Union High School - Gleam Yearbook (Union, SC)

Page 12 text:

he Q'M4zarzaz: '.f1w0.4f. Atl hmmm Aiiiicllddiudyw ffJmAnam.y'a!5Ju.A.ta'KmyJfm+6lz , . A WA AM. ,14i'L.u.,f.C.mf...aa.,.a hw. wnwaa 46 Maia n1.wa.a.,...f.:w ou av fvavcn-ufnin,rnK lon?-ISC-rl A 115 Amfmbnkx nu 9-46501. cal fiysndlzcndjklvii 1481191 nm- diary 091002 Mfh6.....faf- f M9-71244 45950 9 Z f'y f 4: g Nl ,Gina ...rJr'.af nd' ul5dmvoQh..mA6Jvmu.wff7l57 f'V'd 4'f ' If mf.-1.9-aZ.mm' Mdragnifhww f' -Aw,n.ne'e95uf,a4iwv abou 3411, Johnny, Grace, Bert, Judy, and Mary reenact the Signing of the AMQYAQ! ,5 4.4, Amo cf .vdffftfefaf vnu Mamhrm Secession on the actual table used for this purpose in 1861. nion Citizens Hold Early Secession Meetings Though it cannot be definitely established as to the place where the first pre-Civil War secession meeting was held, it might well have been in Union County. More than a thousand persons gathered at Padgett's Creek Church late in August 1861, to discuss the matter- respectable men, kind-hearted mothers, and lovely daughters. As a follow-up to this meeting, citizens of Union took action to make fully known their feelings and sentiments. On a Saturday afternoon in September 1861 a secession Hag was raised on the corner of the public square. Peo- ple gathered from many miles in all directions as seces- sion fever rose to a higher pitch. Governor William Gist, who was from the Union District, bent his efforts toward the accomplishment of the most fateful decision ever made by South Carolina. Having called a secession convention, Governor Gist and the other delegates signed the Ordinance of Secession on December 20, 1861. Benjamin Arthur, Clerk of the Secession Convention, brought the table on which the document Was signed to Union and preserved it in his home here.

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The Episcopal Church of the Nativity, Union,s oldest church edifice, remains the same as in the distant past. Caroline, Ricky, and Rolfe add youthfulness to the old building modeled after a church in England. Sites, Scenes Reflect Early Life Sylvia, Tommy, and Mary Spears watch as cotton picking, a fading tradition in Union County,s history, goes on in the Pea Ridge section.

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Balloon Lands ln Pea Ridge Section Cf ount As they were working in a cotton Held in the Pea Ridge section of Union County on an April day in 1861, natives were filled with consternation at the sight of a balloon descending into their midst. When a man crawled out, their first thought was that he was a Yankee spy. With picks, pitch forks, hoes, sticks, and any other tools avail- able, they went after this man who was presumably an enemy. Only because one person who had joined the crowd who was a mason and recognized that the bal- Marking the site where Thaddeus Lowe, balloonist, landed in 1861 in the Pea Ridge section of the County is an explanatory granite slab, which seems interesting to Pat, Erma Lee, jean, Willard, and loonist was giving the masonic sign for help, was violence prevented. Professor Thaddeus Lowe, as this man from the skiesi' proved to be, was brought to Union and was treated with hospitality. During an experiment, it was learned, he had drifted from Ohio to Union County, S. C., a distance of 800 miles in nine hours. Later he became the Hrst man to organize a U. S. Airforce of balloons. Today that Held on which he landed adjoins the grounds of the Kelly-Pinckney school. Mike. Lowe was a Northern aeronaut, one of the first to experi- ment with aviational warfare.