W. F. Thackston

Title

W. F. Thackston

Description

W. F. Thackston played a small role in Greer's earliest beginning as the man who sold the land to Manning Greer.

Biographical Text

The land that would become Greer was a 190-acre tract forming the northern part of Hugh Bailey’s estate in the mid-1800s. This northern tract came into the possession of James T. Blakely and was farmed by him for almost two decades. In 1863, Blakely sold the property to W.F. Thackston for $4,000 in Confederate currency. Shortly after, Thackston sold the land to Manning Greer — land that would soon come to bear Greer's name.

From Greenville News:
Thackston was a business man. He had started out at Henry Hammett’s Batesville Mill; by 1880 was “outside supervisor” at Hammett’s Piedmont Mill. At the turn of the century, however, he and another son owned a real estate and insurance agency in Greenville, and he headed the Paris Mountain Land Company. He was married to Kaziah Young, but she died; now widowed, he raised his two children, Henry and Emily. In the late 1890s he purchased the Rock House on Buncomb Road, an historic landmark as perhaps the oldest house in Greenville county.

Bibliography

https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/life/2015/04/07/history-one-greenville-oldest-homes/70765098/