#66: Thomas Jefferson's grandson, Columbia Duck Mill, and photographer Cecil Williams
For South Carolina history lovers far and wide! Enjoy weekly SC history and upcoming SC historical events
Welcome to the first 100 days of the South Carolina History Newsletter! My name is Kate Fowler and I live in Greenville, SC. I have a 9-5 job in marketing, and outside of work, have a deep love of history. I started this newsletter as a passion project to learn more about our beautiful state and build a community of fellow SC history lovers along the way! To establish a foundation for the newsletter and to grow my expertise on a wide variety of South Carolina historical topics, this past February I challenged myself to post 100 newsletters in 100 days. After this coming May 20th, the newsletter will become weekly. Thank you for joining the journey!
Dear reader,
Welcome to Newsletter #66 of The South Carolina History Newsletter! I’m so happy you’re here.
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Yours truly,
Kate
(Writing from Greenville, SC)
➳ Featured SC History Event
Please enjoy our featured SC History Event below, and click here to visit my SC History Events Calendar that organizes all the upcoming SC history events I have discovered. Please let me know if you’d like to add an event to the calendar! Reply to this email or send me a note at schistorynewsletter@gmail.com.
Tuesday, April 30th at 6:00 pm | “Celebrating Legendary Photographer Cecil Williams” | Columbia Museum of Art | Columbia, SC | FREE Event
“Join the USC Center for Civil Rights History and Research, Columbia SC 63: Our Story Matters, and the Columbia Museum of Art for a night celebrating the incredible contributions of photojournalist and historian Cecil Williams. After viewing excerpts of the SCETV documentary The World of Cecil, enjoy a conversation highlighting Williams’ career and legacy featuring Williams himself; Beryl Dakers, documentary producer and director; Claudia Smith Brinson, author of Injustice in Focus: The Civil Rights Photography of Cecil Williams; and Crush Rush, photographer and Experience Columbia SC ambassador; and moderated by Dr. Frank Martin, visiting associate professor of art history and art theory at South Carolina State University. A reception and book signing follows the conversation. Copies of Injustice in Focus: The Civil Rights Photography of Cecil Williams available for purchase.’”
➳ SC History Fun Facts
I.
Did you know that Thomas Jefferson had a grandson who attended South Carolina College (now USC) in the 1820s?
One of the many joys in writing this newsletter is that I get to interact with all of YOU wonderful subscribers! And even more exciting is when y’all share newsletter topics you’re interested in, research you have done into SC history, and most recently — you share about your family heritage! I am very grateful to our paid subscriber David M., who shared with me that he is a direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson! After SC History Newsletter #56 came out about the early history of USC, David shared with me that Thomas Jefferson’s grandson, Francis Wayles Eppes (David’s 2nd great grandfather), attended (when it was then called) South Carolina College in 1820 and wrote a few letters to Jefferson concerning the school and its curriculum and administration. Then, in probably the most magical moment yet of this newsletter, David was kind enough to send me the online archive links to the letters themselves! Thank you, David! So to mix things up a bit, today, I thought I would share a correspondence between Francis Wayles Eppes and his grandfather Thomas Jefferson concerning the early days at South Carolina College. I have highlighted sentences that were particularly interesting to me below. Would love to hear your impressions and comments on the below!
Listen to this section in the mini audio voiceover below!
Thomas Jefferson letter to Francis Eppes
Monticello
October 6, 1820
Dear Francis.
Your letter of the 28th came to hand yesterday, and, as I suppose you are now about leaving Richmond for Columbia, this letter will be addressed to the latter place. I consider you as having made such proficiency in Latin & Greek that on your arrival at Columbia you may at once commence the study of the sciences: and as you may well attend two professors at once, I advise you to enter immediately with those of Mathematics & Chemistry. after these go on to Astronomy, Natl philosophy, Natl history & Botany. I say nothing of mineralogy or Geology, because I presume they will be comprehended in the Chemical course. nor shall I say any thing of other branches of science, but that you should lose no time on them until the accomplishment of those above named, before which time we shall have opportunities of further advising together. I hope you will be permitted to enter at once into a course of mathematics, which will itself take up all that is useful in Euclid, and that you will not be required to go formally thro’ the usual books of that Geometer. that would be a waste of time which you have not to spare, and if you cannot enter the Mathematical school without it, do not enter it at all, but engage in the other sciences above mentioned. your Latin & Greek should be kept up assiduously by reading at spare hours: and, discontinuing the desultory reading of the schools, I would advise you to undertake a regular course of history & poetry in both languages. in Greek, go first thro’ the Cyropaedia, and then read Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon’s Hellenics & Anabasis, Arrian’s Alexander, & Plutarch’s lives, for prose reading: Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey, Euripides, Sophocles in poetry, & Demosthenes in Oratory; alternating prose & verse as most agreeable to yourself. in Latin read Livy, Caesar, Sallust Tacitus, Cicero’s Philosophics, and some of his Orations, in prose; and Virgil, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Horace, Terence & Juvenal for poetry. after all these, you will find still many of secondary grade to employ future years, and especially those of old age and retirement. let me hear from you as soon as you shall have taken your stand in College, and give me a general view of the courses pursued there, and from time to time afterwards advise me of your progress. I will certainly write to you occasionally, but you will not expect it very frequently, as you know how slowly & painfully my stiffened wrist now permits me to write, & how much I am oppressed by a general and revolting correspondence, wearing me down with incessant labor, instead of leaving me to the tranquil happiness with which reading and lighter occupations would fill pleasantly what remains to me of life. I had written to Dr Cooper that I should leave Monticello for Poplar Forest about the 11th of this month. he informs me he cannot be here so soon as that but will call on me at Poplar Forest in the 3d week of the month. Adieu, my dear Francis. consider how little time is left you, and how much you have to attain in it, and that every moment you lose of it is lost for ever. be assured that no one living is more anxious than myself to see you become a virtuous and useful citizen, worthy of the trusts of your country and wise enough to conduct them advantageously, nor any one more affectionately yours.
Th: Jefferson
(Source: Link to letter in National Archives)
Francis Eppes letter to Thomas Jefferson
Columbia
October 31, 1820
Dr Grand-papa
I waited untill this time (before writing) that I might be able to give a more satisfactory, and circumstantial account, of the course and regulations of this institution, which are pretty nearly the same as those of the northern colleges, differing only in two points. in the first place the course here is neither as full nor as comprehensive a one as that of Cambridge, secondly the discipline is more lax and consequently better adapted, to the feelings & habits of the Southern Students. this latter circumstance too is somewhat surprising as the Faculty themselves (with the exception of Dr Cooper) are Clergymen. the objection too to their course is obviated by the consideration of a college library the free use of which is permitted to the Students. they have four classes and to the Studies of each one year is allotted, so that the Lowest takes four years to graduate; in it Græca Minora, virgils Æneid, & Arithmetic are the studies, those of the next in grade are, the 1st part of the 1st vol. of Græca majora, Horace, Algebra as far as cubick equations, Geography. &c. those of the Junior are Blairs Lectures, Wattss Logick, Kamess elements of Criticism, Paleys moral Philosophy, cubick equations, Geometry, Trigonometry &c. Hutton alone is used, his demonstrations are much shorter than Simpsons. the Senior year Logarithms, conick sections & Fluxions, Cavallo’s Natural Philosophy Butlers Analogy of Religion, Chemistry. no one is allowed the privilege of entering as student, without pursuing this course, unless he does under the Title of Honorary, which besides being an unusual is moreover a disadvantageous standing. I have therefore entered as a regular student, and am a candidate for the Junior class, whose examination comes on in two weeks. after it is over I will write again & perhaps may be enabled then, to give you more Satisfactory information concerning the elections of a President & Professor of Mathematics. the only objection to Elliot who is talked of as President is his not being a minister of the Gospel, this too is urged as a very weighty one. Wallace whose merits you are better informed of than I, and who was formerly a Professor in the Georgetown College, is a candidate for the Mathematical chair, it is said however that Judge De Saussure, one of the Trustees and a man of great influence is opposed to him. what the result of these conjectures may be, it is impossible for me to say, I can only add that I hope they will terminate in the election of those whose abilities may confer a lasting advantage and prosperity on this institution. Dr Cooper is very much beloved by the Students here and is in fact one of the most popular Professors that they have ever had. I find that this place is very healthy, a young man from the neighbourhood of Poplar-Forest, (who is the only Virginian in college except myself) stayed here the whole summer without experiencing the slightest inconvenience. Wayles has not arrived though I expect him daily. present me affectionately to Aunt Randolph and Family, I often think of the happy moments spent in your Society the happiest perhaps of my Life.
I remain Your affectionate Grandson
Fr: Eppes.
(Source: Link to letter in National Archives)
What do you think about this exchange between Thomas Jefferson & Francis Wayles Eppes? Leave a comment with your impressions!
II.
Did you know that the South Carolina State Museum is housed in a 325,000 square feet historic Columbia Duck Mill?
Listen to this section in the mini audio voiceover below!
You might be wondering, what did they make at a Duck Mill… rubber ducks?! Honestly, that thought half crossed my mind. Turns out the Columbia Duck Mill created "heavy cotton duck” material.
The idea for the mill was formulated shortly after the Columbia Canal was built in 1891. Investors saw the “easily availability” of waterpower to operate a large mill, and construction began on April 17th, 1893.
The mill ultimately needed much more power than the canal waterwheel and other existing technology could provide.
A man named Sidney B. Paine of the General Electric Company suggested “the construction of a hydroelectric plant on the canal and the installation of electric motors to power the textile machinery.”
The largest induction motor ever built prior to 1893 was a 10-horsepower model. The Columbia Duck Mill ordered 17 65-horsepower motors to power their operation. The power was there, but the installation wasn’t very elegant. Because the floor plan for the equipment in the mill “was already completed and there was no space on the floor, it was decided to suspend the generators from the ceiling.”
On April 15, 1894, the Columbia Duck Mill became the first textile mill in the world to operate entirely with electric power.
In SC History Newsletter #53, I wrote about the Guignard Brick Company, which supplied the bricks that built the 3-foot walls of the Columbia Duck Mill. The Brick Company was located on the opposite side of the river, “less than a mile” downstream. Other local materials included timber from W.B. Alderman of Alcolu, South Carolina and Fowles Lumber Company of Columbia. The granite sills for the windows were also quarried at A.R. Stewart’s quarry near Columbia.
In SC History Newsletter #50, we talked about the culture and importance of Mill Villages in the heart of South Carolina’s booming textile industry. The Columbia Duck Mill also had a mill village, which they called New Brookland, and it was located on the West Columbia side of the river.
The Mill continued to run with the General Electric Motors until 1927, when the operation switched to commercial electricity.
The Mill played a large part in World War II. According to the SC State Museum website, in the year following Pearl Harbor (after 1941):
“The mill operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, producing 1,500,000 yards of duck cloth per week that was used to make tents, tarpaulins, hatch covers, boat covers, gun covers, truck covers, collapsible pontoons, raft stretchers, cots, knapsacks, uniforms and shoes.”
Like many other mills across the state, the Columbia Duck Mill began to the decline in the latter half of the 20th century. In the fall of 1980, the market for duck cloth had declined so much that soon, the mill needed a new purpose.
Then Governor Richard W. Riley and the Museum Commission began to study the feasibility of using the mill for the South Carolina State Museum.
On Dec. 7, 1981, the mill owner, Mt. Vernon Mills, Inc. donated the building to the state.
The original building is vast — 385 feet long x 192 feet wide. The four story 1895 addition is 295 feet by 128 feet. The entire facility contains approximately 325,000 square feet.
The South Carolina State Museum opened to the public in the former Columbia Duck Mill on October 29th, 1988. It is South Carolina’s “largest and most comprehensive museum” with 4 floors housing 4 disciplines: art, history, natural history and science/technology. In 2014, the museum expanded to include a 4d theater, planetarium, and observatory.
Source:
“History of the Columbia Mills Building.” South Carolina State Museum, https://scmuseum.org/learn/deeper-dive-series/history-columbia-mills-building. Accessed 16 Apr. 2024.
Have you been to the SC State Museum? I would love to hear your thoughts about the museum being in the old Columbia Duck Mill!
➳ Quote from an SC historical figure
“Sometimes I put myself into situations where I’m photographing things that became a part of history. But there were other times that it just seems to be my destiny that I arrived at a situation…I became a poster boy for people who couldn’t speak for themselves."
— South Carolina Civil Rights Photographer Cecil Williams
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