Introduction

One of my cousins once told me that every week he would call his sister in New York City and ask her “What’s happening?” and she would always reply, “Nothing.” He then would call his children in Washington, DC, and ask them “What’s happening?” and they also would reply, “Nothing.” Finally, he would call his father at the Crossroads and ask him “What’s happening?” at which point his father would take a deep breath and proceed, “Ah, you’re not gonna believe everything that’s happening here this week.” His conclusion was that everything happens at the Crossroads.


At 52 years of age, I returned to my roots, the Crossroads of Highways 378 and 527; 12 miles east of Sumter, South Carolina, and about seven miles south of the small community known as Mayesville. This rather non-descript Crossroads holds years of history and family lore. In the 1750’s early Scottish- Irish settlers founded a small settlement in the area and called it Salem. At the center of the settlement was built a log structure called Salem Black River Meeting House, which was established in 1759. Since the Anglican Church of England did not acknowledge that Protestants were entitled to name a church, the phrase Meeting House continued to be used until 1768, when it first was referred to as a Presbyterian Church.


On January 1, 1800, the State Legislature of South Carolina united Salem, Claremont and Clarendon Counties into a new district called Sumterville. The particular intersection east of Sumterville, on the other side of the Black River Swamp, became known by the family who owned the land as McBride’s Corner. When Maude McBride married Eugene Whitefield Dabbs, and the Dabbs lineage multiplied throughout the community, it became more accurate to call it Dabbs Crossroads, although many local maps still list it as McBride’s.


The Crossroads is where Eugene Whitefield Dabbs and Alice Maude McBride Dabbs raised six children. Nestled back in the trees are four homes that have been passed down to subsequent generations. Each of these homes has a name: Rip Raps, Fern Park, Road’s End in-the-Pines, and Whitfield. The Dabbs family has a strong belief that the personality of every home is enhanced by giving it a name. While the homes have created places, it is the people who have created the stories and they are what this book is about – the stories.


My grandmother, Stella Glascock Dabbs, strongly felt that each individual who sat at her dinner table had an obligation to provide conversational entertainment that merited the trouble of preparing the meal. Around that table, hundreds of hours of stories continued to be told as younger generations each learned the Dabbs-art of storytelling. The rule of thumb has always been that the entertainment value outweighs the need for fact. Thus, the oral history that follows is from stories that have been told and retold. I believe that there is factual truth to most of it. Great time has been put into documentation. Should you think, however, that one or more of the stories are a little far fetched, don’t be too sure. There is at least a smattering of truth to it all.


From the time I was a child vacationing at the Crossroads, I have sat and listened as relatives have told these stories about one another and repeated bits of family history. The older I became, the more I realized what a unique collection of tales they had to tell, and I wanted to record much of what I had heard for future generations.


As I began to write, more and more information appeared. I found old letters and pictures that had been packed away for decades. A few relatives had already done significant research into the genealogy of the family, and had information that was invaluable.

Eugene Whitefield Dabbs: Heritage I

Eugene Whitefield Dabbs

The history of the Dabbs family (perhaps spelled “Dobbs”) has been passed down in stories from one generation to another. We believe the first ancestor to arrive in this country emigrated from England to Maryland, and was a descendent of Sir Richard Dabbs, Lord Mayor of London. 

We are told that he was not very well received, since he was not a Catholic and may have been a preacher of a different faith. From there, he and his family moved to Virginia, where he had two sons. One son settled in Henrico County (Richmond) and then Halifax County (southern Virginia bordering North Carolina). To date, there is no confirmation of these stories. While court records in Virginia make a reference to a Robert Dabbs in York County in 1670, and then in Henrico County in 1679, and to a Richard Dabbs in Lower Norfolk County in 1687, we have not been able to make a direct link to the Eugene Whitefield Dabbs family.



Around 1746 to 1747, and perhaps due to failing health, Joseph Dabbs began to sell his property holdings in Goochland County, and moved his family south to Lunenburg County, to a section that eventually became Charlotte County, Virginia. In late 1748 or early 1749, Joseph Dabbs died, leaving a wife, Nancy, and a number of young children. The administration of the estate of Joseph Dabbs was concluded in 1754, and can be found in Lunenburg County, Will Book 1, 1746-1762, beginning on page 172. Although recorded in a Will Book, these court records indicate that Joseph Dabbs died without a will, which caused his property to pass in share to his widow and children. Of note, his estate included at least seven slaves.


What we know about the children of Joseph Dabbs, Sr.

By 1754, Nancy Hoggett Dabbs had remarried to a man named James Webb. James and Nancy, along with her daughters and youngest son, Joseph, moved to Wake County (Raleigh) North Carolina, and then to Anson County (Wadesboro), North Carolina, which borders South Carolina. Court records provide the following information about the children. 

• William Dabbs remained in Charlotte County, Virginia. He died in 1804, and his estate administration can be found in Will Book 2, page 297. 
• Eleanor Dabbs died an infant.
• In 1760, Mary Dabbs married Patrick Boggan (1731-1816), an immigrant from Ireland, in Anson County, and died in that county in 1816. They had at least one child, Mary Boggan (1763-1830), who married John May (1756-1819). A deed involving the transfer of ownership of several slaves owned by William Dabbs (received from his deceased sister, Eleanor and who had been received from the estate of her father, Joseph Dabbs) to Mary Dabbs Boggan has been used to verify the lineage of William, Mary and Eleanor as Joseph Dabbs’ children. (Deed Book B2, page 342, Anson County, recorded November 13, 1790).
• Richard Dabbs remained and became a prosperous and prominent citizen of Charlotte County, Virginia. After the death of his first wife (name unknown), he married Anna Hanna. Richard died in 1809, and his will, proven in Charlotte County in September 1809 (Will Book 3, page 11 , Charlotte County), contains bequests to a number of children, including sons Joseph (the eldest), George, Richard, William, Josiah, and James; and daughters Polly Dabbs Lumpkin, Nancy Dabbs Gill, Sally Vaughn, and Elizabeth Dabbs Mitchell (wife of William Mitchell).
• The third child from this family, Richard Dabbs, Jr., entered the Baptist ministry, establishing and leading several churches in Charlotte County. He was eventually called to serve as pastor of the first Baptist Church of Nashville, Tennessee, overseeing the building of that church and serving as its pastor until his death in 1825. Many Dabbs descendants from this family can now be found in Tennessee, Mississippi and Texas. In 1923, a letter found at fern Park addressed to Eugene Whitefield Dabbs from E.C. Dargan in Nashville, Tennessee, indicated that Mr. Dargan had spoken with a Dr. Dabbs, a descendent of Richard Dabbs, and had visited the old family home, which still incorporated the original log cabin of the Rev. Richard Dabbs, five miles outside of Nashville.

Below is the Eugene Whitefield Dabbs family line (Click to Enlarge).
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EWD: Heritage II

Captain Joseph Dabbs

Son of Joseph Dabbs and Nancy Hoggett Dabbs, Great-grandfather to Eugene Whitefield Dabbs

Young Joseph Dabbs moved with his mother and step- father, James Webb, to Anson County. Noted Darlington County Historian, Horace Rudisill, reports seeing records that indicate Joseph Dabbs and another brother were boatmen on the Great Pee Dee River. They would have been responsible for ferrying people and their possessions down or across this river. Joseph Dabbs eventually settled in the Cheraw District of South Carolina, which includes present-day Chesterfield, Marlboro, and Darlington Counties, known as Craven District prior to 1769. (Land areas that we call “Counties” today were called “Districts” in South Carolina prior to 1868.) 

EWD: Heritage III

Joseph William Dabbs 

Older brother to John Quincy Dabbs

Joseph William Dabbs became a successful cotton trader working out of Yazoo City, Mississippi, and kept up a written correspondence with his family in South Carolina, frequently enclosing money to help out with the farm expenses. 

In a series of letters written to his family from 1839 to 1855, Joseph describes the fluctuation of cotton prices as they pertain to what’s happening around the world. He advises his brother on what to plant and when to sell. He suggests that his brother, Richard, is having problems “brought on by drink” and recommends he return home to Darlington, which he does seven years later.

Joseph bemoans the fact that he hasn’t found a wife, despite a number of reference to meeting beautiful women, and he encourages his family to help find a Darlington woman who might put up with an old man of 42. According to Billy Dabbs, the story doesn’t end there. Ultimately, he says he was told that when Joseph died, his family learned, much to their dismay, that he had not only a wife, but also several children whom he’d never mentioned in any of his letters. Reports are that there are numerous individuals in Mississippi today bearing the Dabbs name. We do not know how much Joseph and Richard contributed to that lineage.

EWD: Heritage IV

John Quincy Adams Dabbs

Son of Samuel Dabbs Father of Eugene Whitefield Dabbs

Eugene Whitefield Dabbs was born in Darlington County, South Carolina, on April 15, 1864. His parents were John Quincy Adams Dabbs and Elizabeth Euphrasia Hoole. John Quincy Adams Dabbs settled in the Black Creek Community in Dovesville, Darlington County, perhaps on the tract of land referenced earlier that was owned by his father, Samuel. 

John Quincy was a farmer and a member of the Black Creek Baptist Church. Records from that church prior to the Civil War are reported to contain numerous oratories given by John Quincy Adams Dabbs in support of slavery. Of note, the members of the Dabbs family both past and present have always been known for their strong opinions on a variety of controversial subjects, which they are willing to share at a moment’s notice with anyone who will listen.

John Quincy Adams Dabbs married late, at the age of 37. He was very good friends with Axalla John Hoole and, in correspondence between them, Axalla asks John Quincy to check regularly on the welfare of his mother, brothers and sisters while he is in Kansas. John Quincy does better than that. He marries Axalla’s sister, Euphrasia Hoole (May 20, 1826 – July 15,1919).

In the Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 3 , #2 , there is a series of letters that Lt. Col. A.J. Hoole wrote regarding “A Southerner’s Viewpoint of the Kansas Situation.” He left Darlington with his wife, Elizabeth (Betsie) G. Brunson, on his wedding day, March 20, 1856, to go to Kansas to try to help with the efforts to defeat the Abolitionists. He was a strong supporter of states’ rights, and firmly believed that Kansas should be allowed to become a slave-holding state. He writes to his good friend, John Quincy Adams Dabbs, on June 15, 1856:

“I have made only $51 since I have been here and I fear that I shall be hardly able to make money enough to keep soul and body together while I stay in this Territory, but here I am resolved to remain until the difficulties are settled. This would be a great country for one who wishes for nothing except to have a plenty to eat, but it don’t suit me at all. The fertility of the soil does not compensate one for other inconveniences. I saw some of the finest wheat yesterday that I ever saw; it has just headed out and about as high as my shoulder. If you could see the quantity of nice rich milk which one of the most ordinary cows give here you would never bragg [sic] on your little cow. One of my neighbors has a small, trifling looking cow that gives over a peck of milk at one milking and I believe they always leave half for the calf. We can get as much milk and butter as we want for the trouble of going about 150 yards. This is truly a great place to live so far as eating is concerned."

“We live in a very small uncomfortable little loghouse but it is about on par with the rest of the houses in this territory. Betsie and I get on finely, she is a pretty good cook but not so good as you as she has had but little practice, but she is improving every day. Cooking is about all that she does and that is no small task as I have such an appetite since I came here. . . Tell your dear Mother that I am trying to reform my evil ways but old Satan has still a strong hold upon me. - AJH”

On September 6, 1856, he writes a moving letter to “my ever dear friend, Quince... who has always been as a brother to me."

“I was almost in one [a skirmish] so near that I drew sight on a man several times, but was commanded not to shoot by my Capt. who was behind me. This was on the 5th just when Lane came to attack Lecompton. I have always thought that I would be very much agitated under such circumstances, but I was surprised at myself. I was much less excited than if I were going to shoot a beef. My company was posted in the edge of a ravine as skirmishes came

almost in common gunshot, it was near enough for the rifles we had. An account of this you will see in The Flag. What I commenced to tell you was my feelings. When I was taking aim at the man before me, and expecting every minute on the word fire, I was cool enough to commune with myself in this way. Now, if I hit that fellow I will be sending a poor soul, perhaps unprepared, to Eternity. I hate to do it, but it can’t be helped. If I don’t kill him, he may kill me, but I did not feel the least apprehensive of being killed myself. I thought, however, if I am killed, May God have mercy on my soul. As it was, neither shot. Lane drew off his men.

I saw the man that I had been aiming at march away and I felt glad that I escaped having to shoot at him.”

Axalla John Hoole returned to Darlington on December 5, 1857, with his wife and children, Ada Constantia, William Brunson, and Axalla John Hoole, II. He was initially the captain of the Darlington, South Carolina, Riflemen and then Lt. Col. of the Eighth South Carolina Volunteer Regiment Kershaw’s Brigade. In D. Augustus Dickert’s History of Kershaw’s Brigade, tribute is paid to Axalla John Hoole for his bravery and leadership abilities. Included is a beautiful letter he wrote to his wife, Betsie, two days before he died. He died on Sept. 20, 1863, at the Battle of Chickamauga. He is buried at the Brunson graveyard near Darlington. It is said that his wife struggled considerably following his death, and carried a pistol with her daily as she worked as a seamstress. A monument to Axalla has been put in place at the Grove Hill Cemetery near Darlington, where many of the Hooles are also buried.

John Quincy Adams Dabbs was a member of the Pee Dee Artillery and served during the Civil War in the 2nd Company C, Manigualt’s Battalion South Carolina Artillery. Later, he served in other battalions headed by Pegram, Walker & Manly.

In 1912, J.W. Brunson, a civil engineer (possible brother of Betsie Brunson Hoole), writes from Florence to Euphrasia

about the memories of “your old house near the mineral springs, Zella and Stin [Zella was short for Axalla], and his chickens and the horse which stepped when told....[Stin was reported to have been quite the horse-trainer]. Of the pitcher stained by the minerals in the water.”

He talks of firing side-by-side with John Q. [sic] in Fredericksburg and how he thought they would both die for sure. He takes great pleasure in the fact that he assisted to get the cross which John Quincy Dabbs so gallantly and respectfully wore. Euphrasia’s youngest brother, Stanislaus (Uncle Stin), would also receive the cross indicating courage and honor during the war. It now hangs in Fern Park in Martha Dabbs Greenway’s kitchen.

EWD: Life I

John Quincy Dabbs and Euphrasia Hoole had two sons: Eugene Whitefield Dabbs, born April 15,1864; and his brother, James Hoole Dabbs, born in 1865.

Eugene’s first name was probably after his mother’s brother, Eugene Samuel Hoole, who moved to Eufaula, Alabama, and became a doctor. One reference gives 1856 as his year of death; however, reference is made in his brother Stin’s obituary that he had one brother living in Alabama who died in 1901.


Eugene’s middle name, Whitefield, was in honor of George Whitefield, a traveling evangelist whose religious views were part of the Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s. This evangelist traveled throughout eastern portions of the United States during the late 1700s and early 1800s and was renowned for his oratory skills. The name is pronounced as Whit-field and not White-field. In later spellings the “e” was sometimes eliminated to coincide with the pronunciation. Since it has become a common name within the Dabbs family, it is not unusual to see it spelled both ways. Eugene’s brother, James Hoole Dabbs, was named after his grandfather Hoole. James died at the age of 20 and never had any children.


John Quincy Adams died in 1880, and his second son, James, died five years later. A marker that jointly bears the names of James Hoole Dabbs and John Quincy Adams Dabbs with their years of birth and death can be found in the cemetery of the Darlington first Presbyterian Church. The inscription for the elder reads “Mark the perfect man; and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace.” For the younger it reads “Safe in the arms of Jesus.” Due to the fact that Euphrasia had very little money at the time of her husband’s and son’s deaths, it would be safe to guess that Eugene Whitefield Dabbs had the marker placed in the cemetery in memory of his father and brother at a later date.

EWD: Life II

Euphrasia and John Quincy struggled during the Civil War and Reconstruction. At the end of the war, and following John Quincy’s death, finances were in such shambles that Eugene writes that her friends and neighbors advised Euphrasia to put the youngest son in an orphanage and send the eldest out of town to work so that she might seek a housekeeper’s position. 

In response to this advice, he quotes her as saying: “No, to the limits of my strength I will keep a home for those whom God has given me.” This she did, until her son was able to provide a home for her and a life that was ultimately filled with grandchildren and less worry.

The Mystery of Uncle Stin

I have tried in vain to identify countless pictures which were left without the benefit of names on them. Some of them are eloquent and deserve to be known. Unfortunately, far too many remain a mystery. Every glimmer I got into the character of “Uncle Stin” (Stanilaus Hoole) made me want to know this man more; and yet, no one ever remembers seeing a picture of him, nor could they identify him among the countless anonymous photos. So, I have picked my three favorites for obvious reasons. I do believe that one of these is Uncle Stin. You decide. (Click photos to enlarge.)

Point of interest, his headstone at Brick Church is the only one in the row of Dabbses that is facing backwards, because it was the first one in the row to be placed. Originally, it was felt that the individual reading the name on the stone should be facing the church while they read. This was later reversed, so that the name on the stone was facing the church.
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Maude McBride: Heritage I

The history of the McBride family begins not with a family member, but with a landowner from times past. The McBride home place, better known today as Rip Raps, is the oldest and best known of the homes at the Crossroads. It is located on lands owned originally by Peter Mellet, who received the land through a land grant from King George II of England. That land grant still hangs in the hallway of the home today. James Bradley purchased 500 acres of this land from Peter Mellet in 1750. James Bradley was an original settler in the Salem Black River Community, and one of the first elders of Salem Black River Presbyterian Church (Brick Church).

Maude McBride: Heritage II

Samuel’s Two Marriages

While working for the Widow James, the family oral history tells us that Samuel McBride, Maude McBride's grandfather, would dress-up on Saturday nights and go out on private business. When the Widow James inquired where he went every weekend, he told her he was looking for a wife and a home of his own. The Widow responded, “Why don’t you look closer to home, Samuel?” It is said that he closed the door, hung his hat on a peg, and shortly thereafter married the widow Sarah James.

Samuel was a farmer of unusual ability, and he soon became a man of note and prominence. His plantation, known as Egypt farms, was considered a model show place of the community. Samuel continued to add to Sarah’s plantation by buying out five contiguous land grants, totaling 4,540 acres, from Robert Tomlinson. After Tomlinson’s death, he followed his heirs, John and Samuel Tomlin, to Tennessee, where he finalized the purchase of the remainder of Tomlinson’s land, until he owned in excess of 7,500 acres. 

When Sarah died in 1838, bearing no children, he added the land he inherited from her. He farmed approximately 1,000 acres of land, which was irrigated with an elaborate ditching system that drained into Mill Branch east of his home. Across from this, he built a large grist mill at one end and farmed 100 acres of rice at the other. Another dam was built west of the lake and in back of his house. The first house is thought to have been a log house near the swamp. This was replaced by a framed house that was later moved behind Rip Raps, the home currently standing, and was used for storage. That had been the home of Sarah James. It collapsed during Hurricane Hugo in 1989.

On June 1 , 1839, Samuel married his second wife, Martha Ruberry of Charleston, who was twenty years his junior. Her grandfather, John Ruberry, was a tailor. Her father, John Ruberry, Jr., died in 1817 of yellow fever and is buried at 138 Meeting Street in Charleston. Samuel and Martha had one son, born January 18,18 41, whom they named James Samuel McBride, after his father and his uncle, Dr. James McBride.

In later years, Martha Ruberry McBride writes a wonderful letter to her granddaughter, Maude McBride Dabbs, describing her marriage to Samuel McBride and her life at the Crossroads raising young James, Maude’s father:

“Your father’s life had been chills and fever. So was mine from first going to Salem tho I never said so. Dr. W said I must go to Sullivan’s Island and let James take salt and sand bath. This was an unheard of great trial. I left home and went. Was the lst lady to go in the bath before hundreds of people in broad day light. Soon a company followed. My child’s life was at stake and I would do anything. I went at night sometimes.”

Young James was a sickly child and, instead of being sent off to school, James was carefully tutored at home. Several mornings a week, he rode over to the next plantation where Mr. George Cooper taught him Greek, Latin, and Mathematics. His father engaged a skilled carpenter to teach James and imported a complete set of English tools for his use.

Insight into the daily routines of the McBride house can continue to be found in this letter from Martha Ruberry McBride to her granddaughter dated 1879:


"My Dear Maude, I am now 74 and will not be able to give dates. I forget so much now. 

“About the 64th year I lost my mother. I next remember
being draped in deep mourning and how sad all seemed to me as Sister Harriett and your great grandmother and father composed the family. Two servants composed our family Mary and Lilly. The year I remember not but war came and father had to leave us with those colored folks. [Editor’s Note: This would have been the war of 1812 .] He had taught us to have great respect for them but I held out they should not cut bread for me with their black hands. The nurse made every day for a time to come in and cut the bread until I was glad enough to eat it. This lesson of obedience has helped me through a long life.

“He was a noble good man the war I pass over. The horrors of it you heard elsewhere. God took great care of us all nicely but Lily was jet black and my trouble was great. One day father took me on his lap and told me he had a secret to tell me. He was to get a white lady to take charge of us. This to me was grand but when I learned it was what they called a step mother how I wept. Poor foolish child little did I know the true happiness it would bring us all. She was Miss Mary Vardell, a most lovely woman took us like her own and loved us with a mother’s love.”

[Editor’s Note: for historical purposes this is a bit confusing. There are two different Mary Vardells in the family. This reference is to the third wife of Martha Ruberry’s father. Later on you will also see a reference to the wife of Guy Lewis Warren, named Mary Vardell. Interestingly enough, the two women are related. Just to muddy the waters further, Mary Vardell Ruberry was the third wife of John Ruberry, Jr. Mary Vardell Warren was the granddaughter of the
first wife of John Ruberry, Jr. When you read later on that James McBride married a “distant” cousin, Sophoronia Warren, this is where the connection is. The family tree constructed by Dorothy Dabbs helps to show the connection better.]

[Martha Ruberry McBride continues to write to her granddaughter describing her marriage to Samuel McBride.] 

“I am truly blessed in this union. Though 20 years older than me he was the perfect gentleman. A model man. Everything went on like clockwork. No overseer ever came to know what to do where the family were. There was a room for this. No servant came for this and that, they had to think and get things at one time. When the cook rang her bell the house servants went in the yard to a long pole with a towel and tubs of water they were in. Needing [Ed. nothing ?] for the table. We always had the table laid for company. If we did not they came. Our breakfast was at dawn of day. When worship bell rang, servants took their seat on a bench and sang with us at worship. House servants I mean. They raised the tune by my giving a name. They were trained in all things when I went there. But long continued sickness made great changes.

“Tho your father [Ed. reference to James McBride] was learned always to put play things up at night. When he was married his playthings were found in a box. This is to let you know he was trained to have everything in its place. It came through his dear Father not me. If you have not acquired it strive hard to obtain it by persistence until you acquire it.

“A common dictionary was kept in the entry. If a big word was used (asking for explanation) the overseer got up and found it, took pencil and wrote it down. This one did not know until a day or two after he would use the word in the wrong place. I oft had to run to the book myself to see if he was correct. My parents dying while I was young and my education was not attended to.

“After a long time of sickness, a truly[sic] happy life, my husband died.”

During his lifetime, Samuel McBride’s involvement with Salem Black River Church was significant, as it has been with all of the McBrides and Dabbses living in the community. Numerous letters make reference to church business. The original frame building was replaced with a brick building in 1802 , and henceforth was referred to by many as “Brick Church.” But this building had significant problems, and after numerous attempts to repair it, a committee that included Samuel McBride was established to make arrangements for a new structure to be built. On December 16, 1846, the committee reported that the work on the new church was completed and the congregation was presented with a bill for $5,845, which included $225 for the Session House. We are told that a quart of whiskey and a bullfrog were left in the north column “by accident” when it was cemented into place. 

Samuel McBride died on January 24, 1850, leaving his wife and nine-year-old son a beautiful home, well staffed with servants, furnished with handsome furniture, and an excellent library. His library of books was donated through his son, James, to Brick Church, where it was housed in the Session House until they were eventually moved to Frances Marion College in Florence on loan. Samuel suffered through a long illness and sent a sad letter of farewell to the members of Salem Black River Church prior to his death. This letter can be found in the church minutes.

His wife would live for another 42 years. following his death, Martha Ruberry McBride married Matthew P. Mayes, who also preceded her in death. She writes fondly of MP Mayes and her acceptance into that family in Mayesville. Martha Ruberry McBride Mayes died on July 4, 1892 , and is buried at Brick Church next to her first husband, Samuel McBride. Evidently there was no room next to Matthew P. Mayes, since he had been married twice before and had already made plans to be buried between the first two wives.

The McBrides and Rip Raps

Rip Raps Plantation
The sun is shining on the back porch.

James Samuel McBride 
Only child of Samuel & Martha Ruberry McBride, Father of Alice Maude McBride Dabbs.


James McBride met Sophronia Adams Warren (born October 19, 1839), a distant relative of his mother’s family from Charleston, when they came to visit his family home at Egypt farms. They became engaged and he began building a large home to be later named Rip Raps as a gift for his bride, marking it off on the ground immediately in front of the house in which he currently lived. The new house was initiated in 1858. He was 17 years old at the time. It features 14  rooms, each measuring 20 x 20, symmetrically positioned on either side of a large hall that flows through the entirety of the mansion from front to back. The front and the back entrances are identical, with six columns and a large piazza across both. A landscape artist from New York City was engaged to lay off new grounds with the bigger house at a slightly different angle and a new avenue that stretched through the pinewoods for 3⁄4 mile. An expert from Barchman nurseries (later known as Fruitland Nurseries) in Augusta, Georgia, came several times to advise and direct the keeping of the grounds and gardens for Rip Raps and the Witherspoon Plantation, known as Coldstream. upon completion, Rip Raps is strikingly similar to a previous home built in the area known as Rollingdale, which was destroyed in a fire.



James McBride and Sophronia Adams Warren were married on February 22, 1859. James had developed tuberculosis. There is some speculation that he may have contracted this as a child from his aunt (his mother’s step- sister), Susan Vardell Ruberry, who died at 24 of what well may have been tuberculosis. (Susan Ruberry married Charles Sparks before her death. Their stones are next to the McBrides on the back right-hand side at Brick Church for those of you trying to figure out who Susan Sparks was and why she is buried there.) James was just an infant at the time, and Susan, who was in poor health, asked to have him brought to her. Susan, even though young, was evidently a convincing evangelist and requested that the baby James be baptized in her presence in her room where she held him in her arms and offered prayer.


As a young man, James was not strong enough to go with the Confederate troops, but was given a pass to nurse the troops behind the lines; possibly thereby also spreading tuberculosis. His wife’s many brothers and sisters moved up to Rip Raps from Atlanta. Her brothers Lewis and Albert both fought for the Confederacy and, it is said, that her brother, James Warren, who was too young to go to war, climbed to the top of the roof of Rip Raps in order to tie a Confederate flag to a chimney.


A fervent supporter of the Confederate cause, young James refused to embellish his new home with furniture and curtains while troops were in need. Instead, he supplied wagon loads of corn to troops in North and South Carolina (after his death, his wife and father-in-law continued the practice). Families of troops were welcomed at the plantation and given corn when in need, to the extent that, when people asked where someone was going they’d respond, “To Egypt to get some corn.” In this way, the McBride farm was referred to as Egypt farms.


It has been suggested that they might have referred to it as Egypt farms so as not to alert any Yankee sympathizers as to their supply source, but it was also said that Samuel McBride had previously named his farm Egypt Farms in reference to the high quality of corn he was producing and how far away people came to get seeds for their own crops. In Sallie Ruberry Burgess’s history of the Mayes family written in 1930, she claims that the Northern Army made regular trips to Rip Raps – called the old home “Goshen” – and carried away wagon loads of corn. There is nothing we have to support that story; quite the opposite, in fact. Oral history tells us again and again that the Yankees never marched up the avenue to Rip Raps with the exception of one poor lost straggler who was promptly turned around and sent on his way at gun point. By the end of the war, there wasn’t much corn left for anyone to eat, even those who lived there.


At some time during young James’ experience behind the lines, he camped beside the Rip Raps River in Virginia, and listened through the night to the water gurgling and rushing over the stones on its way down the mountain. When he returned home, he lay in bed hearing the rain water rushing down the forty foot gutters and remembered the Rip Raps River. So with some nostalgia, he named his new home Rip Raps. One story goes that when James returned briefly from the war to see the results of his new home, he was astounded at the size. Indeed his father-in-law, Guy Warren, wrote from Jonesboro on February 10, 1861, “James is now building himself a large new house. I think it is about 60 x 80 feet, two stories high with a large hall running through the center and three rooms on either side of the hall in either story, a total twelve rooms with Piazza all around the house. I cannot imagine what he intends
to do with so large a house.” What was, indeed, staggering and took more than 50 years to resolve, were the debts that were incurred during the building of this home. When young James died leaving his wife with only Confederate money to pay the bills, (worth only four cents on the dollar following the war) his 5-year-old widow, Sophronia, was left with overwhelming debt.


Rip Raps is the only home standing of the McBride/ Dabbs homes that was at one time a working plantation. On this site, 97 slaves worked to bring in crops of cotton, rice, and corn. Samuel McBride’s home that stood in the rear of the present site was torn down and a pegged “Summer Home” was built from it one mile away in the healthy part of the pine woods. That location was on the east side of Highway # 57 as you cross the Crossroads going towards I-95. The Summer Home burned in 1936. The family would spend eight months a year at the Winter Home (Rip Raps) and four months at the Summer Home, where the mosquitoes weren’t as bad. These two houses were little more than a mile apart.


The Union Army never passed by Rip Raps, although there was great fear that they would. The children had been told that, should they see Union Troops starting down the half mile avenue that led to the house, they could begin eating all of the molasses and sugar they wanted. Sugar came in blocks or bars and was kept in a bin that still exists at Rip Raps today. Surely, at least some of the younger family members lived with the desire to see at least one “Yank” before the war was over. Once, on a Sunday following a skirmish with the Yanks at Dingle’s Mill, while people were holding services at Brick Church, a courier came riding up, dismounted, and walked into the church and up to the minister with a message. 


The Yankees were moving up the western side of Black River towards the only crossing, just below Mayesville and headed for the Salem community. The congregation was dismissed, and headed for home to prepare. At Rip Raps, valuables and money were hidden, corn was spread over the ground, and all possible precautions were taken against looting. It was feared that the library within the house would be sacked and burned. A number of valuable old books were placed in a large sack, tied with a cord, and taken through the attic to the hollow top of a column and hung on a nail inside.


Meanwhile, the Mayesville members on the way home from church stopped after crossing the river just long enough to burn the bridge completely. When the Yankees arrived, already behind on orders to meet Sherman’s men at Camden, they could not wait long enough to rebuild the bridge and had to move on.


The books at Rip Raps remained in the column until the end of the war when it was discovered that the string had broken and the books had fallen to the bottom of the column. Boards had to be pried loose to get them out. Most of them were molded or eaten by mice.


As a young child in the 1950s, I remember innocently asking my grandmother whether Sherman was a Yankee or a Confederate. Her stunned look alerted me that I had not done my homework. “Dear,” she replied. “Don’t you ever mention that man’s name in my house again.” I didn’t.

The Church

Brick Church Marker (Click to enlarge)

Nearly all of the African-American families who had once been slaves of Rip Raps Plantation and the nearby Witherspoon Plantation (Coldstream) stayed in the community at the end of the Civil War and many of their descendents live in the community today. There remain a few sites of slave cemeteries that unfortunately bear no names, or sometimes only first names. The Historical Commission of Sumter County has made an effort to identify as many of these sites as possible.

The freed slaves who had once been members of Salem Black River Presbyterian Church were recorded as members at the church and given the last names of their former masters. In 1861, the rolls listed 67 white members and 389 Negroes. The black members entered through the back door of the church and sat in the balcony.

Brick Church: Interior View with Galleries

As would be expected, at the end of the Civil War, the Session struggled with how to respond to the new status of their former slaves and the idea of total equality was not the order of the day. On December 9, 1867, two of the black members, George Muldrow and Hugh Cooper, came before the Session and asked that they and 104 members be dismissed to form the contemplated first (Colored) Presbyterian Church that was being endowed by the Northern Presbyterian Church. 

Goodwill Church (Current Day)

Eventually, most other black members simply stopped coming to Brick Church and joined Goodwill Presbyterian Church, which was established one-half-mile south of Salem Black River Presbyterian Church on Highway 527. The membership of Goodwill soared to in excess of 640 people. White missionary teachers came from the northeast to help established the first school for black children. While the original Goodwill Church has been replaced, the Goodwill School House still stands to the right of it. Efforts are being made to restore it.

Goodwill School (after recent renovation efforts)

A point of interest is that no one in the family seems to have any information about the white missionary teachers who were obviously living in the community. They don’t know where they were living. They are not recorded as members of Brick Church. A logical guess would be that they attended Goodwill Presbyterian Church. No one remembers their parents or the aunts (who themselves were all strong advocates of education) ever making a reference to them. It is not hard to recognize the bitter feelings between the North and the South following the Civil War, and it is quite probable that the white community members had no intentions of stretching out a welcoming hand. 

Goodwill Presbyterian Church went on to become the mother church to numerous Africa-American churches in South Carolina and, with an active and passionate membership, has produced an array of talented citizens who are now living throughout the united States.

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The Session House that sits behind Brick Church was once 

home to a significant library furnished by Samuel McBride. 

In recent years the books were transferred to the Caroliniana 

Library in Columbia. It was always the setting for Sabbath 

School with two rooms, one for adults and one for children.

The McBrides and Rip Raps II

The two children of James and Sophronia McBride

James Samuel McBride and Sophronia Adams Warren McBride had two children, Alice Maude McBride (born July 15, 1860) and Guy Warren McBride (born February 1, 1864). Soon after he fathered these two children, James Samuel McBride died on June 2, 1864, at the age of 23, only a few months after the birth of his second child. He is buried at Salem Black River Church.

At his early death, James McBride had left Sophronia Warren McBride an estate one-half mile wide and seven miles long, extending east from the Black River Swamp to the other side of what is I-95 today. In addition, there was the beautiful home of Rip Raps. After her husband’s death, first Sophronia’s father, and then her daughter and son, worked with her to maintain the plantation. It is said that, with great fanfare, once a year, Guy McBride would make the trek into the then thriving town of Mayesville where the mortgage was held by the Bank of England. 

There, he would pay the interest on the mortgage for the house and farm. The principal, however, remained untouched, and they seemed unable to make headway on the debt. Refusing to sell either land or timber, Sophronia Warren McBride, with the help of her family, managed to hold the plantation together for more than half a century.