RUFUS .J. CLIFFORD
Rufus. J. Clifford, a Canadian-born lumberman raised in Vermont, came to Georgetown as the new president of Atlantic Coast Lumber Corporation from Hambleton, West Virginia, where he had been general manager of Otter Creek Boom and Lumber Company, one of the largest lumber concerns in that state. Clifford had large interests in gas, oil, and other commodities. However, his chief concern was his lumber business, of which he made a distinguished success. He was seventeen years of age when he began working in lumber mills as a sawyer. Ambitious and closely attentive to his business, he soon worked his way up to executive positions and became proficient in all branches, with a “thorough mastery of methods and details.” [Thomas Condit Miller, Hu Maxwell, West Virginia and Its People (Lewis Historical Publishing Company), 1913: 3.]
Back in West Virginia, Clifford had been active in the Republican party, and in 1910 he was elected a member of the house of delegates for Tucker County, West Virginia. He had also served as chairman of the Republican executive committee of Randolph county. It’s interesting to note that on August 22 of 1912, Clifford published the following letter on the cover page of the Georgetown Daily Item, with the headline “A Card From Mr. Clifford: To All Whom It May Concern,” which reads: “It has come to my attention that the impression prevails in this section of the State that the Atlantic Coast Lumber Corporation and the Georgetown & Western Railroad Company, of both which I am president, are and have been actively engaged in county and state politics, and that the votes of employees of both Companies have been and are being controlled or influenced, in one direction or another, by threat of fear of loss of employment. As president of said two companies, I hereby most emphatically declare that there is no foundation in fact for said impression. R.J. Clifford.”
Clifford was serving as president of ACL when on April 21, 1913, two of the Georgetown mills were destroyed by fire. He told his board of directors in New York the kind of mill he would like to build to replace the two that had burned, and he was given carte blanche. He subsequently designed the new plant before the architects were permitted to draw a line. He personally laid it out “first in his mind's eye and then on drafting paper.” After satisfying himself as to how the “whole thing looked” he permitted the experts to reduce the drawing to scale; hence, it was said that the plant was Clifford's own personal creation “from log hoist to loading platform.” The result was a gigantic fireproof modern steel and concrete structure which spread over the acreage of the old site on the Sampit River. [“A Gigantic Sawmill Operation,” American Lumberman (Chicago), July 4, 1914: 32.] The new plant comprised four sawmills, a planing mill, turpentine still, machine shop and other support shops, a power plant, and the alcohol plant operated by the DuPont Powder Company adjacent to the mill. It was completed in 1914, and the rebuilding program included dozens of employee houses in the West End. R.L. Clifford was highly praised across the country for his performance.
Clifford’s wife, Ella A. Ward Clifford, was a member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and active in the Methodist Episcopal church. It seems that Mrs. Clifford was more into service than socializing. After the coming of the ACL and the building of "New Town," the mill village, a second Methodist Church was founded in 1899 to serve the people there. It was known as West End Methodist Church, a mission church largely supported by ACL. Started in a modest wooden structure, a brick building was erected in 1910 and 1911 on the corner of Winyah Road and Kaminski Street. As a member of the missionary society of West End Church, Ella Clifford held rummage sales and events in support of this new congregation of her husband’s workers from the lumber mill. [Georgetown Times, April 1, 1916: 1.]
The Cliffords only owned the house for a few years but R.J. Clifford remained in the area until he was replaced at Atlanta Coast Lumber’s last president, William S. Clarke. The Clifford family also owned “a beautiful summer home” at Island Pond, Vermont, where they “spent the season.”
They had two children: Greta H. Brown, of Hambleton, a graduate of Yarmouth Academy, Maine, and the Fine Arts School at Philadelphia; and Paul C., educated at Mercersburg College, Pennsylvania, who also worked in the lumber business. [Miller and Maxwell, West Virginia and Its People: 3.]
In 1920, Clifford sold the property to W.W. Taylor, Jr.
The following ran in the Essex County Herald. in Guildhall, Vermont on December 14, 1922: “Mrs. Ella Ward Clifford. A former well-known resident, the wife of Rufus J. Clifford, died at Palatka, Florida. They were natives of this section and resided in Island Pond for several years while Mr. Clifford was manager of the lumbering interests in this locality. From here they went to Hambleton, W. Va., and thence to Georgetown, S. C, where Mr. Clifford was president of the Atlantic Coast Lumbar Corporation, the largest lumbering enterprise of modern times. Mrs. Clifford was of a generous-hearted motherly disposition- - and made many lasting friends ends in the various communities in which she had lived.”
By the late 1920s, logging operations had played out in the region and ACL was looking for an out. Around 1929, the railroad relocated most of its local operations, taking most of the town's residents with it. Finally, in 1932 the ACL ceased local logging operations amd closed it doors. It was a huge blow to the region’s economy, and the boom-town atmosphere of Georgetown disappeared. However, by then ACL was in the hands of President George S. Clark.
by Jennie Holton Fant