Edgefield County, South Carolina

Edgefield County was established in seventeen eighty-five from the southern portion of the colonial Ninety-Six District, and it produced more South Carolina governors than any other county in the state , ten in all, plus five lieutenant governors and a remarkable concentration of national political figures. Antebellum senators George McDuffie, Andrew Butler, and James Henry Hammond all called Edgefield home. So did Congressman Preston Brooks, who gained national notoriety in eighteen fifty-six for beating Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a gold-headed cane on the floor of the United States Senate.

Benjamin Ryan Tillman, known as Pitchfork Ben, was born near Trenton in Edgefield County in eighteen forty-seven and served as governor from eighteen ninety to eighteen ninety-four, building a political machine defined by white supremacy and agrarian populism. In a single small upcountry county, American political history kept choosing to happen.