Special Thanks: Elaine Eaddy and Mildred Browder Hughes

Before the Railroad Appeared in this area in 1912 and a bridge spanned Lynches River about two years later, most roads led to a ferry. A strategic ferry in the northeastern area of Williamsburg County was Witherspoon’s Ferry, vested in John Witherspoon in 1801 and remaining in his charge until his death in 1815. According to the terms of John Witherspoon’s will, the ferry was then vested in J. D Witherspoon, executor, for a term of 14 years, “in trust for and having the sole benefit of the incorporated Presbyterian Church at Aimwell on the Pee Dee River.

William J. Johnson, born 1787, succeeded J. D. Witherspoon at the ferry on a plantation purchased in 1825 from the Witherspoon estate. The 1850 census of Williamsburg County shows William Johnson, a man of considerable wealth for his time and place, living just below where the American Legion home (or hut) stands in Johnsonville (at this time-2006).

Enumerated in the household are his wife, the former Sarah Crosby; son James H., age 23; daughter Sarah, 21; and the following lodgers: Joseph Costellen, a fishermen from Italy; John C. Dye, a merchant from North Carolina who witnessed William Johnson’s will; and Herman Zadix, a merchant from Australia.
Johnson’s Ferry was the point at which the stagecoach stopped to change horses. As the stagecoach passed east over Lynches River on the ferry, a Johnson slave in charge of the ferry mules announced the number of passengers with blast from a fox horn ---one blast for each passenger, thus informing Mrs. Johnson of the number of places that should be set for dinner. The passengers ate during the change of horses, and then proceeded to Union for the next stop.

The Johnson’s closest neighbors were their daughter, Margaret, and son-in-law, Thomas Rothmahler Grier, and Henry Eaddy, a large landowner, who also operated a cotton gin near the ferry. Johnsonville had received its name about six years earlier in 1843, from the action of the above named Capt. Johnson who had settled at Witherspoon’s Ferry, which soon took the name of Johnson’s Ferry. Dr. Samuel McGill wrote of the event in reminscences of Williamsburg County.

“At the solicitation of Capt. Wm. Johnson and A. W. Dozier of Pee Dee River, Dr. McGill settled at the Ferry House. “For the first few months Johnson and family resided at the old ferry house situated on the bluff of Lynches River, but soon we all moved down to his new house situated at the junction of Indiantown and Stage Coach Road.

“The family was very kind and Mrs. Johnson the most motherly of women. Thomas R. Grier, who had married their eldest daughter, was living with them at this time. Their eldest son, Nicholas F. Johnson, lived at the Johnson’s new house, which was later, owned by Mr. Grier. He was the farming boy and a great comfort to the young doctor.

“About this time Old Mr. Henry Eaddy (1778-1855) was settling in the place where his son, Hon. H. E. Eaddy (1839-1912) now resides, and he and Capt. Johnson requested the young doctor to assist in writing a petition to the Post-Master General at Washington for a post office to be established here, and Mr. John Gerard appointed its postmaster. The petition was granted and it name became Johnsonville. Mr. Eaddy and Dr. McGill were securities to the bond of Mr. Gerard.

Soon this section of the country took on the name Johnsonville, after the man who was responsible for securing a post office at the place. The stagecoach stopped at the Johnson’s house. All the mail for the surrounding communities was left in Capt. Johnson’s care. This provided an excellent reason for him to request a post office be granted.”

In more than 200 years association with the Johnsonville and later Hemingway area, the Johnson family has not only given its name to a town, but land on which to build an early church was built and a number of doctors emerged from this family.

William Johnson, Sr., father of William Johnson of the ferry, was born 1760 and died March 16, 1825. He married Celia, last name unknown, born 1765, died Sept. 16, 1825. They are buried on a bluff on the north side of Lynches River about three miles from Johnsonville on the Johnson plantation. It was later owned by a grandson, William J. Johnson, who gave four acres of land from this plantation for Trinity Methodist Church.

The tract is described in the deed as “situate and lying in Marion District…on the Southwest side of the great Pee Dee River one mile from Johnson’s Ferry on the Lynches Creek on the Stage Road leading from Georgetown to Cheraw.”
Trinity Methodist Church was built on this site. Remodeled and modernized several times, this church still occupies its original building.

The beautiful chancel furniture that graces the sanctuary was made by Brig. Gen. John Henry Woodberry, great-grandson of Henry Eaddy and son of Johnsonville’s only woman mayor, Bell (Eaddy) Woodberry Dixon. Almost moribund after the Civil War, Johnsonville was kept alive by the turpentine business, and about the only people who accumulated any property were those who worked in pine timber and related industry.

The early turpentine dealers and workers migrated into Williamsburg County before the War began. Among the dealers in naval stores and pine products that made fortunes in this part of the country were J. F. Carraway, R. H. Kimball and F. Rhems and Sons.

Johnsonville and the ferry were busy places for a season. Despite their inborn aversion to working for anyone except themselves, many young farmers engaged in part-time “turpentining” or cut and floated their own timber to market, riding the logs down Lynches and Pee Dee Rivers to Georgetown, walking the long distance back home.

By the turn of the century, this industry had begun to decline here, and tobacco was introduced as a money crop. Brig. Gen. Woodberry described Johnsonville of that period.

“Johnsonville, where I was born and lived in my youth, had a post office, a general store, and not much more. The settlement centered around the crossroads that went west to Lake City and Florence. The nearest railroad was 23 miles away (at Lake City) and roads leading thereto were sandy and rutty. Mail came in by road cart, usually daily. The Lynches River, two miles away, was used for floating timber to market, but was not suitable for powerboats. The Great Pee Dee River, into which the Lynches flows nearby, boasted at that time a weekly steamboat (The Farmer and later The Merchant) that brought bulk supplies from Georgetown. The nearest landing was Allison, some five miles across the Lynches River. Neither river had bridges at that time. Hand propelled flats were used for crossing.

“Outside of the general store, there was a cotton mill, a grits mill, and a blacksmith shop. The old turpentine still and the rice-hulling mill, along with the barrel factory and the stage stables were visible but abandoned structures.
“The general store was not only the grocery store, but the supplier of credit for fertilizer, advancement of money to pay for labor costs, and farm supplies of every nature. In my early days it was operated by Georgetown people, who controlled the steamboat. ‘H. Kaminski, King of the (Georgetown) Jews, humpback britches and brogan shoes’ was a popular ditty back then.

“Meat, other than butts meat, was largely from hogs raised locally, and in some cases, in the Pee Dee Swamp, Marion County side. The rivers provided fish and the swamps wildlife. Hog meat was cured by immersing in brine or smoking in the family smokehouse, or both.

“Fresh beef came in occasionally, when a Mr. Britton came around in his wagon, hauling a freshly killed cow resting sanitarily on a bed of fresh pine needles. When his delivered price went up from five cents to six cents a pound, there was a general howl, but it was the only beef that could be bought. There being no ice available, except occasionally in the winter months, the average farmer hesitated to kill his own cows.

“Schools operated when youngsters were not required for farm work, usually from October to March. Kids walked from two to five miles daily. Books were what one could get. There were no classes or grades. In about 1903, a graded school (Old Johnsonville) was established at Ard’s Cross Roads, three miles from both Johnsonville and Hemingway.”

(That is another story for another time, to be continued. This material is credited to Elaine Y. Eaddy.)