Re: George Henry Pettus, Sebastian Count
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In reply to:
Re: George Henry Pettus, Sebastian Count
9/18/00
Ron,
I tried your SlamDunk address and the message was returned. Didn't write down the other address.
The jpeg pictures came through nicely; the other failed, I think because I don't have Windows but have a Macintosh Performa. When I tried to open them I was told that they would not translate.
I know two people who remember what the William Pettus house looked like (it burned in 1973) and the Capt. George Pettus was identical. So, whenever I get to see the old one you refer to, I can ask them if they have seen that house. Fortunately, I do have a description:
Pettus Houses
George and William Pettus built homes with identical floor plans. The location was on present-day Pleasant Road north of Fort Mill. Bailiwyck housing development and land across the road is on the William Pettus plantation.
In the 1920s Stephen Epps described the William Pettus house in these words written to a Tennessee relative: "It is just as it was built in 1797, the same floors and same plastering - in good preservation. Every piece of timber was hand sawed, every nail square and handmade, the immense sills put together with wooden pegs. It is a weatherboarded house filled with brick and plaster. The fireplace is six feet wide, arch in center, five feet. The mantel reaches to the high ceiling. It is a work of art, made and engraved by hand, but it is not of hardwood. There are six large rooms besides two in the basement walled with rock. There were also outside - the kitchen, dairy and servant’s quarters. They had their own hat factory, shoe shop and weaving room.
"The house was located about 300 yards from a spring flowing from an immense rock, covering at least half an acre of ground. It is still in use today and has as fine flow of good water as there is in the state. Later a well was dug nearer the house, 70 feet deep, through 40 feet of solid rock. The well is still in use." The house burned in 1973.
Louise