Every city has its own aura, its own personality.

We're in a busy, modern town, yet conservation and preservation are very important words.

The citizens here know who they are, where they are where they've been, and where they're going.

We're in Camden.

Camden is a capsule of American history, yet it's modern as tomorrow.

It still has an interesting overlay from the past, because here horses are forbidden on the sidewalk.

♪ ♪ ♪ This busy highway was originally the Catawba Trading Path.

Before that, it was part of the hunting grounds of the Wateree Indians, here from the beginning of time, but after the Yemassee Wars, the Waterees became absorbed into the Catawba Nation.

In 1730, George II of England decreed that 11 towns be built along the waterways of what is now South Carolina, so a town called Fredericksburg was carefully laid out along the side of the river, but it was low-lying and marshy.

Settlers had already begun to arrive and build higher up on the Yemassee River.

So in 1750, when Samuel Wiley arrived with a group of Quakers from Ireland, he sought higher ground.

He built a village here, which he called Pine Tree Hill.

Samuel Wiley was an Indian trader.

He made friends with the Catawbas, particularly with King Haiglar, the wonderful Catawba chieftain who in 1763 swore eternal friendship to the British.

His people never, throughout the years, broke that pledge.

Samuel Wiley gave to the small community a burial ground, which was to be theirs for 999 years, for the price of one peppercorn per year to be paid on August 1st upon demand.

♪ In 1758, Joseph Kershaw came to this thriving community.

He named it Pine Tree Hill and built his first store.

Ten years later, the name was changed to Camden in honor of Charles Pratt, who espoused the cause of the American colonies in the British Parliament.

Kershaw built a flour mill, a saw mill, a tobacco warehouse, many warehouses along the river and, not forgetting the needs of civilization, a distillery and a brewery.

He became extremely wealthy and built this beautiful home overlooking the city he loved.

He was a philanthropist, an educator, a legislator, and a soldier.

♪ On October 28, 1774, George III signed a commission for a fair to be held in Camden.

"Hereto the said inhabitants might resort to purchase "horses, cattle, pigs, or other commodities which they want or have to dispose of."

This was to be held on the second Tuesday in April and November of each year and to last for three days.

He also decreed that a governor be appointed for the fair to settle disputes.

The first fair held in our country was held here in Camden in April 1775.

♪ Storms of the American War for Independence were heavy over South Carolina.

Charleston fell to the British, and Lord Cornwallis dominated almost all of the Patriot forces within the colony.

He occupied Camden and he made this the strongest British redoubt garrison in the colony and indeed the largest south of Yorktown.

The Patriot forces met the British on August 16, 1780, at a spot 8 miles east of the town.

The Patriot forces under General Gates had walked for two weeks through the sandhills of South Carolina with very little food.

When they approached the town, they were given their first meal green corn, hard peaches, and rum laced with honey.

Almost all of the men became ill.

So, although reinforced by the forces under the German Baron de Kalb, when they faced the line of British soldiers under seasoned officers, bayonets at the ready, they did the only thing possible...they ran.

Cornwallis immediately took over the Kershaw home as his headquarters, and poor Joseph was banished to British Honduras and later to Bermuda.

Cornwallis also took all of Kershaw's merchandise, his cattle, his sheep, everything that he possessed.

Cornwallis built a log-pole stockade around the village.

The circumference was more than a mile.

For 11 months, Camden was a principal supply source for all of the British forces in the South.

Lord Cornwallis was replaced by Lord Rawdon, and he and his subordinates, Bloody Tarleton and Christian Huck terrorized the Upcountry.

Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, was jailed here by the British.

When he was 13, he took part in a skirmish near Camden, was caught and imprisoned.

The legend goes that when a British officer ordered him to black his boots, young Andrew refused.

and with the point of his saber, the officer cut Andrew's cheek.

He bore this scar all of his life.

Eight months later, on April 25, 1781, the second battle in the Camden vicinity was fought at Hobkirk Hill, 2 miles north of town.

The Patriots, taking advantage of the natural springs there had stopped to wash their clothes and prepare a meal, when they were surprised by a sneak attack from Lord Rawdon's men.

The Patriots fought brilliantly and they were reinforced by the detachment under General Nathanael Greene.

General Greene always knew that the British forces were superior to his throughout the South.

So, his policy of hit and run decimated the British and left him to fight another day.

The Battle of Hobkirk Hill was a British victory, or a draw, as you will, but Lord Rawdon realized his supply lines were cut.

On May the 9th, Rawdon evacuated to Charleston and burned most of Camden as he left.

Cornwallis went to Yorktown.

The rest is history, and the United States was born, but during the Battle of Hobkirk Hill, a soldier with his horse at full gallop had his head blown off by a cannonball, and madly going on with the headless body, the horse raced into the distance.

They say even today in Kirkwood, when the moon is dark, you can see the headless horseman still riding, riding, searching for his lost head.

♪ Agnes of Glasgow watched her young man sail from Scotland to fight with Cornwallis.

She followed him to Charleston.

There are many versions of her story but this is the one that I like best.

In Charleston, she found that he was stationed here in Camden with Lord Cornwallis.

The only transportation up the river was by canoe with an Indian, When she reached the encampment, she found that her young man had died from his wounds a few hours before.

She was hysterical.

All she could say was that her name was Agnes, she was from Glasgow.

She threw herself over the body of the dead young man.

When the soldiers raised her, she too had died possibly of a broken heart.

She's buried here, and on a simple stone, a British soldier used his bayonet point to carve, "Agnes of Glasgow, 1780."

♪ Prosperity returned to Camden with the rebuilding of the stores, houses, mills, trading up and down the river, and the growth of the plantations which surrounded the growing city.

A cultural life began to develop too in literary societies, public and private libraries, even the building of an opera house to house the traveling en tertainers that came this way.

Indeed, Camden became the cultural center of this entire area and representative of what we think was the Old South.

The opera house still stands today and on its steeple in 1808 was placed the iron weather vane of King Haiglar, which at one time stood on the city market.

Even today, King Haiglar, patron saint of Camden, guards his people wi th his upraised bow and arrow.

♪ Robert Mills designed four things for Camden.

The first was the beautiful plantation home Mulberry Hill, designed for the James Chesnut family.

With its many outbuildings, orchards, and gardens, it became almost a complete independent village.

This was done in 1820.

In 1822, he designed Bethesda Presbyterian Church.

For this, he put the steeple at the rear of the building, and also gave the auditorium the first sloped, or raked, floor in the United States.

This was 1822.

1825, a beautiful memorial to Baron de Kalb.

The Marquis de Lafayette laid the cornerstone.

And last, a courthouse.

for which the stairway to the courtroom was enclosed, but in 1846 the citizens remodeled it and made the outside stairway that we see today.

The Quaker cemetery is a fascinating place.

Indeed, it's a story within itself.

Here lie three sections of White Christians, Black Christians, and people of the Jewish faith.

Here are heroes from every war in which the United States has been engaged, and men and women who in their day and their way contributed to the growth of our state and nation.

Every stone here represents a story of the life of the person.

There's one I would like to show you, the grave of John Adamson.

During the American Revolution he was a Tory by persuasion and in York County under the dreadful Captain Christian Huck, was with a group who terrorized Martha Bratton.

near Brattonsville.

Her husband William Bratton was a militia captain.

They threatened to decapitate her if she didn't tell them where her husband was.

John Adamson was not there to terrify women.

He knocked away the arm of the soldier which held a hand sickle against Martha's throat, saved her life.

Later he was wounded, and Martha helped identify him as the young man who saved her.

Later, he had to flee to Florida.

People such as the Brattons and friends of Camden gave him back his land.

He lived out his days as a merchant.

It's said that between the beginning of the 19th century and the War Between the States, a whole generation was lost to pleasure and alcoholism.

We do know that dueling was a way of life to the gentlemen of Camden, and many old grave markers bore the effect of the bullets where the young men would practice prior to the dueling, perfecting their aim.

In fact, an iron man was set up in the cemetery, in human form, so he would be a marvelous target against the time of the meeting between two gentlemen who had disagreed over some point of honor.

The iron man disappeared, but was found in the millpond when it was drained, a little rusty, and is under a private owner.

There was a second form of dueling, with swords.

Peter Stuart Ney came to Camden to teach the art of swordsmanship.

also used in the dueling.

He said in his cups he was Marshal Ney of France, one of the marshals under Napoleon Bonaparte.

Finally, some other Frenchmen who had been with Napoleon ran him out of town.

We know that he became a teacher in North Carolina and is buried near Statesville.

Was he Marshal Ney?

We do know that so many duels were fought in Camden, that the local newspaper refused to report either the combatants or the victim.

♪ Homes built before 1860 show a variety of lifestyles.

This is the Joshua Reynolds Home, said to be the birthplace of Samuel Mathis, the first White male child born in Camden.

It later became a girls' school and the home of the Confederate surgeon Dr. G.R.C.

Todd, brother of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln.

The Bonds Conway House was built by the first Black male to buy his own freedom in 1794 when he was 30 years old.

He was quite an artisan and carpenter by trade.

Greenleaf Villa, bu ilt 1815, is the only example of the double house still standing in Camden and the only one with a Dutch parapet on its roof.

The Bishop-Davis House, 1825, built by Bishop Davis, who served the Episcopal Church fr om the 1830s to 1871, although he was blind.

♪ Again, the clouds of war gathered, this time challenging the loyalties of every American as the Confederate States of America separated from the United States.

Every man in Camden volunteered.

There were four years of horror, suffering, death.

All of the sadness which accompanies any war in the pantheon here, are inscribed the names of six generals of the Confederacy from Camden, all of whom are who survived and who are honored here.

James Canty, James Chestnut, Zach Canty-Deas, John B. Villepigue, Joseph B. Kershaw and John D. Kennedy.

In another park, there is a water fountain honoring another Confederate soldier, Richard Kirkland.

This young man won no metals, accomplished no memoirs, but his heroism has always been unequaled.

♪ Under General JB Kershaw, Kirkland was fighting in December of 1862, west of Fredericksburg, Virginia, at a place called Mary's Heights.

In front of the troops was a sunken road with stone walls on either side, one side were the Confederates on the other side with the Union forces.

All day, during December the 14th.

the enemy wounded lying in the road cried for water, Kirkland begged again and again.

and finally general Kershaw gave him permission to care for the wounded.

He leaped over the stone wall carrying buckets of water to the enemy.

When the Union forces saw what was happening, the order came for ceasefire, and for an hour and a half, Kirkland carried water to the wounded soldiers.

Finally, he received his lieutenancy at the Battle of Gettysburg, but the angel of Mary's Heights died at Chickamauga.

This water fountain was made possible by the contributions of the children of Camden, and Kirkland lies under an impressive stone in the Quaker cemetery.

♪ Sherman's March is well known, Atlanta, Savannah, Columbia, Camden.

Sherman didn't stop his troops from marauding, vandalizing, murder, rape and all of the horrors associated with his raid and burn swath through the lands of the Confederacy.

Camden was almost destroyed.

When the troops came here they burned all the government supplies, the cotton sheds, the depots, passenger and freight areas.

They burned the Masonic Hall all the bridges, the Kershaw Cornwallis house, everything possible was destroyed, particularly in downtown Camden.

The stores were all raided and goods thrown into the street, and then after the destruction of the town had occurred.

squads of Yankees went through every home in Camden.

Many people were left destitute.

The raidng and the lost burned in the memory of Camden for years.

They were left with nothing.

Union troops camped near this house, and drew their water from the well here at Tanglewood.

This home is still owned by the descendants of Dr. and Mrs. Isaac's Alexander, for whom the house was built as a wedding gift.

Dr. Alexander was the physician who attended Barron DeKalb, the devastation of Camden was complete.

If one has no money one can barter, but what if there's nothing left to barter.

For two years, Camden printed its own paper currency against the time when the economy would permit it to be redeemed.

♪ Some of the homes in Camden survived, and soon there was rebuilding and building.

Such a lovely home is Sarsfield, which was built in 1873 by General James Chestnut, and was the last home of his wife, Mary, a very interesting lady.

Mary and her husband lived at Mulberry Hill until he was called into the service of the Confederacy, and whenever possible, she accompanied him to the various posts in which he served.

She kept her diaries from 1861 to 1865, from the fall of Fort Sumter to the fall of the city of Richmond.

Later after the war, General Chestnut realized that when he died, Mary might be homeless because his father's will stated that Mulberry Hill must pass to the eldest male heir of the family, and he and Mary had no children.

So General Chestnut had the large kitchen at Mulberry Hill demolished.

It was quite a huge building.

Many rooms on the first floor and the second floor held the rooms for the house servants.

The bricks were brought here and used to create this lovely home, and in this room with the bay window, and the French doors leading out to the veranda, Mary Boykin Chestnut finished her book in the 1880s a diary from Dixie, which is a wonderful example of the life of a genteel southern ladies of her times, Mary outlived her husband by one year.

♪ This lovely home escaped destruction.

It was built in 1850 by William Shannon, and was named a pine flat.

Later, it became the famous Hopkirk in but it's builder, William, was the William Shannon of the famous Cash-Shannon duel.

For some reason, Cash and Shannon became engaged in a very heated argument and decided to settle it by a duel.

William is remembered at this time as having long white hair and a lengthy white beard.

The duel was fought in Darlington County, and Cash killed Shannon.

Cash was tried for murder, but was released on a technicality.

Society would no longer tolerate such a needless waste of life, particularly after the terrible war, which was still very much in memory.

So the Cash- Shannon dual fought in 1880 was the last duel fought in South Carolina, and a few years later, the state legislature passed a law forbidding dealing in this state forever.

The railroads brought something else.

It brought Camden, a rebirth, and yet a chance to maintain its own particular quality of life.

The railroads brought people.

Travelers from north to south could stop here for weeks or months at a time, enjoy the people the climate.

Indeed, it was felt that it was quite salubrious for many people suffering with lung disease, and many came on a doctor's recommendation.

The very first tourist hotel was Hobkirk Inn, the former home of William Shannon, and many private homes took in paying guests.

An early folder describing the beauties of Hobkirk Inn say that an adult could stay at the Inn with wonderful southern meals for the sum of $2 and a half a week with lower rates for children and nurses, the ladies could enjoy croquet and tennis walks through the beautiful parkland, the live oaks the magnolias, but for the gentleman there was hunting and fishing, a golf course, and horses.

Camden became a winter playground, and so remained until World War Two.

Bernard Baruch, the adviser to presidents was born here in Camden.

and William F Buckley Senior bought this lovely home, Kamschatka.

It was built in 1854, by General Chestnut, and he built it on a sand hill.

Indeed, it was so far from the center of Camden that he named it Kamchatka for the northernmost point in Siberia.

In 1938, Mr. Buckley Sr. renovated the home and built these lovely terraces and gardens, and so we can believe that Bernard Baruch and William F Buckley Jr. once enjoyed the sound of horses hooves on a sandy lane on a beautiful spring morning when they were young.

The love of horses is a unique thing, as well as being the sport of kings.

Now raising horses for transportation or casual riding is one thing, but raising the thoroughbreds for racing is quite another picture.

The stables have always been an important part of Southern life, and never more so than here in Camden.

Mrs. Marion DuPont Scott was a great benefactress to racing here in Camden, particularly the Camden training course, here at Springdale.

We are here at Springdale, course, the premier steeplechase course, in the United States.

It has two very important events.

In the spring, the Carolina Cup is the beginning of the racing season.

It's also the social event of the racing season, and then in the fall, the Colonial Cup ends the season for another year.

The Colonial Cup offers the larger purse, because at that time the horse, the jockey and the trainer of the year are selected.

Thousands of people come to both races for the love of the horse, the love of racing, admiration for the rider, and just for the fun of the thing.

Camden has a logo, history, horses and hospitality, and every word is true.

We apologize to the famous people, historical spots and beautiful homes, we haven't been able to visit due to time, but they are all here and you'll thoroughly enjoy a visit to Camden but please, don't ride your horses on the sidewalk.

♪ ♪ Program captioned by: CompuScripts Captioning, Inc. 803.988.8438 ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪