From Eddie Price, Chief Pilot at Pond Branch Airways:
The land around Pond Branch
Airfield has been in the family a long time.
Great, Great, Great, Great Grand
Dad moved here on Little Black Creek between 1803 and 1810. He and Betsy (?) had 10 children that in 1850
were ages 47, 39,37,19,11, 11, 9, 9, 4, and 3.
The 47 year old was Great, Great, Great Grand Dad Adam Smith. He built the house at the south west end of
the R/W that double first cousin JW and Shelby live in now (we are Prices
because our Dad’s married Smith sisters).
Adam and Mary Mollie had eight children.
The oldest Great, Great Grand Dad Samuel married Mittie and had one child
before he joined the Confederacy. The
book the above information comes from says Samuel was wounded in battle north
of Richmond and died in the Manchester hospital. There is no other record of this however. The
museum of the Confederacy in Richmond did send copies of records where an H. S.
Smith served and died in 1864 in Charleston.
H. S. Smith is on the Memorial at the Lexington County Court House. Great Grand Dad Henry Roston Smith married
Sallie and had 13 children that lived to be grown. They lived on the pond downstream across
I-20. Second born was Grand Dad Jacob
Paul Smith. His first wife died after
having one child and he remarried Anna.
They lived in Adam’s house where all the children were born. My mom was Drucie, the baby. When we visited Grandma & Pa as a kid it
was Pond Branch Community. Grand Dad
died in ’57 and the land was split up 3 ways.
Aunt Ruby got the house and pond.
Mom took the track that was split in half by the interstate. The south side went to Uncle Taft who sold it
for $200 an acre. Brother Regie has the
land that you fly just over his pine trees approaching PBA 29. Mom gave me the 20 acres for $5, love &
affection when I got out of school. I
camped out on it most weekends until I decided to put down a well at the
highest point on the property. The
circle drive was cut down to the dirt road.
A power pole was put up and I bought a 10’ x 45’ mobile home for $2,000. Friends and I built the log garage in ’79. A contractor built the house in 1980 and another
contractor added on in ’02.
In the early ‘80’s I figured
out where a runway could be but I needed the five acres which is now the east
end. It and 30 more acres across the
dirt road were owned by a group of attorneys that wanted $1800 an acre. I made them an offer of $1200. After a year or two they accepted and I got 5
more acres across the road. It took 20
years to get it cleared off, mostly one scrub oak and stump at a time. I did have the pine trees cut and to finish
up the neighbor used his big machinery to get the rest. Mid-Carolina buried the
East end power lines for $5 per foot and 10 months later the west end for $10
per foot. Metro Construction for $1800 motor graded the
4 acres and planted Bermuda in the spring of ‘8. The hanger was finished in 2010 and 84Charlie
made its first landing in May.
Eddie
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