Fortunes made in cotton and tobacco created wealthy landowners in this area of South Carolina.

Mayesville served the local area as a place to process and sell these products and to obtain supplies.

Bradley, Witherspoon Cooper and Isaac Strauss opened some of the earliest businesses in town.

Purchasing an existing plantation prior to 1819, he turned this small beginning into an empire that would survive the Civil War.

He died in 1879 and was buried in the historic cemetery at Salem Black River Presbyterian Church.

[7] According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 1.0 square miles (2.7 km2), all land.