Volume 7, Issue 2- Summer Edition | 2023 | |
Cannons Stand Guard on Fort Mill’s Main Street | |
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The two massive cannons on Main Street were not there to protect Fort Mill from invading armies. They began their service defending the coastline of South Carolina. Similar cannons can be seen in place at the Fort Sumter National Monument in Charleston Harbor. When visitors ask if the cannons were used by the US or the Confederate forces, the answer is “Yes”. They were, at different times during the Civil War, used by each army.
How they came to guard Main Street is a story of facts and hearsay. In 1901, the Federal Government offered to give the obsolete shore cannons to any town who wanted them. Fort Mill asked and eventually the two cannons arrived on flatbed rail cars. The government’s generosity ended there. The cannons were unceremoniously rolled off the rail car onto the ground beside the tracks and the train moved on.
Unfortunately, the massive steel cannons, technically parrot rifles, landed on a buried water line that ran to a wooden water tank used to fill the boilers of locomotive engines. The town was left with two 9,500 pound immovable objects mired in a huge puddle at the bottom of Main Street. After several unsuccessful attempts to dislodge the cannons, an onlooker, from near Pineville, if the legend holds true, offered to move the cannons for $100 to be paid only if he was successful. A deal was struck and the man, who ran a sawmill, showed up with a team of mules and the ropes, pulleys and skids to
unstick the cannons and drag them up the hill to a spot near where they now stand.
Every year, a cannoneer from Fort Mill and a carefully chosen crew, load the cannons with black powder and paper wadding, and fire them in celebration of July 4th . The blast is loud enough to shake much of the town. One year, an especially loud blast shattered the window of The Fort Mill Times office across the street. The editor, John Mantle, was born in England and exited the building carrying a white flag of surrender. Reluctant to break with the tradition of firing the cannons on July 4th, when the Covid pandemic prevented Main Street’s festivities in 2020, current cannoneer Mike Short stopped at a store, bought some fireworks and, with his daughter along, kept the tradition alive. Mike loaded the cannons with the firecrackers and set them off. While his daughter filmed the event, he made a speech declaring, “It is not the size of the round but the size of the sentiment.” It is fitting that this year will be the 50th firing of the cannons as we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Fort Mill’s
founding.
*This story is adapted from an account in Out of the Past by local Editor, Writer and historian, William R. Bradford.
Supplementary material provided by cannoneer Mike Short.
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FMHM Yard Work Day
Saturday, May 20
10:00 AM-12:00 PM
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Pioneer Crafts
Saturday, May 27 & June 10
8:30 AM -12:30 PM
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FM History 101 Walking Tour
Saturday, May 27
10:00-11:00 AM
Additional dates can be found on our website at fmhm.org/events
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Ag + Art Tour
FMHM is part of the tour this year, so stop in for a cold soda & a moon pie!
Saturday, June 10
10:00 AM-4:00 PM
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Native American Culture with Dr. Stephen Criswell
Tuesday, June 27
12:00-1:00 PM
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A special Thank you to all those that worked the Strawberry Festival for the Beverage sales this year. Wow, what an Amazing Day! It was beautiful in so many ways but most of all our hearts were filled with the support from our volunteers. Thank you for all that you do!! | | |
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FMHM Board High School Representatives
We are so proud of our Fort Mill History Museum Board High School Representatives. They spoke at the FMSD board meeting on May 9 about their upcoming History Challenge event that they are preparing for. The event will be on December 1, 2023 and more details will be out soon.
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FMHM Research Team Tours Library | |
Pictured Above: David Ward, Megan Brinton, Susan Andrews, Cheryl Hill, John Skardon, Mike Hill, Wayne Archie, Mike Short, Flora Doraski, Mary Kathryn Harris, and Joe Doraski | |
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The members of the Fort Mill History Museum Research Team are always looking for ways to improve their research skills and familiarize themselves with archives that might prove helpful.
This desire was the impetus behind the team’s “field trip” to the Rock Hill branch of the York County Library in March 2023. John Skardon, a reference and genealogy librarian, led a tour and discussion with ten members of the research team. Mr. Skardon talked about the resources available in the library, and provided a map of the Local History and Genealogy Area
of the library to help researchers locate the materials they are looking for.
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The Rock Hill branch has numerous local church and cemetery records. There are also
many collections of family records, which are organized by state and county. There is also a large collection of genealogy journals, as well as the journal of the South Carolina Historical Society.The library also houses microfilm that cover the complete runs of Fort Mill News and the Fort Mill Times, as well as the Yorkville Enquirer through about 1960. There are several microfilm reader devices available for researchers, including a ScanPro that allows users to print documents that they find, and/or save them on a flash drive.
The York County Library is also an affiliate library for FamilySearch, a website hosted by
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that hosts millions of records related to family and local history. While many records on FamilySearch can be viewed at home, licensing agreements occasionally require that they be viewed at an affiliate library. The library also allows patrons to visit ancestry.com and Fold3, a website focusing on military records. Mr. Skardon is a valuable resource for those studying local history and genealogy.
Members of the research team have already spent many hours at the Rock Hill branch, and are grateful for the support of the York County library staff and their dedication in preserving, maintaining, and sharing the information housed there.
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Giving to your local museum ensures that your dollars stay in your community along with supporting programs for you, our children and our neighbors. Please consider giving to help us enjoy more programs and activities and improve our quality of life. | |
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FMHM's 2nd Annual
Strawberry Soiree
Thank you to all those that attended, supported and donated to our Strawberry Soiree this year. We want to extend a special thank you to Selena at the Clebourne House and the Town of Fort Mill for the community partnerships. We couldn't have done it without you all.
We hope to see many new faces at our Soiree in April 2024.
Click Here to see more pictures!
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We are excited to say that in January we paid off our mortgage! We are however facing some major repairs on the building which is one of the oldest structures in Fort Mill. Please consider giving to this fund so that we can provide a safe place for our visitors to hear Fort Mill's Story. | |
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To say that Maddi Martin has found her only passion in life is not exactly true. She has a great many passions for a young woman who just turned 27 years old a few weeks ago.
Maddi is a teacher, prolific reader, an artist (last year was awarded second place in the faculty art contest where she teaches), a history enthusiast and grows plants. And, of course,
add FMHM to her list, where she leads the Education Team, among other things.
“Under Maddi’s enthusiastic leadership, the team sponsors several projects including the FM History Trunk Program with visits to schools to present Fort Mill history,” said Cindi
Lightsey, a team member. “She has also worked on the production of a series of short videos about the Catawba Indians, organized the Scavenger Hunt for the Strawberry
Festival in May and can provide Fort Mill trivia for game night.”
Maddi enlisted the help of her students to build “Tammy” one of the Halloween scarecrows representing the Museum. Tammy sat with her “husband” on Main Street during the Halloween festivities this year. Maddi is a wonderful addition to our Education Team and is very technically savvy,” said team member Charlotte Adkins. “Her meetings are so lively; it is very easy to see that Maddi enjoys people.”
Born and raised in Rock Hill, Maddi went to Clemson University, earning a degree in social studies/education and then earned a master’s from Winthrop University in learning design and technology. She now resides in Fort Mill and teaches at Catawba Ridge High School. She teaches world history and advanced placement classes for juniors and seniors in psychology, mental health, and brain intuition.
Maddi takes students to Europe under the Education First program and will be traveling to Germany shortly. Just about every Friday night you can find Maddi with friends eating wings or watching a movie. And at night or on the weekend, after grading papers, you may find her making rice krispy treats for the kids she teaches. Maddi has a full schedule, but always finds time to eat breakfast with her dad and sister once
a week. “I have known Maddi since she was in 9th grade,” said Christia Humburg, Executive Director. “We are so blessed to have her as part of our organization. She is talented, organized, and dedicated, but most of all she leads with her heart. Just another reason that makes our Museum so special.”
Pat Crigler
Creative Writer
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Do you have any unique items significant to Fort Mill’s History you would like to donate to the museum? If so, please send an email to Carson Cope– Collections Manager at carson@fmhm.org with a description of the item(s) and picture if possible. Thanks for
helping to preserve Fort Mill’s past.
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Did you know? A World War I hand grenade was discovered in a box of old magazines in the office of Dr. J.B. Elliott. Dr. Elliott says the grenade was brought from France by some of the Fort Mill boys who saw service overseas in the World war and was left at the Lytle drug store. It finally got into his office in the rear of the drugstore. Now Dr. Elliott is wondering whether to accept “Whacker” Smith’s offer to explode the grenade or to throw it into the Catawba River. – Fort Mill Times May 21, 1925 | |
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My name is Ginger Williams, and I am a Professor of History at Winthrop University. I just finished my thirtieth year of teaching full-time after receiving my Ph.D. in 1993. Although my specialty is the history
of US-Latin American relations, I think that local history is important, and for that reason, I was happy to serve on the FMHM board when asked. The purpose of history is to tell the fullest story possible of our past, whether it be beautiful, painful, tragic, peaceful, violent, etc. The fact is that history is all of those phenomena and more. We have to uncover all of our stories so that we can move forward in a better way than we have in the past.
My high school history teacher told us, “History changes, baby,” and although my classmates and I found humor in that statement, it is true. History does change because we are constantly uncovering truths about the past. The more we uncover, the more our history changes, and that, overall, is a good thing. My goal in serving on the board is to help connect history students and graduates from Winthrop University to the FMHM. History undergraduates and graduate students offer our museum much in the way of new ideas and expertise. As these students move on, they hopefully will stay connected to our museum and bring their future students to the museum in the future. The past and the future are very much connected. I look forward to contributing my time and efforts in helping make the FMHM one of the best local museums around!
Dr. Ginger Williams
Professor of History, Winthrop University
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Back Window Podcast with Mike Hill
We have a new addition to our Newsletter.
Friend of the Museum and Fort Mill native Mike Hill has a series of podcasts about growing up in Fort Mill in the 1950’s, ‘60s and 70’s when it was still a small town. You can listen to all the podcasts here or search Back Window on the Spotify App.
The podcast is of Mike Hill’s impressions of Fort Mill at the time and are not meant to be historically accurate.
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107 Clebourne Street, Fort Mill, SC 29715 | phone: 803-802-3646
Located in the Fort Mill Historic District
FMHM.ORG
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The Fort Mill History Museum is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.
Support for this project is provided by the SCPRT TAG,
Town of Fort Mill & York County Accommodations Tax, FMHM members and donors.
For visitors information including lodging, contact Visit York County at 803-329-5200.
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