The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1921-10-25
STORIES OF OUR SOUTHLAND
Topics During the Revolutionary War
Visit to "Rosemont," Home of
the Cunninghams

For about century after the Close
of the Revolutionary war, the bitter
ness of the victorious colonists
against the families of those who es-
poused the Kings side was unrelent-
ing. The English termed their
friends in America "Loyalists," but
their neighbors designated them as
Tories" and the sins of the fathers
were visited on the children even un-
to the third and fourth generation.
Take the descendants and kinsmen of
Bloody Bill Cunningham, the noted
Royalist of Laurens county. At the
massacre of Hayes Station in Laurens
county, S. c., after their surrender,
Bloody Bill" with his sword, killed
several Irbys and Williams, and had
his men massacre every prisoner. Over
this cruel act hate and rancor ranked
in the bosom of the -Irbys and Will
l:ams, and for more than hundred
years they abhorred and stunned the
kinsmen Of the murderers of their an
cestors. The fact that the Cunning
hams were cultured and fine people
that it was daughter of this family
who bought Mt. Vernon, the home of
Washington, for preservation and
that in all subsequent wars the males
gallantly fought for the republic it
was not considered. During our Civil
war the Cunninghams we're among the
bravest soldiers of the Lost Cause.
Some years ago, while on visit to
United States Senator j. L. NJ. Irby,
he told me that he wanted to carry me
to one of the most interesting old
Colonial homes in our up-country,
where l would meet a very fine and
interesting gentleman, Captain Rob-
Cunningham. Knowing the feud of
hate that existed between the Irbys
and Cunningams, expressed "a sur
prise at his visiting their home. He
explained that he and Captain Rob
Cunningham had chanced to meet at
an old soldiers reunion in Greanville,
they had a talk and mutually decided
that it was the height of folly for two
neighboring families in same coun-
ty to carry tnat cid rcsensment into
a secorid century, and that they were
now warm friends.
l was only too glad to make the
pilgrimage and spent one of the most
interesting days in my memory.
The ancestral home OF the Gun
ningham family is named "Rose-
mont.'s 1t is but short distance
from the station of Waterloo on the
railway leading from Greenwood TO
Spartanburg and near the banks of
the Saluda river. This old mansion
is the most interesting relic of Colo
NAL times in the upper country. l. was
erected about the middle OF the
eighteenth century, When that entire
section was almost unclearcd wilder
ness. 1t is large wood building. The
tirabers from which II is constructed
were all cut from selected trees, and
after standing for more than cen
tury apd half, the house is in a good
state of preservation. The trees were
felled in Laurens county, and the logs
hoaated or RATED down the river TO
GEORGETOWN. There they were put
on board of sailing vessels and car
ried to England. These logs were
cut into lumber and the house framed
there and the lumber shipped back
to the: New World. The mansion was
patterned after "Rosemont Hall" in
England, the ancestral home of the
Cunninghams.
In the early settlement of that sec
ton, il was undeniably the finest resi-
dence. in the whole up-country, the
Cunninghams being family OF
wealth and large slave ana lanrSo"h-
ers. Even in this day it would be
considered grand mansion for the
rural sections. Some wings or parts
of the house had been torn away at
the time of my visit but far greater
part of it remained, and you see IN it
the pattern of mansions built by the
wealthy in the early settlement OF the
New World, the style of architecture
being patterned after old English
homes. AS I stated, the timbers IN
this building being selected from trees
when that section was Virgin forest,
the building was in a splendid state
of preservation, but of course not
kept up, as Capt. Cunningham, its
owner at that time, was a bachelor
and lived alone. But one could see in
the building and the surrounding
grounds evidences of past grandeur