Category: Darlington County Historical Commission
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Spotlight On: Darlington Memorial Cemetery
Located on Avenue D and Friendship Street in Darlington, the Darlington Memorial Cemetery was the first cemetery created for African-Americans in the community. The cemetery began in 1890 as a five-acre cemetery established by Macedonia Baptist Church and African-American citizens in Darlington. In 1946, Bethel A.M.E. Church and St. James Methodist Church established cemeteries across…
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Spotlight On: Arthur W. Stanley, veteran, activist, and councilman
Arthur W. Stanley, a native of Darlington, was a WWII veteran. He served in the Pacific Theater. Stanley was the president of the Darlington Chapter of the NAACP and held the position for 40 years. He led the efforts to desegregate the Darlington County Public School System as a plaintiff in Stanley v. Darlington County…
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Spotlight On: Dr. Daniel Collins
Dr. Daniel Collins, a Darlington native, was a 1932 graduate of the Darlington County Public Schools. He attended Paine College in Augusta, Georgia, where he received a B.S. degree in science and a D.D.S. degree from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. He also obtained a master’s degree in dental science from Guggenheim Clinic in…
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Spotlight On: Mayo School
From “Introduction: A History of Mayo School” About the year 1890, public education in Darlington County was started for African-Americans. One of the early buildings which the state and county used for education of African-Americans was located on Pearl Street in front of the old Charles estate, now Darlington Motel. Later in the year of…
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Spotlight On: Honorable Richard H. Humbert
Born in Charleston, Richard H. Humbert was a devoted resident of Darlington County. A former slave who taught himself to read and write, Humbert wrote his own pass for freedom. He was an active member of the South Carolina Republican Party and an organizer for African-Americans in 1868. In a letter to Governor R.K. Scott…
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Prestwood Country Club was founded
On July 3, 1914, the Prestwood Country Club in Hartsville, South Carolina, was founded. We here at DCHC are dedicated to promoting the rich and varied history of Darlington County. So if you enjoy our posts, please Like us on Facebook by clicking here. And, by all means, follow our blog as well.
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Firsthand accounts of Park Terrace Hotel fire, 1968
After six decades in operation, the Park Terrace Hotel, a grand old edifice on the corner of Main and Orange Street in downtown Darlington, burned down on the day before Thanksgiving in 1968. There were a total of twenty-one guests at the time of the fire, and four of them were killed: Marion Butler, Keith…
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Black Creek Protection Association granted its charter
On July 1, 1941, the Black Creek Protection Association was granted its state charter. Woods Dargan, a native of Darlington, had a deep and abiding love for Black Creek, and, according to the Commission’s archives, he was the driving force behind the organization of the Black Creek Protection Association. This organization’s mandate was “to maintain,…
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TODAY IN SOUTH CAROLINA HISTORY: The Patriot with Mel Gibson
On June 30, 2000, The Patriot, a feature film starring Mel Gibson, is released in theaters. Mel Gibson plays Benjamin Martin, an American swept up in the Revolutionary War when a sadistic British officer murders Martin’s son. The script writer Robert Rodat claims that Benjamin Martin is a composite character based on four different historical people, one…
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German POWs in Darlington
Below is a lovely note written by Dorothy Law Martin in March 2011. It’s about German prisoners of war who worked on her father’s farm. My Dad, W.P. Law, had a large farm on the old Hartsville Road in Darlington County. During WWII my four older brothers were in the service and farm help was…