ALEB COKER’S greatest claim to fame 
lay not so much in the considerable suc- 
cess he won as a farmer and merehant 
as in the fact that he was the fountain- 
head oi tater generations that took root in and 
near Society Hill, S. C., and which continue to 
this day as great intluences in the agricultural 
and business life of that state and, in fact, 
the entire Southland. 
Because he was a farmer, Caleb Coker grew 
and knew cotton, but he had no way of know- 
ing what one of his progeny was destined to 
do for that crop, or that the name he bore 
would one day become almost synonymous with 
cotton in many sections of the South. Caleb 
had purchased a farm at Hartsville, some 15 
miles southeast of Society Hill, which he later 
turned over to James Lide Coker, one of his 
four sons, before the Civil War started. James 
won a major’s rank in the war and returned 
to Hartsville with a leg wound that was to 
keep him on crutches the rest of his life. He: 
had lost practically all of his worldly posses- 
sions except the run-down farm, but he had 
a fine mind, trained at Harvard in botany and 
agricultural chemistry. He also had the iron 
determination to disregard his handicaps and 
to devote his life to restoring and building up 
the lost fortunes of his people and his beloved 
Southland. His fine education was immediately 
applied to the restoration of his worn-out acres 
according to the best known methods of his 
time. 
J. L. Coker and Company 
JAMES ALSO MANAGED in 1865 to open a 
general store at Hartsville which he called 
J. L. Coker and Company, and which is still 
in successful operation as one of South Caro- 
lina’s greatest and most widely known depart- 
ment stores. It operates under the original 
name and is today headed by one of his grand- 
sons. 
e Interest in Public Education 
c ; Major Coker was greatly interested in pub- 
poll lic education and introduced a bill in the South 
CG&OMPress Photo. Carolina legislature—he was a member of that 
: a eiytigs body in 1864-65—for the establishment of a free 
GEORGE J. WILDS first went with the Coker organization public school system in the state. The bill failed 
in 1908. Today he is its president and managing director. of passage, but after he became successful as 
16 Thousands Southom Farners.— 
Cofter Metnd 
it also means small grains, 
By IVAN J. CAMPBELL 
soybeans, tobacco —and Associate Editor 
oe The Cotton Gin and Oil Mill Press 
better living on our farms 
