Richard L. Holt

After Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, increasing numbers of invasions took place from Scandinavia - the much feared Norse men, or Danes. Yet, they too in turn grew peaceful and wholesale woodland clearances continued as they settled and farmed new lands in the area. By the mid-7th century, Christianity had become widespread, and early churches were erected, one of the oldest at Eccleston, near Chester ("eccles" was actually an old Celtic-Welsh word for a church).

In some ways, Cheshire marked a frontier between the Danes in the north and east and the Welsh to the west, and at least two defensive ditches were dug to keep them out - the celebrated Offa's Dyke, built by King Offa of Mercia between 760-780 AD, and the earlier but less well known Wat's Dyke, built some time before 655 AD, which remained the recognised border until the Norman conquest.

By 930 AD relative peace had been established throughout the kingdom, and apart from infrequent small raids and a particularly savage and effective incursion in 980 AD, the Norse threat had been removed and Mercia was a well defended fortified entity, and remained so until Norman occupation.

By 980 AD the name of the region had begun to resemble its modern name, and was known as Legecaestrescir, meaning the 'shire of the city of the legions', (a reference to the old Roman occupation), and had probably already become a recognised county since 920 AD under the reign of Edward the Elder. During his reign, parts of old Derbyshire were also added to the Mercian kingdom in the form of Longendale and Macclesfield.

By the end of the 10th century, Chester had become the permanent headquarters of Eadric Streona, the King's Governor of Cheshire, Staffordshire and Shropshire and was increasingly ruled as an autonomous region. By 1030 AD, it had come under the governorship of Earl Edwin, grandson of Leofric of Mercia, perhaps the most powerful and influential family in England, and remained so until the Norman Conquest in 1066 AD.

Tobacco and the Holt Family

The Holt family were the early settlers in South Carolina, especially in the northeast corner where the land was the best for growing tobacco, the golden leaf, which was highly prized by the Europeans. They owned thousands of acres of land in the Pee Dee River area which was to become the center of the tobacco growing industry.  By the end of the 19th century, a new variety of tobacco, called "bright leaf" because of its lemon yellow color from flue-curing, was being produced and sold for premium prices. Before the American Revolution, South Carolina was exporting annually almost a million pounds of tobacco to Britain and Scotland and receiving about 17,000 pounds of manufactured tobacco from the British. After the war, tobacco cultivation increased, and South Carolina introduced regular warehouse and inspection procedures. Markets opened in the Pee Dee/Waccamaw/Conway area, and much of the leaf from South Carolina was sent to Virginia and North Carolina for processing and manufacturing.

As time went on, South Carolina's special flue-cured tobacco brought the Middle Country and the Piedmont of South Carolina into the larger agricultural picture. During the Civil War tobacco exports practically ceased, but by the turn of the century, the tobacco industry was back in full force.

During the latter part of the 21st century, the tobacco industry changed forever. Domestic demand for tobacco decreased over health concerns. Law suits with the tobacco companies created funding for the tobacco producing states for health issues.

Tobacco growers and allotment holders also received funds to help the local economies remain stable. Bales of tobacco instead of piles on the warehouse floors meant less need for space in warehouses. Less need for warehouse space meant less need for warehouses. Contract growing with manufacturers replaced much of the traditional auction market system. Demands from manufacturers like retrofitting tobacco barns for indirect heat placed added financial demands on growers. The centuries old traditional tobacco system is now changed forever.

Tobacco continues to bring a good profit for some growers. Others have decided to produce alternative crops in addition to tobacco or to get out of the business altogether. Even though tobacco has slipped from the #1 commodity in cash value to #4, South Carolina’s bright leaf is still coveted by manufacturers for its quality.

Tobacco Facts
• The heaviest concentration of tobacco production is in the Pee Dee River area between North Carolina and South Carolina, but growers and allotment holders are listed in 45 counties.
• Tobacco generates millions of dollars a year in sales tax revenue for the state.
• Tobacco is an international market.
• Tobacco is a close-knit family business.
• Tobacco growers work hard to produce a top quality product.
• Tobacco rolls over 5-7 times in the economy.

The Holt family began growing tobacco from the earliest days in the Colonies.  The family eventually owned thousands of acres of land, mostly devoted to growing this crop.  The center of the tobacco growing area in the South Carolina area, the Pee Dee River was Conway, a town dominated by the Holt and Booth families.

Note:  The following write-up on Conway, South Carolina has been copied from the City of Conway description:

"Conway is one of the oldest towns in South Carolina. Originally named Kingston, the town was created in 1734 as part of Royal Governor Robert Johnson's Township Scheme. It was laid out on a riverbluff in the center of what became Horry County.

Many area residents fought in the American Revolution and small engagements were fought near Kingston at Bear Bluff and at Black Lake. Francis Marion, who was known as the Swamp Fox, had an encampment near Kingston just across the Waccamaw River.

After the war, patriotic citizens wanted to discard the mane that honored Great Britain's King George II. The County's name was changed to Horry (pronounced O-Ree) in honor of General Peter Horry in 1801 and a courthouse was established in Kingston.

By the 1820's, Conwayborough was a bustling riverport. Naval stores with the production of tar, pitch, and turpentine were premium occupation for area residents. Planters who developed plantations both large and small owned much of the land along the Waccamaw. Among these were "Snow Hill," "Sonwood," "Keysfield," "Oregon," "Bells Bay," "The Ark," "Longwood," and a "Woodbourne" in Horry County. Throughout the rest of the county were small farms and plantations.

When South Carolina seceded from the Union, area residents rallied to the cause. Thomas W. Beaty and Benjamin E. Sessions of Conway signed the Ordinances of Secession in Charleston. Near the end of the war, Union Soldiers occupied the town for a time.

During the 1870's, the lumber and naval store industries continued to expand. Riverboats transported passengers and goods along the Waccamaw River between Conwayborough and Georgetown. The South Carolina General Assembly shortened the town's name to Conway in 1883.  In 1887, the railroad reached Conway and in 1898 the town elected its first mayor."

The Holt family in the Conway area had two major interests in the local economy.  Farming of tobacco and the production of what is described as "naval stores", pitch, tar and turpentine used in the ship building and repair business all over the world.  It was from this background that Fernie George Holt to be described later came as well as others that moved to Florida from South Carolina.

Many know the story of the secession fever that gripped the state and the city, resulting in the signing here on Dec. 20, 1860, the document that took South Carolina out of the Union.

And most can tell the story of the first shots fired at Fort Sumter a few months later. But Charleston's Civil War story didn't end in the spring of 1861.

Many serious Union attempts were made to capture or cut off the city, which became one of the leading ports for blockade runners. Battles on land and sea were fought within a few miles of the city's famous waterfront. But the Confederates managed to hold Charleston until February 1865, suffering periodic shelling from long-range Union guns.

Despite the bombardment and a great wartime fire, much of the city's historic fabric remains. The old neighborhoods in Charleston offer one of the best walking experiences in the country. Streets are lined with antebellum homes and historic churches, most having some association with the city's Civil War history. Fort Sumter is always visible from the waterfront promenades where, more than 140 years ago, people watched the war begin.

Years of sectional differences and months of high drama finally boiled over when, during the early-morning hours of April 12, 1861, Confederate gunners fired the first shots of the Civil War at this Union bastion in the middle of Charleston Harbor.

After 34 hours of pounding, the fort's commander, Maj. Robert Anderson, surrendered. The victorious Confederates occupied, using the strategic location to keep the Union navy from the harbor and to protect blockade runners. After an unsuccessful Union attempt to bypass the fort by water, Union land-based guns were brought within range, eventually pounding Sumter into rubble.

The advance of Union Gen. William T. Sherman forced the Confederates to evacuate the fort Feb. 17, 1865.

By the turn of the century, the vast longleaf forests of North and South Carolina soon played out, and turpentiners, a migratory lot, began to take their equipment and their help to Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. By the 1920s, the last of the virgin longleaf forests had been cut throughout the Southeast. Second-growth timber was not as rich in gum as virgin timber, and chemical alternatives to naval stores began to be developed instead. The name "naval stores" continues to be used even though spirits of turpentine and rosin became the major products. Today, many other countries, including China and many South American countries, produce more turpentine and resin than the United States.

 However, it wasn't until the years following the Civil War that the production of turpentine in Florida began to rapidly increase.

Gum from the pine tree was distilled into rosin and spirits of turpentine in what has been described by many as an "oversized liquor still." The collection and processing of pine gum was a year-round ordeal and often required a large labor force. Work was physically demanding and often began when the sun broke through the tree line and ended as darkness was cast across the sky. Dripping with sweat from a relentless heat and harassed to the verge of insanity by constant swarms of gnats, laborers would work their way from tree to tree chipping shallow gutters (called streaks) into the fresh wood of the tree face. This cut face would direct the gum down into a box notched into the bottom of the tree by a broad axe. However, these boxes were often very destructive to the pine trees-essentially girdling the tree at its base. In the early years of the twentieth century, technology improvements allowed gum to be collected in clay or metal cups hung from the tree by a nail.

A squad of workers traveled from tree to tree dipping gum from the cups and depositing it into barrels. When a worker finished his task on a tree, he would sing out a particular name he had chosen for himself (usually this was a town). A talleyman would record this song with a dot. The number of dots determined a worker's pay. Barrels of gum were hauled to a nearby distillery and refined. In the winter season when gum production slowed, brush and other debris were raked from around trees to prevent the tree face from catching fire. Despite the flammability of raw gum running down a tree face, woods were often deliberately (yet skillfully) set on fire by turpentine men to keep the ground clear of thick shrubs and vines so a turpentine crew could move about easily and as a proactive means to lessen the threat of wildfires set by cracker cowmen.

To house laborers, crude shantytowns (called quarters) were often constructed by employers. An onsite commissary provided groceries, work clothes, and other supplies for laborers. Once a month, scrip would be issued to the workers that could usually only be redeemed at that operation's commissary. For this reason, few workers would ever find themselves free from debt. A laborer could move to another operation only after his debt was cleared. Sometimes, this led to the "pirating" of one operation's workers by another operation's recruiter. However, pirating was a dangerous business, with mistakes sometimes paid for with a recruiter's life. For those workers who received legal tender, payday often meant drunkenness, shootings, and knife and fist fights as farmers, wranglers, and turpentine workers converged on the small towns dotted throughout the longleaf woods of Georgia.

Along with the naval stores industry of the longleaf pine flatwoods, a unique culture evolved. Songs of turpentine crews could be heard floating through his airy pine forest: "Waycross, Mobile, Seaboard." As the songs of the turpentine crews faded so too did a unique industry and culture. In the end, the naval stores industry of the southern pine forests would lose out to cheaper markets overseas and to better substitutes.

When the industry began its decline, Fernie George Holt sold his land and took up the responsibilities of operating a large penitentary in northern Florida.  He also got the Coca Cola franchise for all of northern Florida which became a very lucrative business for him. That he did until he retired and moved to Ocala, Florida. 

Lee Roy Holt, his second born, was enamoured with the ocean since they only lived about 30 miles from the Gulf of Mexico.  He left home at the age of 16 for a job on the railroad with the full support of his father, but his real love was the ocean and this job was to be temporary until he could find his place working on the sea.  When he reached the age of 18, he joined the U.S. Navy.

The family remained very close to each other, all of the girls marrying locally and remaining in the northern part of Florida for many years.  Fernie George and his wife were also in close contact throughout these years with the family in South Carolina and remained so until their death.

Both Fernie and Clara are buried in the Apopka, Florida cemetery.