The child was born the year South Carolina Methodist Church decentralized its Greenwood area structure. Two pastors moved there, one responsible for the area and the other responsible for another area. The pastor responsible for the Greenwood area and women’s group members needed only a few months to jointly agree that the village needed not a chapel, not a preaching place, but a church. 1858 marked the founding of Greenwood Methodist Church. That year and the next, members worshiped at the village public meeting hall while they made plans for a building of their own. The following year, a former girls’ school building in the village became available. Methodists bought and renovated it, converting it for use as a church. Greenwood Methodist Church owned and occupied this building until the end of the century. 11 See Appendix, A Church of Their Own: The Fuller Institute Story, for a history of the school. Mary D.’s cousin, George Malcom Connor, called Mack, her husband’s business partner, 12 may have introduced Mary D. and James. His parents were among the first to move to M OUNT A RIEL when it was developed. 13 He was born there and stayed in the state when the rest of his family moved to Georgia. 14 Like his cousin, Mack probably was a Cokesbury Methodist Church member and grew up in the church. James and Mack’s business was near the railroad station. In ads run early in 1858, their business offered its entire stock for sale saying they planned to close. The stock included dry goods, hardware, boots, shoes, saddles, bridles, crockery, glass ware and men’s ready-made clothing. A year later, their “Last Notice” indicated they were “determined to close their business.” If arrangements were not made in time for the next Court, as the ad copy Frank Bailey, May 9, 1870; SCDAH microfilm ST 835, frame 149; South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia. 11 Harry R. Mays, The History of Main Street United Methodist Church, Greenwood, South Carolina (Franklin, Tennessee: Providence House Publishers, 1992), 22-32, 61-66. 12 “Goods At Cost,” The Abbeville (South Carolina) Press and Banner , 14 January 1858, online archives (https://www.newspapers.com : 23 November 2020), p. 3, col. 2. This was the first ad James and Mack placed about closing their business. Also, Ann Herd Bowen, Greenwood County: A History (Greenwood: South Carolina: The Museum, 1992), 24. 13 Holt to Connor, excerpt from November 1888 letter, quoted in Connor to Connor, 2 December 1941. 14 Elliott, Kith and Kin , 39, 116-117. Also, Bowden, Four Connor Generations , 34.
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