Naomi Gourdine Martin welcomes customers into her store in Pineville. My great, grandfather, Dr. Peter Gaillard Gourdin II, graduated from Harvard in the early 1850s and returned to Pineville where he set up his medical practice. His uncle, Samuel Thomas Gourdin, willed him his home in Pineville in 1854. Two years later, Peter bought the 2,793- acre Richmond Plantation adjacent to the village of Pineville and 32 slaves from his uncle's estate. Those slaves were Alie, Peggy, Lucy, Harry, Judy, Hector, Nelly, Peter, Jimmy, Pompey, Roman, Patty, Elsey, Joe, Cyrus, Soloman, Chloe, Charles, Hannah, Sandy, Warney, Paul, Betty, Prince, Rose, Jane, and an infant.

Dr. Peter G. Gourdin served as a medic during the Civil War. He returned home to find his land in ruin, his slaves freed, and his home burned. He struggled to keep his wife, Ella, and their eight children fed and clothed, but he was broke and landless when he died in 1876. It would be up to his sons, Clarence, J.K., and Charles to pull his land back together and revive Pineville before Santee- Cooper took the land in 1940.

Baxter Gourdine, father of Naomi Gourdine Martin The freedmen and their families suffered as much or more than their previous masters. Some fled North or to South Carolina cities to begin new lives. Many, however, stayed on the land they had worked and in the homes they had built. They soon found that emancipation did not mean prosperity when faced with resentment, discrimination, and hatred.

Crops failed. Starvation was staved off with alligator meat, green corn, and lily pads. The aged and the infirm suffered greatly. Vagrants roamed the countryside. Things of value - lead pipes, horse and mule harnesses, iron from cotton gins - were stolen and traded for whiskey and guns.

Under the military occupation of South Carolina, the Freedmens Bureau established a system of free labor, founded free public education, guaranteed equality before the law, and instituted rules concerning marriage and property ownership to assist integration of the former slaves into the "New Society." Everyone had to have a family name and every piece of land required a deed.

Ella Green Gourdine, mother of Naomi Gourdine Martin Prior to emancipation, slaves were assigned a single name by their owners. After emancipation, they could choose any name. Many adopted the surnames of their former owners, while others adopted the names of popular figures of social importance, such as Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Jackson.

In Pineville, Benjamin

chose the surname Gourdin

(the E was added later) and married Jane who had chosen the surname Jefferson. Their children included Baxter, Sims, Mackey, Julia, Eugene, Luthern, Evelyn, and Geraldine.

Baxter married Ella Green and settled in Pineville. He purchased 100 acres from the Montgomery family on what had been part of Richmond Plantation and began farming cotton, corn, and string beans.

Baxter and Ella had four children: Naomi, Wilfred, Edward, and Chatman. All of their children received an education. Wilfred moved to Virginia, married Mazie, and produced three doctors, a judge, an architect, a preacher, and a dietitian. Edward sought his career in New York. Naomi and Chatman remained in Pineville.

Today, Naomi is the unofficial matriarch of Pineville. She retired after 37 years as a teacher, has served for 20 years as treasurer of the Jehovah United Methodist Church, and has operated Pineville's only convenience store for 40 years.

(Next week: Naomi Martin

reigns supreme)