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Dalton’s general store stood close to the banks of Little Goose Creek as it flows through town. At that time, Hartsville had only been a town a few years, getting a post office in 1807 and being recognized as “ an established town� by the State Legislature in 1817.

Dalton’s is believed to be the first general store in our county.

As our population grew, small stores sprang up around the county and by the late 1800’s every community had its own general store.

Keep in mind, that this was before cars, telephones and rural free delivery.

If you ran out of sugar, thread or nails, you couldn’t just hop into the car and run into town.

So, you had to walk to the closest general store and hope they had what you needed.

They usually did, as their livelihood depended on being able to keep their customers supplied with their daily needs.

If you are not surprised to see people shopping at Walmart in a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt, you would feel right at home in your local country store where farmers wore their coveralls and children were barefoot.

A general store doubled as a post office, pharmacy, grocery store, clothing store and carried all the tools needed to build a barn, repair your house or plow “the back forty.�

One story written down in our archives is that of a young lady who wanted to look her best when she walked two miles down a dirt and gravel road to the store.

She put on a clean dress and took her shoes from the dresser … but, she didn’t put them on her feet.

Instead, she put the shoes in the small basket she would use to carry her purchases home…this was before paper grocery bags or plastic bags.

When she got within sight of the store she stopped, used a handkerchief to wipe the dust from her feet and put the shoes on.

At the store, she looked clean and fresh and like a picture in a magazine.

She would reverse the procedure when she left, keeping her shoes looking nice and letting her bare feet carry her home.

Large communities might have more than one store, but the Cato community was unique.

It had three general stores: Beal’s, Cothron’s and Merryman’s.

The three stores were all within a stone’s throw of each other.

Last week we wrote about Tommy Merryman, who ran and owned Merryman’s store.

Tommy was well liked in the community and he kept up with all that was happening in the farming community.

He had a dog that had been injured and only had three legs.

The dog’s name was “Useless.�

Tommy wrote down what it was like to run a general store and we quote from his papers.

“When I began business (1914) there were no small packages of staple groceries like sugar, salt, beans and coffee. We bought aspirin in bottles of 1,000 tablets and counted them out at five cents a dozen. Ohio River Salt came in 285 pound barrels, flour in 196 pound wooden barrels and 24 pound and 48 pound bags, horseshoes and nails in 100 pound kegs, beans in 100 pound bags, sugar in 100 pound bags and 285 pound barrels, coffee in bags from 25 to 150 pounds.

All of these were counted out or weighed out to the customer’s order.

Merryman’s store burned down in 1974. It was rebuilt. That building still sits beside the road, a ghost of better times when its porch would have local men and women passing the time, catching up on what was happening “ down the road� or “up the holler “.

Beal’s store also burned down. It too was rebuilt but sits quietly today, used as a garage and for storage.

Cothron’s store was washed off its foundations after a heavy rain swelled the waters of Dixon Creek. That was in 1975.

When the creek’s waters receded, Cothron’s store was sitting in the middle of Dixon Creek Road.

The county road department told the owners that they had to move the store…a daunting task for anyone.

Mysteriously, that night the store burned.

The next morning the ashes of the store were swept up and the road was cleared for traffic. Cothron’s store became just a memory, as most of the general stores around the county have been become … victims of changing times and the way people shop.