The Epps-McGill Farmhouse is a large two-story dwelling located on the west side of Eastland Avenue in Kingstree, South Carolina. The structure is situated on two acres on the remnants of the original fifty-one-acre Epps-McGill farmstead, just outside of the town limits. It is an example of Late Victorian Folk architecture with a wing and front gable plan and retains a high degree of historic integrity. Original character-defining features preserved on the exterior of the house include the building’s unique porch ceilings, offset bay window, and wood soffit pendants. The interior of the structure features the original staircase, decorative mantels, and interior wood paneling. The structure has served as a farmhouse for the Epps-McGill farm since its construction in 1905. While the original farmstead has been reduced in size, the historic farmhouse retains a high degree of architectural integrity with limited modification of the Folk Victorian form.
Great Day in the Morning – a favorite saying of Weaver McGill’s.
The Epps-McGill Farmhouse is a surviving example of a vernacular structure that represents the evolution of agricultural society in Williamsburg County during the 20th century and the end of sharecropping. The structure’s significance is derived from the evolution of the house and farmland over the course of the 20th century which saw the rise of tobacco tenant farming and the eventual reduction of the farmland to its current footprint due to the changes in the agricultural economy. While the sharecropping system generally failed to produce its promised path to land ownership, the Epps-McGill Farmhouse stands out as a rare and important example of success, with the purchase of the property by African American farmer Weaver McGill offering an unusual case within the broader regional history of sharecropping…
…Sharecropping was an uncertain enterprise for anyone who took it up, yet the system’s uncertainties were even more acute for African Americans like the McGills, many of whom had abandoned it by the time the family took up residence on the Epps property. In the early 20th century, forces such as the boll weevil epidemic, decreasing crop prices, and predatory lending schemes further made acquiring land economically untenable for Black farmers, causing a mass exodus from the South into urban centers of the Midwest and Northeast. In the 1930s, Black southerners found themselves largely excluded from the benefits of New Deal programs meant to bolster the region’s agricultural economy. Local administration meant that programs were often subject to discrimination, while the New Deal agricultural policy of acreage reductions curtailed production on many farms, compounding displacement of the sharecroppers and tenant farmers already being fueled by mechanization. Small sharecropper farms were frequently absorbed into larger parcels that were worked by the landowners and diversified into crops and livestock that did not require as many hired hands. Between 1930 and 1940, more than 200,000 Black southern farmers including owners, sharecroppers, and tenants left agriculture, accounting for a 4.8 percent decrease in Black farm ownership in the region, six times as severe as the .8 percent decrease in Black farm ownership across the nation.
Over time, several different trends in the broader history of Black southern sharecropping unfolded through the McGill family’s tenure on the Epps property. The family members who ultimately took up residence in the farmhouse had deep roots in Williamsburg County, some likely extending back to slavery. Esther (Ervin) McGill (c.1902-1956) first leased the property from the Epps family around 1953, following the death of her husband Burgess McGill in 1952. For two years, she lived in the house and sharecropped the land with her children before they, like countless other Black sharecroppers, chose to leave the South, resettling in Rochester, New York, in 1955. After they left the property, Esther’s brother-in-law Weaver McGill (1916-1994) and his wife Margaret (Singletary) McGill moved into the farmhouse with their children and continued to sharecrop the land into the 1950s and 60s.19 During this time, a large tobacco barn and smaller auxiliary structures were built on the farmland to the west of the dwelling. Unfortunately, the auxiliary structures were demolished during the late 20th century, and the barn collapsed in 2015. The McGill family used the land during this period to grow a wide variety of crops including wheat, corn, cotton, collard greens, soybeans, sugar cane, and potatoes. The family also raised chickens, hogs, and other farm animals.
As Weaver, Margaret, and their children worked the Epps land, sharecropping continued to fade away from the southern landscape….
Stay tuned for more on this project
Subscribe to our Newsletter