The history of Caleb Coker and his original store
Caleb Coker Jr.
The original Coker & Rogers store.
Caleb Coker began his business life as a bookkeeper in the Society Hill store of Alexander Sparks, and by 1828, he had entered into business with J. Eli Gregg of Mars Bluff.
Together, they created the mercantile business of Coker and Gregg, building the original part of the adjacent store in 1832. They enlarged the store in 1860, and when it closed more than 100 years later, it had the distinction of being the business operated longest by a single family in the state.
Caleb Coker became a prominent merchant, banker and planter. He also became a director of the Cheraw and Darlington Railroad, librarian for the Society Hill Library and a charter member of the Darlington Agricultural Society.
He operated boats on the Pee Dee River, and often traveled to New York to get goods for his store.
During the Civil War, when Union Gen. W.T. Sherman’s troops passed through Society Hill in 1865, they looted the Coker store of china, paintings, carpets and other goods that had been sent there for safekeeping by Lowcountry families who expected – mistakenly – that Union forces would take a different route.
Caleb Coker’s son was James Lide Coker, who would go on to Darlington County fame with Coker Feed & Seed and become a business giant in the Hartsville area not far away.
