Willtown Black Mingo was on Black Mingo Creek in Williamsburg County. The terms "Willtown" and "Black Mingo" were used interchangeably. It was also the site of an important battle in the Revolutionary War.

Resources:

• History of Williamsburg County
• Black Mingo Historical Marker

Willtown on the Edisto River was first known as New London. It was the second planned town in South Carolina, after Charleston. The remaining buildings are now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Here are the resources I used in this episode...

• Willtown: An Archeological and Historical Perspective
• Willtown Bluff Study
• Historical and Archeological Study
• Willtown Past and Present
• Blog Post - Paddling to Willtown on the Edisto

The ghost town of Shelton is located in northwest Fairfield County, South Carolina, along the banks of the Broad River. The early settlement featured a ferry, but grew into a town with the coming of the railroad. The major industries were shipping for the surrounding and the Shivar Springs Bottling Company, located just south of the town. Resources used in this episode:

• Blog post on RandomConnections
• Shelton photos from 1960s - State Newspaper
• interview with Tom McConnell
• Ron Chicone's History of Shelton
• Shivar cisterns on SC Picture Project
• National Register Listing for Shivar
• Shelton Cemetery
• McConnell Cemetery

Henry Martyn Robert - author of Robert's Rules of Order

Robertville is a small farming community in South Carolina, named for a family of French Huguenots that settled in the region. The community was the birthplace of Henry Martyn Robert, author of Robert's Rules of Order, and Alexander Robert Lawton, Confederate General and one of the founders of the American Bar Association.

Robertville Baptist Church is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Ellenberg Homesite

The modern town of Ninety Six hold close connections to my family. It's where my grandparents lived, as well as some other, more notorious relatives. Before modern Ninety Six came the college town of Cambridge, named with aspirations of reaching the lofty status of its namesakes in Massachusetts and England.

Resources for this episode:

• Finding Your Roots - Season 5, Episode 10 "All in the Family"
• Samuel Campbell Clegg
  • From a National Park Service report - Ensign Samuel Clegg Samuel Clegg (ca. 1740-1779) was a prominent Loyalist and plantation owner in Craven County
  • and Edgefield District, South Carolina. He was living in South Carolina by 1766 and owned land by 1768. By the late 1770s Clegg owned more than 1,400 acres in South Carolina. At the time of the American Revolution was married to Barbara Marie Flick and they had four children. Clegg served an Ensign in Colonel Boyd’s regiment and he helped to raise recruits and he participated in the battle of Kettle Creek. Clegg, who was considered by the Patriots to be a “ring leader” of the Loyalist uprising, was captured in the battle and marched as a prisoner to Ninety-Six. Clegg was tried for sedition and treason, and hanged at Ninety-Six in late April, 1779 (S.C.D.A.H. 2009; Cann 2004:4-7; Davis 1979b:172-181).
• Star Fort - National Park Service
• Cambridge Hash blog post
• Siloam Baptist Church

Cambridge Tavern:

Cambridge Hall, later Siloam Baptist Church:

AI voices by ElevenLabs

Merry Christmas from Carolina Ghost Towns! The new season starts January 14, 2025, with new episodes every other Tuesday. Be sure to tune in!

This bonus episode is a lecture I gave for the Mauldin Branch of the Greenville County Library. The lecture was on Monday, November 11, 2024, and featured several of the towns that have appeared on previous episodes.

The community of Cashville is located in southwestern Spartanburg County. It is home to Hurricane Tavern, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. It's also home to Antioch Presbyterian Church. Earlier this month Debbie Weekes invited me to join her and Len Strozier for a survey of the Antioch Cemetery using ground penetrating radar, or GPR. Len then gave a presentation to the general public about the technology.

In this episode I've included Len's entire presentation, so it's a bit longer than usual.

Here are the links to information shared in this episode...

• Blog post
• Omega Mapping Systems
• Antioch PCA
• Upstate Cemetery Presentation Alliance