Union High School - Gleam Yearbook (Union, SC)

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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.

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Hampton Visits Union ln 1376 Tour To overthrow usurpers in the government, the Democratic clubs of Union County and the State worked desperately to elect confederate General VV ade Hampton governor of South Carolina. On his campaign tour General Hampton visited Union in 1876 and spoke at a rally in the grove of the Female academy. He was introduced by General William H. Wallace of Union, leader and speaker of the body of Democratic legis- lators known as the Wallace housef, With the inauguration of Wade Hampton in 1877, life here began once more to be normal though impoverished. As a result of Radical rule, governmental treasuries had been exhausted, so taxes were high. This rule came after the down- fall of the Confederacy. Nine counties of the State were declared in a state of rebellion, and Union was one of the nine. Federal cavalry was consequently stationed here, and the Radical rule was felt in every quarter. There were other re- sults of the Radical rule. Over 200 citizens were arrested in the course of the time and, in many cases, confined in jail. From 1866 to 1872 sixteen dens of the Klu Klux Klan grew up over the County. Surely Reconstruction Sheriff James Gideon Long was beset with problems and chal- lenges seldom known to his oflice. Becky, Jeannie, and Sally examine a can non belonging to Mr. Buck Arthur of Union. A relic of the Civil War, it was unearthed in Spartanburg in 1959. Central School now stands in the oak grove where General Wade Hampton spoke, when campaigning for Governor, explaining his objectives and those of the Red Shirtsv, men organized to suppress Radical control in the State. ll General William Wallace, speaker of the anti-radical legislative group known as the Wallace House, resided in this Union home where jefferson Davis was once an overnight guest.