The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 51, July 1947 - April, 1948 Page: 376
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
The low-country planters did not go alone to the up-country
resorts of Pendleton, Greenville, Spartanburg, and Winnsboro
to escape "the subtle poison of the miasma during the ma-
larious season"; they went also "to 'the salt,' that is to say, to
the coastal towns and sea-island beaches." In Charleston, Beau-
fort, and Georgetown the planters had their town houses, and
some even went to Newport, Rhode Island, for the summer
months. If they were not "favorably situated for migrating to
'the Salt,' " planters went to "the Pine" and lived in such towns
as Summerville, McPhersonville, Pineville, Whiteville, and others.
Some planters summered at "the Springs," of which, by actual
count, there were nineteen in South Carolina with such names
as Bradford Springs, Cool Springs, and Glenn Springs. Twenty-
five other watering places or spas, by actual listing in the fifth
chapter, drew South Carolinians to the states of Georgia, North
Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and
New York. One wonders what a hundred years ago was the ante-
cedent of the modern day "Come on in, the water's fine." Wheth-
er one dipped or whether one drank, "the delightful society
which [was] drawn together in every agreeable variety" may
have been more health-restoring than the waters. Driving, riding,
dancing, music, cards, billiards, bowling, dinner parties, picnics,
sight-seeing excursions, hikes, and fishing and hunting expedi-
tions furnished the required diversion for valetudinarians who
could still get about and for ladies "with or without tournures,"
as George W. Featherstonhaugh described some whom he saw at
Warm Springs, Virginia, in the 1840's.
What to begin with was the desire to escape the "sickly season"
or "country fever" soon became coupled with "travel in search
of health or recreation." The summer migrations were not only
a physic but they became the fashion, and thirdly "many sought
relief from the monotony or the cares of plantation life." The
migrations, as Professor Brewster points out, also had their ef-
fects, both beneficial and detrimental. The "low-country planter
families entered new environments and made new contacts";
they "penetrated the physical and intellectual climate of other
sections and other lands"; they "could display the attainments
they possessed"; and "they could influence, as well as be influ-
enced, by their travels."376
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 51, July 1947 - April, 1948, periodical, 1948; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101119/m1/470/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.