There was no town in the county previous to 1800. The Act of 1798, establishing a Judicial district in what was then called Liberty County or Precinct, by the name of Marion District, and providing for the location of a court house and jail therein by the first January, 1800, was the first step towards the building of a town. The court house and jail (comparatively rude structures) were built, and the nucleus of a town planted.

A county seat is always followed by an aggregation of people (necessarily so) at said county seat, more or less numerous and pretentious according to circumstances, environments and prospects of trade, &c.

Who the first settlers were is not known, and is not now ascertainable. The writer has heard old "Aunt Nancy Godbold" say that she and family moved there in 1812, and built a good large house (for that day), about where the Marion Bank stands, a boarding house or hotel, and lived in it and kept it as such; she was there and keeping it as such in 1843. The writer boarded with her there one week, attending Court as a juryman, the first and last time he ever was juryman. The old house stood there until after the war. The leading merchants there have been:
Thomas Evans
W. H. Grice
Ebby Legette
Durant & Wilcox
Wilcox & Young
T. W. Godbold
McDonald & Crawford
M. Iseman
I. Iseman (called Lightfoot)
C. Graham
E. H. Gasque
J. N. Stevenson
R. H. Reaves
Moody & Smith
Durham & Stanley
S. A. Durham & Co.
W. C. McMillan, druggist

These bring us down to the present day merchants, all of whom are well known, and of whom there are now many.


Source: A History of Marion County, South Carolina, by W. W. Sellers, Esq., Columbia, South Carolina, 1902.

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