About The Map

In the Fall of 1868, all South Carolina counties were recquired to submit to the General Assembly "their doings" in the way of dividing each county into townships, and "having reference in such division to the configuration of the country, number of inhabitants, course of trade, facilities for inter-communication, and the general convenience of the people thereof."¹

On Friday March 12, 1869, Alexander McBee, Chairman of the Board of Greenville County Commissioners, delivered to the S.C. General Assembly a rough plat of Hudson's survey along with Hudson's report . And although every other county must have reported something, it is not clear that anyone went to the lengths of reporting as did William A. Hudson. Possibly the "doings" of many of the other county comissioners around the state did not incorporate a map at all, or at least one of a formal nature. Attempts at trying to track down other contemporary South Carolina township maps proved mostly fruitless, but Laurens County and Spartanburg had each published a map by 1875. Both of these maps were the products of Paul Kyzer, engineer and surveyor who in addition to completing a later Greenville County Map in 1882 also applied his talents to surveying certain segments of the Charleston & Western Carolina(C&WC) Railroad as multiple courses were considered for its path between 1879 and 1884. While involved in the latter project, interested citizens of Fountain Inn hired Kyzer for the purpose of surveying and laying out streets and avenues for the town's expected growth. It seems that several township maps appeared retrospectively, drawn up for the most part in order to aid genealogists in matching nineteenth century and twentieth century locations, and therefore almost all of these are mid-to-late twentieth century productions. They usually render the township outlines with no more context than faint rivers and unidentified roads.
The kind of document that Hudson composed is still yet to emerge. By mid-century nationally, if the recently disparate regions may be so encompassed, the practice of publishing county maps, and even county atlases, was coming into its own thanks to the technological advances of the industrial revolution, so that by the time Hudson completed his run of lithographs in 1870 there were many of a similar ilk to be found, almost all in the northern and midwestern states and territories.
It is likely that in the lithographing Hudson modelled his own upon existing maps, especially since these earlier mid-century county maps were of regions of the country which had always included the geo-political construct of the township. Given the amount of informational content Hudson displays, it is even more likely that he delved into various county atlases of the time. The standard format for these county atlases included a map of each township in the county, owners of land, roads, railroads, rivers, and lcoations of industry, churches and schools. Much like Hudson's map " the atlases were part map, part historical memorial, part yellow pages." (Short, p.205-206) And just as these atlases were touted as educational treasures for every household, so Hudson similarly promoted his map as "worth ten times the price to any family as a good school book in geography and as a household ornament." ²

Shorter(Conzen) indicates that the county maps that appear in the middle of the nineteenth century were produced on subscription and sold for about $5.Like Hudson's they usually showed the names of landowners and the same kinds of features that showed in a county atlas. But many also displayed advertisements and photos of businessmen and their businesses, a privilege that often cost up to $30.^{3(Shorter, p.202)} Even if he had wanted to pursue this tack Hudson would likely have had few takers for this kind of arrangement.

The original finished map was produced on parchment approximately 2 feet by 3 feet. The colors green, red, yellow, and light ochre were distributed among the townships for contrast. Hudson had a number of lithographs made in New York and offered them for sale at a "very low" price. Beginning in late 1869 he sporadically advertised his services as land surveyor and appraiser, but always took the opportunity to promote the county map. It is not known how many copies were eventually sold. The Greenville Enterprise newspaper published advertisements throughout 1870 and 1871 that point to all of the map's virtues:

Feb. 2, 1870

Jan. 26, 1871

There was little or no knowledge about any surviving Hudson Township Maps until the early 1980’s when a copy was discovered in a storage vault at the Greenville County Library. It was not known how long the library had been in the possession of the map. This copy was rolled up and because it had been covered very early with a shellac finish, the advance of deterioration had begun fairly soon after. Its condition at the point of discovery was such that nearly all of the northernmost townships were broken up or nonexistent. Librarians at Greenville County contacted archives and other libraries across South Carolina and the southeast and were unsuccessful in finding a single copy. A few years later, in 1986, a copy was discovered inadvertently in the James B. Duke Library at Furman University. The heirs of Henry C. Markley had presented it as a gift to the school many years earlier. This copy was in good condition with the exception of missing portion of Dunklin Township in the southernmost portion of the county. It was decided that both parties should work towards combining the two maps in a single image making the map itself complete again. Unfortunately the ideal reprographic technology, and the parties responsible for each map, could never seem to get logistics worked out until 2001.
In the Spring of that year Furman's Office of Academic Affairs provided funding for the map's preservation. The Furman map was subsequently taken to Studio D on Hunts Bridge Road in the Berea area of Greenville SC, where a photographic reproduction was made producing a large color negative that was then digitized. In the meantime a patron of the Greenville County Library had donated funds for making a clearer copy of the map held there. Information from the county library copy was then used to digitally replace the missing information on the recently digitized Furman copy. The final digitized image was burned on a CD in TIFF compression nearly filling the disc at 740 megabytes. This image was then sent to TPM of Laurens Road, Greenville, who produced a 3’X 4’ color map in matte finish mounted on ¼” gator board. This map now hangs in the Reference Office at Furman University’s James B. Duke Library. A digital copy of the map was given to the Historic Greenville Foundation and on December 17, 2002, a 2'X3' color copy was presented to the South Carolina Room of the Greenville County Library .
The digital version on this site (Center for the Study of Piedmont History) will remain accessible on the web except at times when the map image is the process of receiving links to additional information layers, that we hope will include local descriptions, census information, and more.

1S.C. Statutes