As soon as you cross the Highway 601 bridge over the Congaree River and enter Calhoun County, it appears the farmers of Calhoun County, unlike so many of their brethren who have folded up and left farming forever, have been able to hold on and continue to make a living tilling the earth.
We come to the first intersection. A country store, the Ft.Motte Stop & Shop, is on the left, where Highway 261 goes south to Lone Star, Elloree, and Santee. I used to stop in this store as a youngster going on fishing and duck- hunting trips to “Santee.” The store did a brisk business back then, selling bait, fishing tackle, outdoor supplies, and the usual sardines, Pepsi- Colas, nabs, and moon pies. Like a lot of country stores, it later fell on hard times, was closed a few years, then reopened as a restaurant, then closed again. It’s reopened now as a convenient store and diner.
I turn right on Adams Road, passing by more fields of cotton, soybeans, and corn. Adams is a short road that ends at Fort Motte Road. I turn right, descend a steep hill and shortly come to the railroad tracks and the tiny community of Fort Motte, South Carolina.
The old Fort Motte Jail reminds me of cowboy scenes from Gunsmoke and Bonanza.
Like many such communities, Fort Motte grew up around the railroad tracks, in this case the Branchville- Columbia line, the very first rail line spur in S.C., constructed in 1842. The town was named after the nearby famous Revolutionary battle of 1781 when the British had converted Mrs. Rebecca Motte’s plantation home to a fort, and she gallantly gave permission to the Swamp Fox, Francis Marion, and Light- Horse Harry Lee to burn the Brits out.
Fort Motte produced two of S.C.’s most notable women of letters, Pulitzer prize winner Julia Peterkin and antebellum essayist and author Louisa Cheves McCord. Interestingly, both women lived at nearby Lang Syne Plantation. Mrs. McCord’s Columbia home, the headquarters of Union General O.O. Howard during Sherman’s visitstill stands and is located on the corner of Bull and Pendleton Streets.
The closed Fort Motte Post Office still displays its zip code, 29050.
After the Civil War and up to the early 20th century the countryside was full of 40- acre farms, mules, pigs, chickens, and other livestock, and farmers and sharecroppers with big families. Hundreds of such communities grew and prospered by providing goods and services to these farming community. No doubt Fort Motte was full of mule wagons and farmers shopping and trading stories on a summer Saturday afternoon 80 years ago.
Now Fort Motte is mostly quite modest homes situated around Town Square Drive. The brick post office, still showing its 29050 zip code, is all that remains of the various store fronts by the railroad tracks. The old jail, covered in vines, stands nearby and reminds us of over- active Saturday nights of a bygone era.
The Fort Motte Reunion Festival, whose motto is “A Small Place with Big Hearts” is held on the first Saturday in July.
Next week: Lone Star
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