1881
By LEE HENDREN, T&D Staff Writer Tuesday, October 24, 2006The year was 1881, and one of the big stories in Orangeburg County (population 41,395) was the publication of the first issue of The Times and Democrat newspaper on Sept. 29.
Here are some interesting facts about 1881:
n The United States had three presidents that year. Rutherford B. Hayes concluded his term and was succeeded by James A. Garfield on March 4. Garfield survived an assassin’s bullet on July 2, but succumbed to infection of his wound on Sept. 19. He was succeeded by the former vice president, Chester Arthur. All three were Republicans.
n Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell formed the Oriental Telephone Company.
n Phoenix, Ariz. was incorporated, and Abilene, Texas was founded.
n Kansas became the first U.S. state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages.
n Billy the Kid escaped from a jail in New Mexico.
n Clara Barton established the American Red Cross.
n The Tuskegee Institute opened in Alabama.
n Native American Chief Sitting Bull surrendered to U.S. troops.
n The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral occurred in Tombstone, Ariz.
n Born in 1881: Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, Pope John XXIII, American engineer and airplane manufacturer William Boeing, English poet Edgar Guest, and English-born writer P.G. Wodehouse.
n Died in 1881: American gunslinger Billy the Kid, Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, Czar Alexander II of Russia, English Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and Whistler’s mother (Anna McNeill Whistler).
According to the U.S. Census of 1880:
n The total population of South Carolina was 995,577.
n The assessed value of all real estate in South Carolina totaled $77,461,670.
n South Carolina had 93,864 farms comprising a total of 13,457,613 acres. More than half of the acreage was woodland and forest, as opposed to cultivated crops.
n South Carolina had 10 newspapers and periodicals devoted to religion: one Baptist, one Episcopal, one Lutheran, two Methodist and five Presbyterian.
n South Carolina had 3,077 public elementary and high schools. Total value of all public school properties in the state was $407,256.
n Average amount paid monthly per teacher for services was $25.21.
n South Carolina had 81 newspapers and periodicals: 80 in English and one in German. Nationally, the vast majority of foreign-language newspapers were German, followed by Scandinavian languages, French, Spanish and Bohemian.
The first full year of publication of The T&D was 1882. In that year:
n The U.S. Congress outlawed polygamy.
n Western outlaw Jesse James was shot and killed.
n John D. Rockefeller united his oil holdings into the Standard Oil Trust.
n The Knights of Columbus was formed.
n The first U.S. Labor Day parade was held.
n Nikola Tesla invented the alternating current electric generator and motor.
n Britain passed a law allowing women to buy, own and sell property and to keep their own earnings.
n Born in 1882: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, U.S. House Speaker Sam Rayburn, British author A.A. Milne (“Winnie The Pooh”), English writer Virginia Woolf, Irish author James Joyce, American author John Barrymore, U.S. Navy Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, American industrialist and car maker Henry J. Kaiser, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, Hollywood movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn and rocket scientist Robert Goddard.
n Died in 1882: American author Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, British naturalist Charles Darwin, American philosopher and writer Ralph Waldo Emerson and first lady Mary Todd Lincoln.
Sources include Wikipedia (en/wikipedia.org), the U.S. Census of 1880 (www2.census.gov) and the Fisher Library at the University of Virginia (fisher.lib.virginia.edu).
-- T&D Staff Writer Lee Hendren can be reached by e-mail at lhendren@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5552. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.
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