Charles D. Gourdin (1875-1958) Between Reconstruction and the Santee- Cooper Project, a small group of men used their vested interest in land and heritage to save Pineville from total destruction. The Gourdin and Marion men, born during the Civil War, gathered in the desolate old village and vowed to bring back the days of wealth and glory. They almost succeeded.

Theodore Gourdin II of Richmond Plantation in Pineville owned and operated three ferries across the Santee River (Nelson's, Murray's, and Lenud's), and accumulated over 150,000 acres along both sides of the Santee River before 1800. (Incidently, he purchased a lot in the new city of Columbia at the initial auction in 1786 but soon sold it.) He served in the U.S. Congress in 1814- 1815. He died in 1826 leaving four daughters and five sons.

Theodore's grandson, Peter Gaillard Gourdin II, earned a medical degree from Harvard and practiced from his home, Richmond Plantation, in Pineville. He served as a physician for the Confederate Army and suffered the aftermath of the Civil War by mortgaging and losing most of his property. Dr. Peter G. Gourdin II died in 1876, almost penniless. His sons - Clarence (1863- 1947), J.K. (1865-1937), and Charles (1875-1958) - spent their lives restoring their family's land and honor.

Clarence Gourdin (1863-1947) The old Pineville families - Gourdins, Marions, Gaillards, Porchers, Palmers, Sinklers, Couturiers, Cordes, and DuBoses - lost their land to the sheriff, the bank, or the freedmen. The fields that once produced healthy crops of cotton, indigo, and corn reverted back into overgrown pine forests and cypress swampland.

The great antebellum plantation homes on the Santee bluff had been torched by Sherman's men as had the more modest homes in the village of Pineville. What little infrastructure existed before the war - roads, ferries, fences, wells, and latrines - were in ruin. It was desolate country still subject to annual floods and pestilence.

Most of the former slaves who had been the backbone of the plantation system fled Berkeley County for newfound hope in Charleston, Columbia, and northern cities. Those who stayed toiled on land once owned by their previous masters and some became successful farmers. Others, however, ended up as day laborers or sharecroppers and prospered less than they had under slavery.

J.K. Gourdin (1865-1937) Clarence Gourdin and J.K. Gourdin married sisters, Henrietta and Ella Palmer of Pineville, both of whom had attended the Confederate Home College in Charleston. Charles never married.

This generation of Gourdin men did not attend college, never left home, and they were men of the soil. Along with their brothers - in- law, Robert Marion (1862- 1920) and Edward Marion (1861- 1943), descendants of the brothers of Gen. Francis Marion, they dug in their heels and got to work.

(Next Week: Gourdins & Marions save the village)