During the eighteenth century, five founding fathers effected change in our city and set the community on a course toward prosperity. Elias Earle, Vardry McBee, Joel R. Poinsett, Benjamin F. Perry, and James C. Furman each saw potential in our small town—a community that began its existence as simply “Pleasantburg at the Greenville Courthouse” but would eventually become the Textile Capital of the World.

Elias Earle, 1762 - 1823

The years that spanned the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Greenville proved to be an era of remarkable change. Where dirt tracks and planting fields once stretched into the horizon, railroads and streets began cropping up instead; mills and factories steadily transformed an agricultural economy into an industrial one; and schools and churches, government buildings and retail shops began to fill the streets of this once-sleepy town, turning it into a burgeoning textile community.

Not coincidentally, these transformational years spanned the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and finally the Civil War. Amidst all this conflict, the city would be revolutionized by the first textile mills, employing hundreds of workers and creating affiliated communities that included schools, homes, places of worship, and places to shop. Summer visitors would also begin to discover the Upstate as a second-home destination, and the community’s first resort hotel, located on South Main Street (where the modern-day Westin Poinsett Hotel sits) would go up in 1824 to serve this emerging tourism industry.

Consider that in 1826, Greenville’s population was five hundred, and it was home to only a jail, a courthouse, male and female academies, and two churches. With no banks, money was loaned out by individuals at interest; mail was delivered once a week, and court trials attracted large audiences. Less than fifty years later, the town’s population had tripled, and the textile industry was in full swing. Shops offered a variety of goods, from cloth and clothing to shoes, farm equipment, and tools. A newspaper served the community, as did a bank, four railroads, a library, an opera house, and public schools.
There were a handful of visionary men whose public careers intersected as the century unfolded, setting the city on a course to develop as an educational and commercial center. They promoted intellectual life, helping to build the first schools and churches; and they supported infrastructure, lobbying for the railroads and streets that connected Greenville with other Southeastern markets. They sought to diversify the area’s economy by opening mills and factories that would eventually employ thousands. And they brought much-needed political change, easing tensions between Unionists and secessionists during the pre-Civil War period.

Like many early settlers, the ancestors of Elias Earle left England for Virginia in the 1600s and then migrated south down the Great Wagon Road through the Shenandoah Valley to settle in the Carolinas. When Earle himself moved to Greenville in September 1787, he set to work, historical documents show, acquiring land, eventually amassing seven thousand acres and thirty-three slaves.

Perhaps Earle’s first public involvement surfaced during the debate over whether or not to relocate the Greenville courthouse to land he owned near the Reedy River. When the courthouse site was selected, it went instead to land owned by his rival, notable Greenvillian Lemuel J. Alston.

Undeterred by the loss, Earle continued to play an active role in government dealings, being elected both to the state house of representatives and the state senate. It was during his tenure in the senate that Earle was appointed to a committee considering the possibility of a wagon road to be built over the mountains of western North Carolina.

Under Earle’s leadership, the South Carolina legislature appropriated funds to construct a road “wide enough for four horses to pull a wagon with a load weighing one tone (sic).” Officials overseeing construction of the road actually contracted with Earle and one of his relatives, John William Gowen, to build it, and by November 1797 the road was completed. As modern-day U.S. 25, this thoroughfare continues to serve as a primary connector between the Upstate and western North Carolina.

Elias Earle: History In Brief

At A Glance: As one of the original landowners in the village of Greenville, Earle served as a colonel in the South Carolina militia and would eventually be elected to the state house of representatives, the state senate, and the United States Congress. In 1802, he founded the state’s first ironworks on the north fork of the Saluda River.

Claim to fame: Earle was instrumental in securing funding for the construction of the first wagon road that would connect Greenville and the Upstate with trading markets in North Carolina and Tennessee.
Did You Know? Earle and his wife, Frances Robinson, are buried in the Earle Family Cemetery, located on Old Buncombe Road in the Sans Souci neighborhood.

Dirty politics: During his 1806 re-election campaign for U.S. Congress, Earle once recruited supporters by setting up a bench in the middle of the street to freely dispense whiskey to all comers. Although he didn’t win that bid for office, Earle later reclaimed his congressional seat.

Vardry McBee, 1775-1864

Vardry McBee was perhaps the most pivotalfigure in the history of our city and Greenville County as a whole, thanks to his business acumen and impressive foresight for how the community could grow and prosper.

A product of the Carolina frontier, McBee was born in 1775 on the eve of the American Revolution, a conflict that would prove formative in his early years. Both his father and older brother fought with the Patriots, at King’s Mountain and the Battle of Cowpens. McBee himself never fought for American independence, but instead used his considerable fortune to improve the lives of his fellow citizens, appropriating his land and fortunes to public improvement projects.

McBee opened the first textile mill on the Reedy River, but he saw value in a diversified economy. In his private business life, that meant he owned two flour mills, a cotton factory, and wool and paper mills. Publicly, even as he approached his 80s, it led him to champion the construction of a railroad line that connected Columbia and Greenville. In 1853, this line became the first rail to serve the community, and it would become a turning point in the economy of the town.

Vardry McBee: History in Brief

At a glance: An industrialist and philanthropist, McBee worked to diversify the Southern economy while also promoting education and religion. He donated land for the city’s first four churches (four different denominations), as well as the male and female academies. Those efforts influenced Furman University’s move to Greenville (from just north of Columbia) and the development of Greenville Women’s College.

Claim to fame: In 1816, McBee bought the town of Greenville from landowner Lemuel Alston—all 11,028 acres of it.

Did You know?: McBee was living in Lincolnton, North Carolina, when he purchased Greenville. Although he wouldn’t move to Greenville until 1836, McBee promoted Greenville as a summer resort and industrial center.

He said it: “A man should be prudent and careful, (not a) bully of virtue, nor a bigot.”

Joel R. Poinsett, 1779-1851

It’s widely known that Joel Poinsett was the first ambassador to Mexico, a position he held for five years, but he also served as the first consul-general of the United States to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Santiago, Chile. He studied medicine and law, and not surprisingly was extremely well traveled, but he also had interests in natural history, science, and politics.

While serving in the South Carolina legislature, Poinsett was appointed president of the board of public works from 1819 to 1821, a position that had him overseeing construction of the state road that traversed Saluda Mountain. This road (modern-day S.C. Secondary Road 42) ran from Charleston, through Columbia, and into North Carolina, creating a seamless connector capable of accommodating even the “heaviest load,” in place of several inefficient roads already in existence. Not surprisingly, more than twenty years later, he would join McBee and others to support connecting Columbia and Greenville by rail.

Joel Poinsett: History in Brief

At a glance: Poinsett was an eternal public servant and an amateur botanist. He served in both the South Carolina legislature and the U.S. Congress, was appointed secretary of war, and served as an ambassador to several countries.

Claim to fame: During his tenure as the first U.S. minister to Mexico from 1825 to 1830, Poinsett brought with him the Euphorbia pulchernima plant, now known as the poinsettia.

Did You Know?: Poinsett was named secretary of war by President Martin Van Buren, and during that tenure he worked with other like-minded public servants to found the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, a precursor to the Smithsonian Institute.

A Grave Tale: Poinsett was a summer resident of Greenville, and died en route from Charleston to Greenville in 1851 at the home of Dr. William Anderson in Statesburg, South Carolina. He is buried in the churchyard of the Church of the Holy Cross there, where his tombstone reads, “A pure patriot, an honest man, and a good Christian.”

James Clement Furman, 1809-1891

Born in Charleston, James Furman’s legacy is the service and devotion he gave to his namesake university, which is actually named for his father, Dr. Richard Furman, a Baptist minister and denominational leader. The junior Furman began his tenure as a member of the Furman University faculty while it was still located north of Columbia in Fairfield. He would, working with members of the school’s board of trustees, campaign over the next six years to persuade the state Baptist Convention to move the school to Greenville, where it eventually opened in 1851 in McBee Hall. He would go on to become chairman of the faculty and later president of the university.

Furman, an ardent states’ rights supporter, was heavily involved in politics, as well. In 1860, he secured an appointment as one of the Greenville delegates to attend the Secession Convention, a meeting that would eventually lead South Carolina to become the first Southern state to secede from the Union. On December 20, 1860, Furman was one of the signers of the Ordinance of Secession.

James Furman: History In Brief

At a glance: James Furman became an influential political figure in the community and a leader at Furman University, a school that his father, Dr. Richard Furman, worked to found.

Claim to fame: Furman is best known for his efforts to have Furman University moved from Fairfield, South Carolina, to Greenville in 1851, where it opened in McBee Hall on the corner of Main Street and McBee Avenue. He was chairman of the faculty before later becoming president.

Did You Know?: Furman University closed during the Civil War, so Furman became president of the Greenville Women’s College instead. Initial efforts to reopen the school after the war’s conclusion were unsuccessful, but Furman was quoted as saying, “I have resolved, if the university should go down, to sink with it.”

An Impressive Eulogy: At an 1870 commemoration of the death of Confederate General Robert E. Lee,
Furman was a featured speaker.

Benjamin F. Perry, 1805-1886

Benjamin Perry arrived in Greenville after having been born and reared in the Old Pendleton District (modern-day Pickens County). In 1823, he enrolled at the Male Academy, taking trips to Paris Mountain and Table Rock, and educating himself on politics, law, and commerce.

An attorney by study, even after passing the state bar Perry opted instead to pursue a career in newspapers, first at the Greenville Mountaineer, and later with the Southern Patriot. But he would make his mark on Greenville by becoming a political reformer on behalf of a community made up of similar reformers.

Perry served in the state house of representatives, state senate, and as a Confederate States district judge until 1865, when, at the conclusion of the Civil War, President Andrew Johnson appointed him provisional governor of South Carolina. It was during this tenure as governor that Perry worked to write a new state constitution. During this process he supported, albeit reluctantly, the thirteenth amendment abolishing slavery. And, despite his progressive views of government, he opposed the fourteenth amendment, which gave former slaves constitutional rights like voting, holding office, and owning land. Just because he was a Unionist and a supporter of the Constitution did not mean he advocated federal efforts to abolish slavery.

Even so, Perry’s Unionist beliefs and anti-nullification opinions reflected the beliefs of most Greenvillians at the time: While much of the rest of South Carolina supported secession, Greenville didn’t. Perry’s seemingly radical views gave a voice to the city he called home, and shaped an early image of Greenville as a community of non-conformists.

Benjamin Perry: History in Brief

At a glance: A political reformer, Perry was often a lone voice in the wilderness with regard to state politics. He supported the popular election of the governor and the abolition of a property test to hold political office, and he championed diversified industry, railroad expansion, and public schools.

Claim to fame: Perry was often referred to as the only public voice in the state who did not equate Abraham Lincoln’s election with secession, and he opposed secession until South Carolina formally seceded, after which devotion to his home state took precedence and he enlisted in the Confederate service.

Did You Know?: Perry was an ardent Unionist and vehemently opposed nullification. So strong was his devotion to the Union that his passions got the better of him: in 1832, Perry, editor of the Greenville Mountaineer, fatally wounded a rival newspaper editor (who clearly did not share his beliefs) in a duel. He left the newspaper the next year, but almost twenty years later returned to the news business with the anti-secessionist Southern Patriot.

Ugly truth: Working with James C. Furman, Perry supported the election of Wade Hampton as South Carolina governor. Hampton, in South Carolina politics, symbolized the return of white rule in South Carolina.