FOREST ACRES, SC,THE BEGINNING

The founder of what is now Forest Acres was Virginia born Thomas Taylor, who was a Colonel in the American Army during the Revolutionary War, was wounded and captured at the Battle of Fishing Creek in the upstate, and escaped on his way to imprisonment in Camden. Following the war, he was a member of the convention that adopted the United States Constitution and served in the state legislature.

In 1785, the state offered to sell land for $10.00/one hundred acres, and in concert with other notable Midlands figures, Wade Hampton and Timothy Rives, purchased 18,500 acres on both sides of Gill Creek. As they divided the land, Taylor took the land now known as Forest Acres, which was later divided into Quinine Hill, Edgehill, Bethel Church, and Dents Pond, now known as Forest Lake. But this acquisition along Gill Creek was only part of the larger holdings of Taylor, who sold land back to the State for the planned capital city of Columbia. In 1791, Taylor escorted President Washinton from Columbia to Camden on Camden Road, a portion of which is now known as Forest Drive. Still to be seen near Old Mill Circle are an original mill stone and the ruins of a mill built by Taylor in 1796.

The area became a place of country homes and plantations for Columbia's wealthy and the streets pay homage to the early settlers of the area, but perhaps no more noteworthy character is associated with the beginnings of Forest Acres as John Hughs Cooper, born in 1885 to a family that had prospered before the American Civil War, but arrived difficult time for the pre-war aristocracy and landed gentry. Cooper studied law at the University of South Carolina and was admitted to the SC Bar in 1910, followed by post graduate studies at Columbia University. Gaining a reputation as a skilled lawyer, he set about education his siblings, he was one of eight, and their children, but not his own, as he never married. A testament to his commitment to education, which provided his way to prosperity where farming had failed, is the John Hughs Cooper Library. In 1920, he established the Forest Land Company, which still operates in Forest Acres today from offices adjacent to the library, and he purchased Lakeview, around the former Dent's Pond, now Forest Lake. As time went on, he purchased more land in the area that became Forest Acres. In the shade of old-growth pines and hardwoods, the City of Forest Acres was incorporated in 1935, and today still it conveys the feeling of a small town oasis in urban surroundings.

Beyond Forest Acres, the legacy of the Forest Land Company continued in the development of Spring Valley, Woodcreek Farms and other areas of the state. The Stallings & Smith Group at Russell and Jeffcoat Real Estate has had the privilege of working with the Forest Land Company in Rockbridge Village, and looks forward to future relationships. Please visit us at www.StallingsandSmithGroup.com and please share and forward  this post.

 

Tommy Stallings 803 331 3062
Walt Smith 803 622 5210