Badham House

Front: This Neoclassical Revival house, called “one of the finest” in S.C. in 1920, was built in 1912 for Vernon Cosby Badham (1856-1947) and his second wife Lelia Johnston. Badham, a native of N.C., moved to S.C. in the 1880s and sold sawmill machinery in this area. In 1901 he built the Dorchester Lumber Company, across the highway and on the Southern Railway. The sawmill cut 50,000-100,000 feet of timber a day, hauling it from the swamps by a narrow-gauge railroad. Reverse: The sawmill, in operation from 1901 to 1938, employed 500 men at its peak. A large complex here included a company office, company store, worker housing, a school, and a church. The post office active here 1901-1945 was called Badham. Dorchester Lumber Company shut down during the Depression, and all that remains of the old mill across the highway is the brick ruin of the vault from the mill office.