border. Located just south of the North Carolina border near the South Carolina town of Hamer, South of the Border has long captured the attention of travelers on U.S. Highway 301 and Interstate 95. In 1950 beer distributor Alan Shafer expanded a one-room beer depot to include a twenty-four-hour diner. The opening of the South of the Border Motel in 1954 capitalized on growing tourist business. He also created “Pedro,” a sombrero-clad cartoon spokesman whose puns advertised South of the Border on billboards stretching from Virginia to Florida. At Schafer's death in 2001, the South of the Border entertainment complex covered 350 acres and included five restaurants, fourteen stores, three hundred motel rooms, a campground, an indoor miniature golf course, two fireworks outlets, and hundreds of larger than life statues. 

“S” is for South Caroliniana Library. The South Caroliniana Library building was completed in 1840 as the central library building for South Carolina College (later the University of South Carolina). It was the first freestanding college library building in the United States, predating those of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. The structure—on the university’s historic horseshoe-- contains design elements from several architects, most notably the South Carolina native and federal architect Robert Mills. A typical Mills architectural feature is the curved stairway leading to the second floor reading room, which was closely modeled after the original Library of Congress. In 1940 the university's general library collection was moved into a new facility. The historic building became the South Caroliniana Library, a repository for published and unpublished materials relating to the history, literature, and culture of South Carolina.

“P” is for Prince Frederick's Parish. Established in 1734, Prince Frederick's Parish stretched like an elongated triangle from the Santee River northward “to the utmost bounds of the province,” encompassing all our part of modern Dillon, Marion, Florence, Horry, Georgetown, and Williamsburg Counties. Prior to 1730 European settlement north of the Santee was sparse. Still, in 1721 the assembly organized the area into Prince George Winyah Parish. In 1734 the assembly divided Prince George Winyah and its inland portion became Prince Frederick's Parish, which was granted two representatives. A major indigo producer, the parish flourished until foreign competition and the end of British bounties forced its decline in the last decades of the eighteenth century. Prince Frederick's Parish lost its status as an election district in 1790 and was divided into Liberty (Marion) and Williamsburg Counties.

“M” is for Musgrove, Mary (ca. 1700-1765). Mediator between the Creeks and the English. Musgrove was born Coosaponakeesa in Coweta, the Creek Nation (central Georgia), the daughter of a Lower Creek woman and a Charleston trader. Her father took her to Pon Pon, South Carolina, to be baptized and educated. She returned to the Creek Nation and married Johnny Musgrove, son of a Creek woman and a planter/trader. In 1733 she became interpreter and consultant on Indian affairs for Governor James Oglethorpe of Georgia.  In May 1752 Governor James Glen of South Carolian asked her halt a war between the Creeks and Cherokees that threatened the colony’s welfare and trade. By December 1752 she had secured that peace.  Colonists in both Georgia and South Carolina remained dependent on Mary Musgrove’s aid until she retired in 1759. 

“B” is for Brown, Lucy Hughes (1863-1911). Physician. Brown, a native of North Carolina, completed a medical degree at the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1894. After practicing medicine in North Carolina, she moved to Charleston and became the first Black female physician to practice in South Carolina. With several other African Americans, she contributed to the establishment of the Cannon Hospital and Training School for Nurses in 1897, which later was renamed McClennan-Banks Hospital. Brown headed the department of nursing training.  She also worked to advance the condition of African American women outside the Cannon Hospital. Lucy Hughes Brown served as a delegate to the National Colored Women's Congress at the 1895 Atlanta Exposition and assisted in the creating of resolutions addressing southern race relations and demanding safer conditions for women on public transportation. 

“B” is for Brown, James (1933-2006). Musician. Brown, likely South Carolina's most famous twentieth-century entertainer, was born near Barnwell. His career began in the 1950s in Augusta, Georgia, and grew into a music empire with a vast catalog of recordings, countless performances, and a global appeal that continued into the twenty-first century. While he was called the “Godfather of soul” his body of work formed the rhythmic foundations of funk, disco, and hip hop. When Brown began seriously to consider a career in music, he formed the Flames, the first of a series of backing bands that would contribute to the evolution of his trademark sound. His first hit came with the 1956 release of “Please, Please, Please.” A consummate entertainer James Brown gave his audiences the total experience of singing, dancing, and showbiz spectacle.

“B” is for Brown, Edgar Allan (1888-1975). Legislator. Brown was born in Aiken County. He represented Barnwell County in the South Carolina House of Representatives (1920-1926) and served as speaker (1925-1926).  In 1928 he was elected to the S. C. Senate where he remained until his retirement in 1972--serving as president pro tempore from 1942 to 1972. In September 1954 the South Carolina Democratic Party’s executive committee selected Brown as the party's candidate for a U.S. Senate seat. In response Strom Thurmond announced a write-candidacy and defeated Brown in his third attempt to be elected to the U.S. Senate. Edgar Allan Brown was a fiscal conservative and politically was one of the most powerful men in state government through his position as president pro tempore of the Senate and chair of the Senate Finance Committee. 

“B” is for Broughton, Thomas (d. 1737). Legislator, lieutenant governor. By the mid- 1690s Broughton had settled in South Carolina, emigrating from the West Indies. He quickly became involved in the Indian trade. Broughton acquired at least four plantations, including Mulberry on the Cooper River, where he built a massive, Jacobean-style brick mansion. In 1696 he was elected to the Commons House of Assembly. Broughton became lieutenant governor of South Carolina in 1731 after being recommended by his brother-in-law, Governor Robert Johnson. Following Johnson's death in 1735, Broughton assumed the role of acting governor. His brief administration was marked by a renewal of factional tensions in South Carolina--a situation exacerbated by his inept and arrogant actions in office. Thomas Broughton was among the most controversial figures in the early history of South Carolina.

“P” is for Primus Plot (May-June 1720). The Primus Plot was South Carolina's first alleged slave conspiracy. Word of this conspiracy surfaced while the colony’s atmosphere was tense. There were rumors that Spain would invade South Carolina and, in the process, arm the colony enslaved persons against its White inhabitants. South Carolina’s enslaved Black majority had quickly grown to nearly twice the number of its White population. The Commons House Assembly was told that a group of enslaved persons, led by a man named Primus, were going to destroy plantations and kill Whites as they fled toward St. Augustine. While existing evidence suggests that the Primus Plot was an effort by a group of enslaved persons to reach freedom in Florida, rather than a planned rebellion, White South Carolinians regarded it as an insurrection in the making.

“P” is for Preston, William Campbell (1794-1860). U. S. Senator. Preston was an 1812 graduate of South Carolina College. After studying law in Virginia and at the University of Edinburgh, he practiced law in Virginia. In 1824 Preston moved to South Carolina and represented Richland District in the South Carolina House of Representatives (1828- 1833). In 1833 he was elected by the General Assembly to U. S. Senate. In the Senate, he was considered by many to be an eloquent orator. He was an active critic of President Andrew Jackson, voting to censure the president in 1834. His opposition to Jackson led Preston into the emerging Whig Party. In 1842 he resigned from the Senate and returned to South Carolina. In 1846 William Campbell Preston was appointed president and professor of belle lettres at the South Carolina College.

“M” is for Myrtle Beach Pavilion. Until its closing in 2006 the Myrtle Beach Pavilion was located at 812 North Ocean Boulevard in the heart of Myrtle Beach. The Myrtle Beach Pavilion Amusement Park’s eleven acres of roller coasters, thrill rides, go-cart tracks, water rides, attractions, arcades, shops, and games were a tradition for seaside visitors for generations. The original pavilion was a wooden structure built in 1901. Owned and operated by Myrtle Beach Farms Company (later Burroughs & Chapin Company) this structure was replaced in 1923 with an immense new pavilion. That pavilion burned in 1944, and a concrete pavilion and amusement rides park reopened in 1949 just north of the old pavilion’s location. One of the most notable features of the Myrtle Beach Pavilion was the hand-carved 1912 Herschell-Spillman carousel. 

“M” is for Murrells Inlet (Georgetown County; 2020 population 9,740). Murrells Inlet is located twenty-two miles up the Waccamaw Neck from Georgetown. By the 1890s, people from inland South Carolina towns began to establish a summer colony along the inlet creekfront. Since inlet seafood could not be shipped out, then people would have to go there to get it; and throughout the twentieth century they did just that. The food was fried and the atmosphere friendly. After World War II, prosperity made the community more accessible, and local seafood restaurants benefited from close proximity to Myrtle Beach. Hurricane Hugo gave the creekfront a new look overnight. But, as it had before, Murrells Inlet rebounded and the community held on to its heritage and history--and its reputation as a great place to visit and a great place to eat.

“M” is for Murray, George Washington (1853-1926). Congressman. Murray was born an enslaved person near Rembert in Sumter District. He attended the University of South Carolina and taught school in Sumter County. During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, he acquired an influential role in Republican Party affairs. He came to be known as the “Republican Black Eagle” and served as a delegate to several Republican National conventions. In 1892 Murray successfully ran for Congress in the Seventh Congressional District. Serving in the House of Representatives from 1893 to 1897, he was often a maverick. Although a Republican, he frequently voted with the agrarian Populist bloc on such issues as the unlimited coinage of silver. Defeated for reelection in 1898 George Washington Murray was the last African American to represent South Carolina in Congress for nearly a century.

“B” is for Brooks, Preston Smith (1819-1857). Congressman. Born near the town of Edgefield, Brooks was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives in 1852. In May 1856 an unusually harsh speech by U.S. Senator Charles Sumner assailed South Carolina's role in American history (especially during the Revolutionary War) and attacked by name Senator Andrew P. Butler (a distant cousin of Brooks). With the aged Butler unable to defend himself or his state, the task fell to his nearest relative, Congressman Brooks. He entered the Senate chamber and struck Sumner in the head with a cane. A special House of Representatives committee recommended Brooks’s expulsion, but its report failed to receive the necessary two-thirds vote. Though Preston Smith Brooks denied the House’s constitutional jurisdiction over the matter, he resigned in July 1856 and was subsequently reelected to fill his own vacancy.

“B” is for Brodie, Laura (1908-2004). Herpetologist. Brodie was born at Rockwood Farm five miles southeast of Leesville. At an early age she developed an interest in the living things around the farm. While Brodie was at Winthrop College, her biology professor noted her interest and called her to the attention of Howard K. Gloyd, a well-known herpetologist. He helped Brodie get a position at the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. In 1946 she joined the staff of the herpetology department at the Chicago Natural History Museum (now the Field of Museum of Natural History), In 1956 after being in a horrible automobile accident, Laura Brodie was forced to retire and returned to her childhood home near Leesville, where she remained an important contributor to the herpetology collections of some of America's largest museums.

“B” is for Brookgreen Gardens. Brookgreen Gardens was created in 1931 by the sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington and her husband, Archer M. Huntington. The sculpture garden is situated on thirty acres in the middle of 9,100 acres of the South Carolina lowcountry stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Waccamaw River. The site is best known for its beautiful display gardens and its unraveled American figurative sculpture collection, as well as its commitment to conservation and preservation. Comprised of four former rice plantations, Brookgreen was envisioned as a showcase of art and nature, a sanctuary where monumental works of art would be displayed against the tapestry of magnificent live oak trees and towering pines. Some 375,000 visitors annually enjoy daily tours, seasonal events, and programs at Brookgreen.  Brookgreen Gardens was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1992.

“B” is for Bristow, Gwen (1903-1980.) Novelist. Born in Marion, Bristow graduated from Judson College in Alabama. After studying journalism at Columbia University, she became a reporter for the Times-Picayune in New Orleans. There she met and married Bruce Manning. Together they collaborated on the writing of four mystery novels. By the summer of 1934 they had moved to California where Bristow began to experiment with historical fiction. The result of this was the publication of Deep Summer (1937) her first best seller. By 1959 sales of Bristow’s books had reached nearly three million copies. Gwen Bristow’s natural storytelling ability, neatly devised and detailed plots, sharply drawn characters, telling eye for landscape and its detail, use of common sense, gift for dramatic effect, and emotional sincerity were the characteristics of her work that critics and reviewers singled out for praise.