Chapter Twenty Two

Bamberg County Towns and Communities

The Town of Bamberg - Simmons Turnout

On May 17, 1799, James Thurston, deputy surveyor, surveyed a 320-acre tract of land belonging to James Simmons and located in Orangeburg District on Beaver Dam Branch, waters of Lemons Swamp. The adjoining landowners at that time were Jay Smith, Jesse McLendon, John Milhouse, and John Simmons. Elizabeth Medlock owned a 100-acre tract within the Simmons lands, which James Simmons later purchased.

By the time of the death of James Simmons, ca. January 18, 1829, he had increased his original tract of 320 acres to 783 acres (see plat on following page). On December 13, 1830, the Simmons heirs sold one acre of this property, part of the original track, to Joseph Stokes. This property, situated on the north side of the Charleston and Hamburg railroad at Simmons Turnout, was rectangular in form and bounded on the west by the South Carolina Railroad Company’s lands purchased from Andrew Lowery. This deed is interesting because it contains an early reference to the fact that the town of Bamberg was first known as Simmons Turnout. The word “turnout” was derived from the trains stopping, or turning out, to replenish their water supply and wood for the engine.

Until about 1830, when the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company announced that a railroad would be built from Charleston to Hamburg, a great deal of the site of the present town of Bamberg was the Simmons family’s plantation and the farmlands of their neighbors. Acres of Simmons’s farm could not be cultivated because of the many large cypress ponds within its boundaries, which were ideal to obtain water needed by the steam engines, but very difficult to traverse for planting and growing crops. Simmons Turnout grew along the railroad westward, probably because of the higher ground.

While only a few distant descendants of the Simmons family—the Hand, Hartzog, Rice, and Sandifer families—still live in Bamberg, there is other evidence of the family being the first known owners of this early eastern portion of the town. The family “Burying Ground” is located at the corner of East Railroad Avenue and Park Street. At the present time there are only about thirteen graves which can be seen, but at one time there were many more, whose monuments have disappeared either from erosion of time or neglect. The relatives and neighbors, with the assistance of the town, maintain the area as a small park, and it has been given status of being placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Simmons home originally stood on the southeastern corner of Park and Midway streets until the early 1920s, when it was removed and the site used for a home for the Clarence Black family. The Black house was demolished in the 1940s and Dr. and Mrs. Robert Black built the house now on the lot. The old Simmons home was moved by the late H. N. Folk to the corner of Midway and Birch streets and still remains there. It has been remodeled by several different owners and now bears little resemblance to the original house, which had a large porch around the front and sides.