A production of South Carolina ETV in association with the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism.

♪ (male singer) ♪ Oh, I have found the sweetest place ♪ ♪ where people smile and know my name.

♪ ♪ Oh, I have found the sweetest land ♪ ♪ as warm as sun and cool as rain.

♪ ♪ A place so faaarrr... from all we had, ♪ ♪ a place so far from all we've known, ♪ ♪ a quiet place that we can love ♪ ♪ and call our home.

♪ ♪ (Joanna Angle) About 1757, a group of Pennsylvanians arrived here and began settling land around a stagecoach tavern known as Fergus Cross.

This community of small farmers flourished, and in 1785, the village became the county seat.

By the 1840s, the 800 residents had one of the highest per capita income ratings in the nation.

This was the first town in the Upcountry to have gaslights, and after a railroad spur built in 1852 made connection with a main line, the prosperity of cotton shone everywhere.

Education was important here.

The Kings Mountain Military Academy, established in 1855, was considered the premier preparatory school in the state, and together with a female college, drew students from all over South Carolina and beyond.

As a thriving center of commerce, finance, and culture, York soon came to be known as "Charleston of the Upcountry."

Welcome to York and to "Palmetto Places," a series that explores and celebrates South Carolina's small towns and countryside.

I'm Joanna Angle.

[bird chirping] Today, York has the state's second largest National Register Historic District, exemplifying superb craftsmanship and the Scots-Irish tradition of individuality and style.

[birds chirping] This house of solid brick was once an inn accommodating the salesmen, called drummers, and other travelers.

A favorite local legend is that it was considered as the location for the movie "Gone With the Wind."

Near the center of York, this chaste, three-story structure is said to rest on a base of solid granite, 11 feet deep.

It was built by Robert Latta, the area's merchant prince.

An adjoining garden became famous for its strutting peacocks.

[birds twittering] The industrious Scots-Irish honored their Presbyterian faith with this striking, Romanesque church designed by George Edward Walker, a renowned South Carolina architect of the antebellum era.

In contrast to York's refined architectural legacy was its role as a winter home to the Barnett Brothers Circus, which occupied a long, stone building known as the animal house.

Every Friday there wa open house for the townspeople, and at Christmastime the season officially opened when Santa Claus rode down Congress Street on the back of an elephant.

North of York, the 4,000-acre Kings Mountain National Military Park preserves the site of one of the most bitter battles of the American Revolution.

After the fall of Charleston, Colonel Patrick Ferguson, a debonair Scot devoted to the King, had come to the backcountry to recruit Loyalists for the Crown.

What he did not plan for was a gathering of militia from Georgia, Virginia, and what is now Tennessee and Kentucky.

Called the best shot in the British army, Ferguson took his place on the mountaintop and announced that God Almight could not drive him from it.

After riding for 12 days and nights, the frontier Whigs arrived at noon, Saturday, October 7, 1780.

In rainy mist they formed a horseshoe around the mountain's base.

For an hour they fought.

Suddenly Ferguson fell, his body pierced by seven or eight balls.

He died with his foot still in his stirrup, and his second in command raised the white flag of surrender.

Despite common references to the British, this was an hour of American Whigs killing American Tories.

Ferguson was the only British soldier in this terrible conflict.

Colonel Patrick Ferguson's grave is marked in the Scottish style by a large cairn, or pile of rocks.

For nearly two centuries, visitors have observed the custom of the cairn, which is placing two rocks on the grave and taking one away.

The National Park Service operates a visitor's center with a film, diorama, and other exhibits that illustrate the battle, which many regard as the turning point of the American Revolution in the South.

[birds chirping] Adjacent to Kings Mountain National Military Park, Kings Mountain State Park offers a Living History Farm that demonstrates the lifestyles of the area's early pioneers.

The farm preserves a collection of 19th century log and timber structures from the South Carolina Piedmont blended with buildings constructed by park staff in the region's vernacular style.

Logs of the two-story farmhouse were hewn from chestnut.

All other structures are pine.

They include a small barn, smokehouse, corncrib, cotton gin, blacksmith and carpenter shop, sorghum mill, and a privy.

Each September the farm is the site of a festival called Pioneer Days, which features music, traditional crafts, and a muzzleloader's competition.

[birds singing] Just to the south of York, the Historic Brattonsville National Register District occupies the site of a plantation where more than 180 people once lived.

Here you can time travel through the social and economic evolution of the Bratton family and the surrounding region.

Wade Fairey is the executive director of the York County Historical Commission.

Wade, this is so important to South Carolina.

Tell us the significance of Historic Brattonsville.

Brattonsville is a wonderful interpretive site, Joanna.

It is just here to show how people lived from the 1780s, when they first moved here, all the way into the early 20th century when the Brattons sort of abandoned the site.

We start out by giving our tours.

Visitors look a the backwoodsman cabin, which is a cabi that we reconstructed to look at 1850s to 1880s life here on the frontier of what we cal backcountry South Carolina.

It's something we made of course, a replica.

Then we mov a step up the ladder to th Scots-Irish cabin that we cal the McConnell Cabin.

It was name after the McConnell family that lived close by.

It's a one-roo log house, but it was a step abov the time they lived in a dirt floor cabin with very meager circumstances.

That's the wa the Brattons lived when they firs moved here.

Then we get into the buildings that were originally here, such as th Revolutionary house or the Colone William Bratton House.

It's probabl the most important of al the buildings here.

It's a pre-Revolutionar log house underneath it clapboard siding.

The Bratton moved here right before the America Revolution and built it and, of course, became staunch patriots in this area.

I think that's on of the other reasons that most people come her to enjoy Brattonsville, is to learn abou the American Revolution and Martha Bratto and her involvement in the Battl of Huck's Defeat here.

She was a very courageous woman.

There was an encounter here on the porch, right?

That's correct, absolutely!

She's been written up as being one of the brave heroines of the American Revolution.

Captain Christian Huck who was a British supporter, led a group of British and Tory soldiers here on the evenin of July 11, 1780, supposedly lookin for her husband, who was a loca militia colonel.

They cam to the house, and sh staunchly refused to tell Captain Christian Huck and his dragoons where he husband was, and they threatene her life.

This is where she's bee written up dozens of times, including i the California textbook abou Mrs. Martha Bratton and her bravery at that time.

From the Revolutionary War house, then the family prospered and ended up with a much larger dwelling.

They sure did.

They caught on that cotton was going to make them money very quickly.

By five years, six years after the Revolution, they were buying additional amounts of land, slaves, cotton gin as soon as it was popularly made available in the early 1790s, and raising what we would call short staple cotton.

It didn't tak but one generation before they were goin to show off to neighbors that they had more mone than anybody and build what we cal the Homestead house.

The style of the house is Federal, right?

It sure is.

Tell us about the dining room.

The dining roo is wonderful.

It's a detache dining room.

It was never use as the kitchen.

It was a forma dining room.

It was probably on of the only formal parts of this plantation, because it was certainl a working plantation, not elaboratel furnished with extremely fin pieces of furniture.

That was really a specia area of the house.

Have you found another like it anywhere?

Nowhere.

We have corresponde with people from here to Alabam and Tennessee and Texas, and nowhere has anyone come up wit a detached dining room.

One of the things I love best about Brattonsville are the dependencies, the outbuildings.

Can you tell us about those, beginning with the gin house?

Sure.

We've been doing archeological work about 15 years, trying to find where the dependencies were, from meat houses to slave cabins to the gin house you were referring to.

A few years ago we di find the original location of the gin hous for ginning cotton.

We then foun a lady above York who was willin to donate a gin house.

Then we foun a wonderful contractor to help us in reconstructin the building here, accurately on its site.

A lot of ou visitors come here and want to se the relationship between our farm operatio and the houses.

That's really another point that makes Brattonsvill so exciting.

We can sho the whole story here, from th farm animals to the ginnin to the architecture.

It just encompasse an awful lot.

Among the other outbuildings, there's a doctor's office.

Yes...Dr. Bratton wa a full-time medical doctor.

He had contract with local planters to take care of their slave as well as their families and would trave extensively.

He was primarily in my opinion, a planter an entrepreneur.

He like to show off his money.

You have to remembe that Brattonsville is laid out with eigh brick dependencies on either sid of the dining room.

It was very forma and foreboding for thos who may have come to Historic Brattonsvill in the 1840s to borrow money from the rich doctor living here.

They didn't get very fa without noticing that they didn' live near as well as Dr. Bratton their next-door neighbor.

There is a fairly recent acquisition called Hightower Hall.

Tell us about that.

Hightower is the third generation of Bratton housing.

We have been working on this with Mr. R. F. Draper, who was the owner who is now deceased, for many years trying to work out a possible solution to acquire the property.

The property itself is extremely important.

It is the site of the Battle of Huck's Defeat, where Captain Christian Huck was killed after he harassed Mrs. Bratton the evening before.

Hightower i the focal point.

It is an 1850s, early 1850s Italianate house that was designe by William H. Ranlett, a very little-known America architect at that time.

Mrs. Bratton basically all she did was go through thi architectural plat book and picked ou plate such and such and say "I want this house."

Her husband, of course helped contract it and build it there.

It stood as a real symbo of plantation heritage for this area.

Now, there was a large population living here, a very large black population, and their houses have been recreated, the slave quarters.

Yes.

We have a African-American living history program here, a studies program, and a full-time curator to show how African Americans have contributed to Historic Brattonsville.

The Brattons owned 139 slaves in the 1840s, which made them the larges slave owners in York County.

A lot of peopl need to be reminded that they are such an importan part of history here... how they fare compared to the Brattons, what the were eating, what the were dressing in, what kind of condition they were living in.

One of the interesting thing about Brattonsville is that we have done tw archeological excavations of the slav dependencies.

We're findin more and more every day on their contribution to the site.

My name is Kessie.

Here at Brattonsville, I's just one of the 139 slaves.

Me and the husband, Adam, we's what you call skilled slaves.

I's the seamstress, and Adam's the carpenter.

Bein' a skilled slave had its rewards, so to speak.

That meant we got to eat a little better and dressed a little better, 'cause I's a-work at the big house.

After I finish telling chillun that come visit about our work here as slaves at Brattonsville, I's always like to tell 'em a story.

One story I like is "The Richest Man in the County."

You see, there was this rich planter.

One night he had this dream about the richest man in the county was gonna die.

Since he was the richest, he just knows that dream is about him.

He woke up after that dream, and the water was just runnin' down his face and all over his body!

He said, "Wife, go tell Joe to get the doctor, "cause I had a dream the richest man was gonna die, and I's a-know it's about me."

Well, she did as she was told.

The servant Joe took the wagon and brought the doctor back.

Doctor checked Master Carter and told him, "You's fine.

Ain't nothin' wrong with you."

But that Master Carter just knew he was gonna die.

Well, they talked a little while, and Master Carter say, "Doc, I want you "to meet John, my most loyal servant.

Been with me since he was a little boy."

So they went out the back door, and right outside the back door was this small cabin, just as nice as you please, right there.

So they walked over, and Master Carter knocked on the door... wham, wham, wham!

"John, get up... come on, boy!

I want you to meet Doc."

But he didn't answer the door.

Master Carter knows he was there cause he heard him 'fore he went to bed.

He knocked again... wham, wham, wham!

Master Carter's gettin' kind of worried.

Doc could see that, so Doc knocked... wham, wham.

But still, there was no answer.

Doc took his great big hand and pushed on that door!

The door went in, just like that as you please.

Inside a-that cabin was a big fireplace, and there was a pot there.

Must be where John had supper.

There was a little cot next to that fireplace, and there was a man's body on there with his back to the door.

"John, wake up...

I's know you ain't sleep!

I heard you out here this evenin'."

John didn't say nothin'.

"Boy, don't you hear me talkin' to you?

Get up!"

Doc walked over there, and he touched the body.

That body just fell right back.

"John, what's the matter with you?"

Doc walked over, and Doc sort of touched that body and felt it like this.

He looked up at Master Carter and said, "Master Carter, the boy's dead."

"What you mean that boy's dead?

"I heard him out here this evenin'.

Get up, John, get up!"

Doc went back over and he touched the body again, and he said, "Master Carter, he been dead over an hour."

Tears started to come to Master Carter's eyes.

"I can't believe it," he said.

"I can't believe it!

"He was such a good servant.

"That was just about the time I had my dream that the richest man in the county was gonna die."

Doc looked at him, and he said, "You know, Master Carter, "maybe the richest man in the county did die... just maybe he did."

♪ Soon I will be done with the troubles of the world, ♪ ♪ troubles of the world, ♪ troubles of the world.

♪ Soon I will be done with the troubles of the world.

♪ ♪ Goin' home to live with God.

♪♪♪ "The Richest Man in the County."

(Angle) Many of the beautifully made antique furnishings in Brattonsville's collection have provided inspiration to a modern day master.

Meet John Leake... furniture maker extraordinaire.

I've been makin' things as long as I can remember.

Had a little lathe down in the basement of our house.

I was just 10 or 12 years old and used to do a little turning down there.

Really didn't know how to turn...

I just got up there and scraped some wood away, but I was fortunate to have a real good shop teacher in high school.

It kept me going.

Then I went to school at Appalachian State.

I guess it was up there that I really made my first good piece of furniture.

That's about 20 years ago, and I've been at it here full-time now for... going on 12 years.

I like to think I've improved a great deal since that first piece.

It was a real nice, Queen Anne chest of drawers.

I ran up on that chest about 10 years after I made it.

It was still lookin' good.

It's over in Charlotte.

There's nothing finer tha a nice, big, wide plank of wood that has all kind of nice grain in it.

I've been buyin' wood on a regular basis for about 20 years.

Unfortunately, it's gettin' harder and harder to find real... real good wood.

I use primarily hardwoods... walnut, cherry, mahogany, some poplar.

You get the best, and I see no reason to spend a lot of time on a piece and not use anything bu the finest materials available.

There's too much work involved.

I like the handwork that's involved.

I like to kind of think the small things-- the details, the inlays, the carvings, the dovetailings-- will kind of set my work apart from other people's.

I enjoy this inlay work a lot because it takes... it's not real hard to do, but it takes a fair amount of patience and skill and some luck.

Most people won't even attempt to do it.

I guess I have a bad habit, or fault, of I like to do things that nobody else can do.

Sometimes that gets me into trouble, but when it's all over and done, and I get to look at that nice piece that's got all that pretty work in it, it makes my piece stand out from the next piece.

I do all my dovetailin' by hand, which is just about a true lost art.

Nobody hand dovetails much any more.

It's a slow process.

It takes me probably four or five times longer to do it than it could be done by machine, but I take a lot of pride in my dovetailin'.

I do my own carving.

I'm not a carver.

There's always been, throughout history, shops that specialize in thing like inlaying and carving.

Of course nowadays, if you have a shop, you've got to do it all.

But I can carve.

I don't consider myself a carver, but I enjoy that kind of stuff.

It's quiet... you get to sit down.

Not much noise, and after havin' a planer or router screamin' at you for three or four hours, it's nice to have a little quiet work to do.

I've always enjoyed, at the end of the day, turning all the lights out except for one.

I get back and kind of critique my work, see what I've done for the day.

Most of the time I' pretty proud of what I've done.

I try not to let anything leave here that I'm not real proud of.

After you've worked 8 or 10 hours, you can most nearly always see where you've started and where you've stopped at the end of the day.

So you have a real good opportunity to see how far you've come.

I really enjoy sittin' back in my favorite chair and just look at what I've done.

I try to build everything to where it's gonna stand up to the test of time.

Most of the time you build a piece for somebody, they enjoy fine things anyway.

So if it's a desk or a chair or a bed or a cupboard, every time they go to use that piece, I hope they'll recognize what they have and polish it every now and again and talk to it and love it a little bit.

I think if they show a little love to the piece, that it'll respond with a lot of good use through a lot of years.

I feel real fortunate that no matter how long I live, the furniture I've made probably gonna outlive me.

I try to build it where it can stand up for a long, long time, generations of use.

It makes me proud to know that hundreds of years after I'm gone, that a little bit of me will still be left here.

We're glad that you could join us for this visit to York, to Kings Mountain, and Brattonsville, and hope that you'll be with us again for "Palmetto Places."

Until then, I'm Joanna Angle, inviting you to discover South Carolina... smiling faces... beautiful places.

Program captioned by: CompuScripts Captioning, Inc. 803.988.8438 (female singer) ♪ And here we live, ♪ within this land ♪ of mountains' edge and ocean's shore.

♪ ♪ A land of strength... a land of grace... ♪ ♪ of men and women gone before.

♪ ♪ So many smiling faces here, ♪ ♪ so many memories still to come.

♪ ♪ Beautiful places we hold dear ♪ ♪ in this our home.

(choir joins) ♪ South Carolina, always near... ♪ ♪ and always hooommmme.... ♪♪♪ ♪