Qualla: Hix-Blackwell House https://qualla.com/hix-blackwell-house en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:06 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/j/s/hix-blackwell-house-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Hix-Blackwell House https://qualla.com/hix-blackwell-house Hix-Blackwell House: Introduction https://qualla.com/hix-blackwell-house/ Photo credit Nbsenn3, CC BY-SA 4.0. William Preston Hix grew up in this house and grew restless. He fought in the Third South Carolina Infantry, learned hand-tinting from a Columbia photographer after his discharge, and ended up partnered in a firm called Wearn & Hix - which produced one of the best-known photographs of Robert Smalls, the formerly enslaved Civil War hero who became a U.S. Congressman. From there 'Press' Hix kept moving north until he was painting full-length portraits of P.G.T. Beauregard in New York and befriending Thomas Edison. In 1884 he installed a two-million-dollar lighting system for the city of Philadelphia, as an agent for the Edison Company. He grew up at 606 South Harper Street in Laurens, in a house his father probably built around 1820.

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]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/j/s/hix-blackwell-house-wp/dnjs-hix-blackwell-house-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Hix-Blackwell House: Edward Hix Buys a Lot https://qualla.com/hix-blackwell-house/ Photo credit Nbsenn3, CC BY-SA 4.0. Edward Hix bought the lot in January 1818 from Robert Cresswell, who had served as Lt. Governor of South Carolina from 1814 to 1816. Hix was 26, a War of 1812 veteran, a native Virginian who had spent time in Union County before settling in Laurens. He built carriages and wagons....

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]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/j/s/hix-blackwell-house-wp/dnjs-hix-blackwell-house-edward-hix-buys-a-lot.mp3 0:06 2 full Hix-Blackwell House: Carriages and Steam https://qualla.com/hix-blackwell-house/ Photo credit Nbsenn3, CC BY-SA 4.0. Edward Hix served as one of Laurens' first aldermen starting January 1846, when the city was barely a month old. His son Jesse served as the city's first Clerk/Treasurer. By December 1850, the Laurensville Herald was reporting that Edward had bought a lot behind S. R. Todd's stor...

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]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/j/s/hix-blackwell-house-wp/dnjs-hix-blackwell-house-carriages-and-steam.mp3 0:06 3 full Hix-Blackwell House: The Blackwells and the Joe Stewart Case https://qualla.com/hix-blackwell-house/ Photo credit Nbsenn3, CC BY-SA 4.0. Homer S. Blackwell bought the house in 1918. He was a lawyer who had served in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1913 to 1914, with a growing practice in the Palmetto Bank Building. He and his wife Jeannie took in boarders early on - the 1920 census shows two in re...

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]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/j/s/hix-blackwell-house-wp/dnjs-hix-blackwell-house-the-blackwells-and-the-joe-stewart-case.mp3 0:06 4 full Hix-Blackwell House: What the Frame Reveals https://qualla.com/hix-blackwell-house/ Photo credit Nbsenn3, CC BY-SA 4.0. The bones tell the age. The beams supporting the house are milled lumber, some 8 by 12 inches, joined with traditional post-and-beam construction and pegged together with hand-shaped wooden pegs - a technique fading rapidly by the mid-19th century. The roof is metal gable, pierce...

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]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/j/s/hix-blackwell-house-wp/dnjs-hix-blackwell-house-what-the-frame-reveals.mp3 0:06 5 full