We’re still trying to find out the history behind this grand house about five miles northwest of Holly Hill, S.C. where U.S. Highways 15 and 176 split. We’re told a family that just had a daughter (see if you can find the pink stork sign) is renovating it slowly. [We shared this popular photo first in 2013 and thought you’d like to see it again.]
UPDATE, 9/27/14: Our friend Lynn Teague of Columbia says her kin and friends call this the old Galphin House. Later she sent word that archives in Orangeburg identify the house as being built by the Rev. Richard Powers Galphin and Lillian Wells Galphin, who died in 1913 and 1935 respectively. She added that the land around Wells Crossroads likely belonged to the Taylor family more than 200 years ago. Thanks Lynn!
Holly Hill, which had about 1,300 people in 2000, is near the Santee Cooper lakes in Orangeburg County as well as Interstates 26 and 95. Thirteen miles south is the National Audubon society’s Francis Beidler Forest in Four Holes Swamp. It features the largest remaining stand of virgin bald cypress and tupelo gum swamp in the world. Also a few miles from Holly Hill are two large cement quarries.
Holly Hill is just one of the many towns in Orangeburg County, South Carolina’s largest. Some 91,476 people were thought to live in the county in 2012, according to the U.S. Census. Almost two in three residents are black. Some 24.5 percent of residents live below poverty.
Photo is copyright 2013, Andy Brack. All rights reserved.
I grew up in that area and always heard that it was a stagecoach/boarding house/general store at that crossing, which is called Wells Crossroads.