Editing Society Hill, South Carolina (section)

== History ==
[[Welsh people|Welsh]] settlers came to the Society Hill area from [[Pennsylvania]] and [[Delaware]] in 1736.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=Behre|first=Robert|date=September 9, 2017|title=Saving Society Hill: The birthplace of the Pee Dee looks to its past for new life|url=https://www.postandcourier.com/news/saving-society-hill-the-birthplace-of-the-pee-dee-looks-to-its-past-for-new/article_c0a5430c-8e5a-11e7-a624-13ae70b2abe2.html|url-access=subscription|access-date=August 12, 2021|website=Post and Courier|language=en}}</ref> It was the first settlement in Darlington County.<ref name="history">{{cite web|title=Society Hill|url=http://darlingtoncounty.org/municipal_details.php?5|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130825125345/http://darlingtoncounty.org/municipal_details.php?5|url-status=usurped|archive-date=August 25, 2013|accessdate=October 19, 2013}}</ref> The Welsh settlers were Baptists and named the community after St. David's Society.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Moyer|first1=Armond|last2=Moyer|first2=Winifred|title=The origins of unusual place-names|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89058322223;view=1up;seq=126|year=1958|publisher=Keystone Pub. Associates|page=122}}</ref> The town was a center of intellectual life in the Pee Dee region in the 18th and early 19th century.<ref>{{Cite web|title=SCDAH|url=http://www.nationalregister.sc.gov/darlington/S10817716003/index.htm|access-date=August 12, 2021|website=www.nationalregister.sc.gov}}</ref> St. David's Society educated leading men like [[James Lide Coker]], founder of [[Sonoco]] and [[Coker University]].<ref name=":0" /> Its library built in 1812 is the second oldest lending-library in South Carolina.<ref name=":0" /> A new library, a branch of the Darlington County Library System, was built in 2011.<ref>{{Cite web|date=July 2, 2014|title=Old Society Hill Library|url=https://www.scpictureproject.org/darlington-county/old-society-hill-library.html|access-date=August 12, 2021|website=SC Picture Project|language=en-US}}</ref>

Society Hill began to decline as rivers became less important as means of transportation.<ref name=":0" /> Business in the region shifted to surrounding towns such as [[Cheraw, South Carolina|Cheraw]] and [[Hartsville, South Carolina|Hartsville]].<ref name=":0" /> The population of the town peaked in 1980 with around 848 people.<ref name=":0" /> In the 2010 census, the population of Society Hill was 563, down from 700 in 2000.<ref name="Census 2010">{{cite web|title=Geographic Identifiers: 2010 Demographic Profile Data (G001): Society Hill town, South Carolina|url=http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/DEC/10_SF1/G001/1600000US4567435|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/20200213060420/http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/DEC/10_SF1/G001/1600000US4567435|archive-date=February 13, 2020|publisher=U.S. Census Bureau, American Factfinder|accessdate=January 5, 2016}}</ref>

In 2017, Preservation South Carolina, a nonprofit organization, began a plan to sell eight historic buildings to preservation-minded purchasers within Society Hill. It was the organization's largest preservation effort at that time.<ref name=":0" /> At the time, Society Hill did not have any zoning laws to protect such buildings.<ref name=":0" />