Herbert Joseph “H.J.” Felton was born in Hardwick, Massachusetts in 1852 and moved to Greenville, South Carolina, with his wife, Ella, in 1874. At the time, Greenville was recovering from the Civil War with several hopeful signs for the future. A new bridge spanned the Reedy River at Main Street, the Richmond and Danville Air Line railroad built an important track and depot in the city, under Hamlin Beattie the first bank was set up, and downtown’s first textile mills, the Sampson & Hall mill and the Camperdown mill, were built on the lower and upper falls respectively.
The growing city needed more specialty stores, and Herbert established the Felton Book Store in 1877 in a handsome new 20-foot-by-60-foot brick building on the east side of Main Street between McBee and Washington. His store’s immediate neighbor to the right was one of the oldest homes still standing in this commercialized section of town, that of Capt. Jeremiah Cleveland. According to the 1884 Historical and Descriptive Review of the State of South Carolina, Felton’s store was “patronized by the first families of the country,” and included a variety of products “expected in the larger establishments of metropolitan cities.” Specialty items sold in the store included school books, novels, blank books, family Bibles, window shades, wall paper, gold pens, a Seaside Library, newspapers and magazines. Furthermore, Felton’s met the needs of locals to frame pictures and had more than 10,000 feet of molding in stock. The success of his business allowed Felton in the mid-1880s to add a fully glassed storefront and a stylish mansard roof, no doubt contracted to local contractor Jacob Cagle.
Felton was well respected as a leader and businessman in the community for more than three decades and described as “an agreeable gentleman to have dealings with, and manages his business upon principles so liberal and straightforward as to have secured for himself and his house the esteem and consideration as well merited as it is rarely acquired.” After his first wife, Ella, died, Herbert married his second wife, Sarah P. Lance, in 1892 and continued to provide Greenville’s book and stationary needs into the next century. In 1909, Felton sold his business, and it became Seybt & Carter Books for the next generation. He and Sarah moved to the Isle of Palms for three years, then to Bostic, North Carolina, where he operated Felton Roller Mills before passing away in 1927.
John M. Nolan is owner of Greenville History Tours (greenvillehistorytours.com) and author of “A Guide to Historic Greenville, SC” and “Lost Restaurants of Greenville, SC.”
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