Crotwell Family History
Crotwell Cheese Factory
Crotwell Cheese Factory
Samuel P. Crotwell started one of the first cheese factories in the state of South Carolina in January of 1905. An article in the Newberry Observer in March of that year described the venture. Samuel had hired a man who studied the process at Clemson and had former experience at a factory in Union County to run it.
The factory was pictured in a book titled The Handbook of South Carolina: Resources, Institutions & Industries of the State published by the State Department of Agriculture, Commerce, & Immigration, 1907. My grandmother, Selma Crotwell Swink, told me when I was growing up that her father had the first cheese factory in the state and was pictured in a South Carolina history book. Once I started my genealogical research several decades later, I remembered this story and searched through history books everywhere I went. I found this book in a bookstore of old books in Newberry. While it is not a history book, it does have a picture of the cheese factory and the man in the picture could be her father.
In 2012 I gave this information to the Newberry Historical Society when they graciously agreed to open the Gauntt house for my cousins and me to tour. Our tour guide, Jim Clamp, went out and found the ruins of the cheese factory and cleared away the overgrowth for us to view.
