CHAPTER X. 



TOWNS OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 



The urban population of the United States was 3.S per cent, of the 

 aggregate population in 1700. By the last census it has risen to 22.5 per 

 cent. The facilities offered to trade and manufactures during the present 

 century by the introduction of the use of steam, by improvements in 

 machinery, by the telegraph and cheaper and better postal arrangements, 

 has promoted everywhere this increase in city populations. In South 

 Carolina this tendency has been less obvious than in most countries 

 similarly located. Nevertheless, with the abolition of slavery, the barriers 

 which isolated the State have been removed, and it is plain that she is 

 making haste to take part in this as well as in the other great movements 

 of the age. 



Governor Drayton enumerates forty-two towns and villages in South 

 Carolina in 1800, the population of which may be estimated at not ex- 

 ceeding 30,000, or twelve per cent, of the inhabitants of the State. ]\Iills, 

 in 1820, makes the number of towns and villages sixty-one, with a popu- 

 lation of near 45,000, being eight per cent, on the enumeration of the 

 census for that year. William Gilmore Simms counts, in 1840, of towns, 

 villages and hamlets, some seventy-five, with a population not far from 

 65,000, being ten per cent, of the people in the State. The census of 

 1880 counts one hundred and five towns in the State. This count, how- 

 ever, includes only a small proportion of the lesser villages and trading 

 settlements, which are increasing with great rapidity, and are effecting 

 marked changes in the social and industrial condition of the population. 

 The growth of the larger towns has been set back by the destruction and 

 losses attendant upon the war, and by the radical revolution it affect- 

 ed in the industries of the State, disturbing all the established methods 

 of trade. But along the lines of railways, and every where in the rural 

 districts, there has been a remarkable increase in the number of estab- 

 lishments engaged in trade. The cross-road store has become an impor- 

 tant factor in the organization of labor and in the distribution of wealth. 

 Established in the first instance as an adjunct to other industries, as 

 commissariats for farm hands, or those employed in saw mills, turpen- 



