Clarendon County page 4 pictures

Scenes From the Past

Clarendon County, S.C.

Photo Queries

Can you identify the Clarendon County residents in our photo album ?

If you can please let Cindy Parker , Clarendon County, SCGenWeb Coordinator, know.

Paxville School

Perry Poole of Sumter, S.C.
provided the names of the
students in this photo.

Front Row, left to right:
Dorothy Kolb, Sudie Geddings, Hendrick Ardis, Josephine Pack, Daisy McLeod, Hazel Kolb

2nd Row, left to right:
Marshall Thomas, Jimmy Strange, Tedo Geddings, Faye Broadway, Dena Geddings

3rd Row, left to right:
Jesse Griffin, Tommy Goins, Tommy W. Broadway, Reed Broadway, Jullian Ardis

4th Row, left to right:
Lena Davis, Doris Lackey, Hazelton Stone, Lois Pack

The boy in the center at the back of the picture (fifth row) is Thomas P.Corbett.

Oak Grove School

(Photo taken by Cindy Parker, December 1997)

History of Oak Grove School

Located on the grounds of Oak Grove Methodist Church just outside of Manning, is a very old, one room school house known as Oak Grove School. It is known that Oak Grove School was established before the War Between the States, but Union troops burned the Clarendon County Courthouse during Potter's Raid in 1865, so the exact date of establishment has been lost. No one seems to know which was built first, the church or the school. (It is known that the site of Oak Grove was a Methodist Camp Meeting place before the church was started there so it is most likely that the church came first.)

Bobby Thigpen was told by his Great Aunt Lillis Ann Gamble, that her grandfather, Mr. Thigpen's great - great grandfather, James Edward Gamble, who was born in 1828 taught school in the one room school house at Oak Grove Methodist Church. The exact dates of when he taught there are not known, but he died between 1870 and 1880. Mrs. Ella Ridgeway Chewning told her son, Fred Chewning that she taught at Oak Grove School in 1895. Mrs. Litia Ridgeway Ridgeway taught there in 1905. From the photograph below, noting the varying ages of the students, it can be assumed that she taught all ten grades in the one room building. Mrs. Jessie Hamilton was the teacher in 1910. Mrs. Francis Joanna Timmons Lowder taught at Oak Grove in 1916. Her children, Bernard, Laura, Scott, and Alethia attended the school. In 1922, Mrs. Mary Holliday Strange was the teacher. Mrs. Bessie Ridgill Jayroe taught eight grades at Oak Grove in 1924. Some of the students were Buddy, Eddie, and Scott McLeod. Mr. George Lesesne remembers that he attended Oak Grove School in 1925.

Oak Grove School

Class of 1905

This picture was taken at Oak Grove School in 1905. Litia Ridgeway, the teacher, is the 4th from the left on the back row. She is wearing a white blouse with a dark scarf tied around her neck. Her nephew, Carlos Ridgeway, is the small boy in the front row with the dark necktie. The man on the far right is a cousin, Champy Ridgeway. Few Barwick is the first person on the second row. (He has the large white collar.) The sixth person from the left on the second row is Margaret White Crist. The third person on the back row is Katharine Ridgeway who married George Richburg.

(This photograph was donated to the Clarendon County, SCGenWeb homepage by Beverly M. Rogers, a grandaughter of Carlos Ridgeway who is pictured above.)

Students of Oak Grove School

(Children of James Friendly and Frances Joanna Lowder)

Mrs. Frances Joanna Timmons Lowder taught at Oak Grove School in 1916. Some of her children were her students. Pictured here are Bernard (back left), Scott (front left), Frances (baby in chair), Laura (back right), and Alethia (front right).

(This picture was donated to the Clarendon County, SCGenWeb page by webmaster, Cindy Parker. Scott Lowder was her maternal grandfather. The others pictured here were her great aunts and uncles.)

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