Mayesville

History

The town was named for the Mayes family of early settlers after the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad cut through the Mayes' property and began as Mayes Station in 1852, replacing an earlier name of Bradleyville, South Carolina. Fortunes made in cotton and tobacco created wealthy landowners in this area of South Carolina. Mayesville served the local area as a place to process and sell these products and to obtain supplies. Merchants such as I.W. Bradley, Witherspoon Cooper and Isaac Strauss opened some of the earliest businesses in town. The town suffered greatly during the Civil War but thrived again for several decades beginning in about 1880. The patriarch of the Mayes family, Matthew Peterson Mayes II, known as "the Squire," had been a merchant in Raleigh, North Carolina, was wounded in the War of 1812, and then turned to farming. Purchasing an existing plantation prior to 1819, he turned this small beginning into an empire that would survive the Civil War. He died in 1879 and was buried in the historic cemetery at Salem Black River Presbyterian Church. His great-great grandson James Edgar Mayes, known locally as “Bubba Jim" presided over an 8,000-acre cotton plantation in Mayesville and served as president of the National Cotton Council before his death in 1994. His death was recognized by the South Carolina Legislature.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 1.0 square miles (2.7 km2), all land.

Race & ethnicity