Ellison Adger Smyth

Ellison Adger Smyth

Quick Facts

Significance:

Major figure in South Carolina textile industry and later resident in Flat Rock, NC

Place of Birth:

Charleston, SC

Date of Birth:

October 26, 1847

Place of Death:

Flat Rock, NC

Date of Death:

August 3, 1942

Place of Burial:

Charleston, SC

Cemetery Name:

Second Presbyterian Church Cemetery

Ellison Adger Smyth owned Rock Hill from 1900-1942 and renamed the property in that time. The change of name to “Connemara” was a nod to the Smyth family’s Irish ancestry. Smyth’s youth was marked by his Charleston family’s wealth and his time in the Confederate army. After the Civil War Smyth saw success in textile mills and banking. However, it was also after the war, not during, that Smyth was first addressed as “Captain.” After the war Smyth joined the South Carolina Red Shirts, a white supremacist paramilitary group. Red Shirts terrorized and blocked Black voters in North and South Carolina. After a career building and running textile mills, Smyth followed the pattern of many wealthy Charlestonians and found a summer home in Flat Rock, North Carolina. In 1900 he purchased Rock Hill, now Connemara. He and his family often retreated to the farm in the summer until Smyth’s passing in 1942. 

Family and Early Life 

Ellison Adger Smyth was the son of an Irish-born Presbyterian minister, Thomas Smyth, who arrived in Charleston in 1831. Thomas Smyth married Margaret Adger in 1832. Margaret Adger was the daughter of a wealthy and influential Charleston merchant, James Adger. Ellison Adger Smyth was born to Thomas and Margaret on October 26, 1847. James Adger died in 1858 and left $10,000 to Joseph Smyth which would be available on his 21st birthday. $10,000 in 1858 is the equivalent of over $368,000 in 2023. Smyth attended the South Carolina Military Academy, The Citadel, in his teen years. He left school in 1864 to volunteer for the Confederate Army. 

Civil War 

Smyth joined the 44th Regiment of the South Carolina Militia before transferring to the Arsenal Academy Cadets. When Smyth went to war, John Dent, was forced to travel alongside Smyth. John Dent was enslaved by the Smyth family. Dent was the son of a free man, Francis and his wife Betsy, who was enslaved by the Adgers. Being free or enslaved was determined at birth for African Americans, based on the mother’s condition of free or enslaved. Despite Francis’s freedom, John Dent, was born enslaved due to his mother’s enslavement. Eventually, like many enslaved Black persons, Dent was forced to serve Smyth at the war front. However, the Confederacy never allowed Black servicemen in their forces, free or enslaved. The presence of Black Americans alongside Confederate forces was not voluntary. 

Textile Industry 

Smyth’s investment in the textile industry picked up at the end of the 1870s. A joint effort between Smyth and Francis Pelzer resulted in the organization of the Pelzer Manufacturing Company in 1881. The first Pelzer mill was built on the Saluda River. The company built three more mills in the following 15 years. The three mills processed 25,000 bales of cotton per year. Smyth served as the company president for 43 years.  

During Smyth’s career, the Pelzer company had a great impact on South Carolina’s textile industry. Smyth saw the Pelzer mills install cutting edge features and technology. Pelzer was the first mill to use incandescent lights and installed the first Draper Automatic Looms. The Pelzer mills also used electricity from generating stations, automatic tying-in machines, and the new electric drives. Smyth built a town of four hundred “cottages” to house three thousand workers. He opened company schools for his workers. Child labor was customary at the time, and Smyth educated his workers to age 11. Then he put them to work in the mills. His mills mostly employed White workers. Black workers performed the lowest-paying jobs and their children were not allowed to attend his company schools. His involvement in Pelzer ended when he sold the company to Lockwood, Green, and Company in 1923 for $9 million. With these proceeds he established Balfour Mills near Flat Rock in 1925. 

Smyth was involved in the creation and leadership of many other mills as well. He was president of Belton Mills from its 1899 founding till 1920. He also worked with others like Denean and Brandon. Smyth was a member of the American Cotton Manufacturers. During his lifetime Smyth helped found the Cotton Manufacturing Association of South Carolina. Historic and current accounts of Smyth's life never fail to praise his industrial successes. Rarely have biographers and writers looked beyond Smyth's career and into his ideology or its influences.  

Reconstruction and Red Shirts 

Smyth’s past as a textile industrialist (Pelzer, Belton, and Balfour Mills) and banker often overshadows his other roles. He had influence in South Carolina's reconstruction. In 1867, at the age of 20, he helped organize and became Vice-President of the Carolina Rifle Club. These rifle clubs were paramilitary and anti-black “Red Shirt” organizations. By 1875, he was President of the Washington Artillery rifle club. In 1876 the club joined a violent and corrupt campaign to elect Wade Hampton III as governor. As a White supremacist and Democratic candidate, the Red Shirts worked to win the state for Hampton.  

In South Carolina eligible Black voters outnumbered White ones by 111,000 to 77,000. Red Shirts aimed to block Black and Republican voters and reassert Democrat control. Red Shirt intimidation, violence, and fraud shaped the governor's election in 1876. For his efforts against Black voters, and maintaining White rule, Governor Hampton named Smyth “Captain” in 1877. Smyth's commission was the first issued by the new Governor Hampton.  

These Red Shirt clubs were one of many such groups formed to suppress Black Americans. Rifle clubs formally merged into Red Shirt Clubs by 1876. In their Battle Plan of 1876, the South Carolina Red Shirts were candid about their strategy and intentions. Everyone “must feel honor bound to control the vote of at least one Negro,” bear in mind as public speakers that “you are the superior race,” and that “if [a Negro] deserves to be threatened, the necessities of the times require that he should die.” 

As a Red Shirt Captain, Smyth had a central role in the violence against Charleston’s Black citizens. This includes the Hamburg Massacre of 1876, and the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898. Smyth defended his role in the Red Shirts as a protector of White people and their property. He used the title of Captain for the rest of his life. 

Smyth in Flat Rock 

Following the path of many wealthy Charlestonians, Smyth purchased “Rock Hill” for his summer home in Flat Rock, NC, in 1900. He renamed it “Connemara” after his father’s ancestral home in Ireland. At Connemara, he built a large barn and fenced pastures for livestock. For over 20 years, Smyth and his family used Connemara as a summer retreat. In 1924, he became a year-round resident adding electricity, plumbing, and heat to the home. 

Through the 1930s, Smyth continued his regular routine. He went to his office at Balfour Mills daily, and made his rounds at Connemara, feeding the chickens and ducks at five o’clock. He died at Connemara in 1942, at age 94. Smyth was buried at Second Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Charleston where his father served as minister. 

In the depths of World War II, sale of Connemara was not really an option. The caretakers, the Ballards, continued maintaining the property but the house remained empty. In the summer of 1945 Connemara was up for sale, and by August, Lilian Sandburg saw the place for the first time. A few days later, they signed a sale agreement, and on October 18, 1945, the Smyths’ Connemara belonged to the Sandburgs.