Tirzah 200 Years Ago, York County, South Carolina

Tirzah 200 Years Ago
By: Louise Pettus

Recently, a resident of Tirzah, a community about seven miles southeast of York, asked, “What was life like here 200 years ago?”

We all know that 200 years ago there were no paved roads, no electricity, no grocery stores, no telephones, etc. Life had to be much simpler but it was not an easy life.

In 1800 most of the population in this area was Scotch-Irish, perhaps as high as 90 per cent. There was no white settlement before 1751. Nearly all were either immigrants or children of immigrants. They brought a lot of customs from the Old World but had to cope with New World situations.

The Indians had coped for several thousand years and had much to offer. People who grew up eating oatmeal were soon learning to eat corn—and learning to cultivate it. They learned to fence in their gardens and grain crops and to let their livestock roam and forage. Animals ranged over the SC countryside until an 1877 law required fencing them in.

Food was preserved by salting, pickling or drying. It was cooked over open fires, either inside or outside of the house depending on the temperature. Iron pots and skillets were the most valuable property in the household.

Having wood for the fireplace was a continuous need for cooking and for heat and light. Candles gave off little light and the kerosene lamp wasn’t invented until 1854.

Nowadays we tend to visualize the earlier countryside of as mostly covered with trees. Not so. Much was cut to clear the land for crops and to build log cabins. With no commercial fertilizer there was a limit of about four years for a crop before the land had to lie fallow in order to recover fertility.

When William Hill built iron works on York’s Allison Creek, the mill consumed over 15,000 acres of trees to make charcoal for the iron works.

The cotton gin was invented in 1794. It took at least a decade for it to catch on. In 1800 women and children separated seed and lint by hand. Spinning wheels and looms were a household necessity. Families were large and spent a high percentage of their time providing enough clothing for each person to have two of any clothing item. No more than one pair of shoes for most people who went barefooted in the summer to save shoe leather.

Carolina red clay made it difficult to build decent roads. In the winter it was impossible to travel on any wheeled vehicle. If one didn’t have a horse, then there was nothing to do but walk. Most people stayed home.

The first public places built were taverns and churches. Taverns served as inns and postal stops. In 1803 there were only two post offices in York County—in Yorkville, the county seat, and at Hill’s Iron Works. Tirzah’s first post office opened in 1877.

A few years before1800, there was a “preaching station” at the home of Joseph Miller about two miles west of the present Tirzah church. And there was an Associate Reform church at Ebenezer which is now inside of Rock Hill. At Ebenezer there was a split in the congregation over whether they would follow the custom of singing the Psalms or to adopt Watts Hymns. Those who wanted only Psalms left Ebenezer and joined with the Associates who worshipped at Joseph Miller’s home. The two groups organized the Tirzah congregation in 1803.

They built a log church and until 1827 were served by four men called “supplies” who served as substitutes in the pulpit. These were Rev. William Dixon/Dickson, Eleazer Harris, John Cree and Isaac Grier. Both Cree and Dixon were immigrants and well-educated. Isaac Grier, born near Clover, is particularly remembered for training other ministers, a large percentage of them black men.

In 1827 a new church was built and Rev. William M. McElwee was installed as minister for Tirzah and Sharon A. R. P. In a few years the church was divided over the issue of slavery. Rev. McElwee preached against slavery and in 1832 moved to the Northwest Territories. Slavery remained the major issue in the church until the end of the Civil War.