|
Marion grew very slowly. In 1838, when the writer first saw it, it was a mere hamlet. The native oak saplings were then growing in the public square, to which persons going to town then hitched their horses. More business is done there now, in the fall and spring, in one week than was done there in 1838 in a whole year. In 1838, the population was perhaps 150 or 200, not more. It remained a little court house town for a period of fifty-five years. The first impetus given to the town of Marion was by the building the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad, which was not completed to that point until 1854. Marion then began to move up, business and trade were increased; its population increased, and some life and activity prevailed-a spirit of enterprise and improvement began to show itself, not only in the town but in the county generally.
This upward movement was, however, soon checked by the war, and after the war and its devastations it was further retarded by the horrors of Reconstruction and the rule of the "Carpet-bagger." The war and subsequent conditions and agencies held back the town and county, little progress made for fifteen years, say, till 1876 and '7. Since 1876, Marion grew slowly, mostly by the natural increase of its population.
Bar-rooms were numerous, and tolerated until 1883, when the town, at an election held for the purpose, voted it '"dry" by a majority of twenty-five; soon afterwards, by an amendment to its charter, the Legislature passed an Act by which liquor was forbidden to be sold there for twenty years. The town remained dry, except an occasional "blind tiger," until the dispensary was planted in its midst. This great "moral institution" seems, for the present, to be the policy of the State, in reference to the sale of liquor within it, how long it is to remain the State's policy, we can't tell. The little morality there is in it can hardly be seen with a microscope. Take the profit feature out of it, and it would not last three months. To say it was established to promote good morals would be a libel on truth, bold hypocrisy.
I think Marion was first incorporated in 1854 (I have not the Act before me) The improvements since 1876 have been gradual, up to a few years back, when a new impetus was given her, and she is now on a boom; her population is about 2,000. Instead of bar-rooms, we have two flourishing banks, a cotton factory, an oil mill, an iron foundry and machine shops, the largest and best in the eastern part of the State; two large tobacco warehouses, with pack houses, and a stemmery of tobacco; and this is not all, the old wooden shanties for dwellings and stores are being replaced by large and commodious buildings for dwellings, some of wood and some of brick have gone up and are going up; also the same as to stores, and other buildings; there are also five or six livery stables and five or six drug stores, and from two or three places of business, stores, in 1840, small establishments, they now number at least thirty, with large stocks of goods of every variety, and everyone seems to be busy and doing a fair business.
From three to five hundred men and women now find employment there daily in the different channels of trade and business, where formerly there were many unemployed, loafers about town, mostly bar-room patrons, and, I might say, vagabonds-now employed and prosperous. In 1840, there was but one church in town, the old Methodist Church; now there are four good church buildings, commodious, viz: the Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian and Episcopal, all well attended, and each with its minister, and two of them with parsonages. The Methodist have also a Presiding Elder's parsonage with its glebe. There are also three or four colored church buildings, commodious and substantial; each has its minister, and their churches are well attended. And above all and as its climax, they have a large and commodious town hall of brick, with all necessary furniture, two stories high-the lower one for the meetings of the town council, and for a town market, and guard rooms. They also have a fine and commodious brick building, two stories high, for their graded school, and one of the best graded schools in the State. These last are a great credit to the liberality and public spirit of the town. To one living in 1840, and leaving at that time and coming back there now, would hardly know the place. The old town has waked up. The people who are there now are a progressive and large-hearted people, esto perpetua.
Source: A History of Marion County, South Carolina, by W. W. Sellers, Esq., Columbia, South Carolina, 1902.
|
