"A" is for All Saints Parish. King George III vetoed the 1767 act establishing All Saints Parish. Re-established in 1778, it comprised the Waccamaw neck of Horry and Georgetown counties. With the tidal cultivation of rice culture in the mid-eighteenth century, the Waccamaw River—which had so long been a barrier to the development of the Neck—became its greatest asset. Plantations sprang up along its banks, and by 1810 slaves made up nearly 90 percent of the population.
Joshua John Ward, a rice planter and warden of All Saints, owned more than one thousand slaves. The per capita wealth of the free residents of the parish was among the highest in the country. With the abolition of the parish system in 1865, All Saints Parish was absorbed by Horry and Georgetown counties.
