Hampton County was carved out of Beaufort County in 1878, creating a separate white political enclave, populated in part by those who had fled their coastal homes when the Beaufort area was occupied by Federal troops. Wade Hampton III, after whom the county was named, laid the cornerstone for this courthouse in 1878, in a ceremony that featured a parade of his supporters dressed in their Red Shirt uniforms. The Red Shirts played an important role in post-Reconstruction South Carolina politics. The original courthouse in the county seat of Hampton, shown here in a 1946 photograph, was renovated in 1925.
Courtesy of Mildred B. Rivers.
