Algernon Sidney Johnston and Sidney [aka Sydney] Park: Columbia, South Carolina

[From Edwin J. Scott, Random Recollections of a Long Life, 1860-1876. Columbia: Charles A. Calvo, Jr., Printer, 1884, pages 154-155]:

SIDNEY PARK.

The question who founded the Park having been recently made, I addressed the following communication on the subject to The Daily Register, and now repeat it here as connected with my recollections of Columbia:

The hill side above the springs that supply the city with water, extending from Governor Taylor's (now Judge Haskell's) residence to and beyond Shields's foundry, was of solid red clay, scored and scarred by a number of deep gullies that made it very rough and unsightly. A. S. (Sid.) Johnston, being in the City Council, proposed that a wide, level road should be made around the springs some distance above them by cutting down the hill, and that the portion below the road should be fenced in and converted into a public park, by planting it in grass, trees, flowers and shrubbery, with roads or paths graded and running through it to the several springs, which should be opened and protected by brick or stone enclosures, having seats at various points for the convenience of visitors, and thus making it a place of pleasant and healthful resort — an ornament instead of a nuisance and an eye-sore, as it had been. This, the outline of his plan, was adopted by the Council and a sufficient sum appropriated to defray the expense, Mr. Johnston directing and for some time superintending its execution. Now, is it not strange that the very name of one who contributed so much to the comfort and convenience of our citizens should be misspelt over the portals of the park that he established ? [The name as painted over the gate leading into the enclosure was S-y-dney Park, but it has since been corrected. Such is earthly fame !]

So thoroughly was the Park known as the product of his brain and his hands, that the Council, at the time of his death I believe, ordered it, in his honor, to be called Sidney Park.

A brother of General Joe Johnston, he was for some years State Printer, editor of the Columbia Telescope and other papers in Columbia, and was also the author and publisher of a small volume entitled "The Memoirs of a Nullifier," a very caustic and witty production.

Edward Young, a brother of Charles Young, the tragedian, at one time kept a restaurant at one of the springs in the Park, and the place was often used for barbecues, fireworks and public meetings.

Algernon Sidney, whose name Mr. Johnston bore, was a celebrated Republican writer in the seventeenth century, who sealed his devotion to the cause of liberty with his blood, being beheaded in the reign of Charles the Second after his trial for treason before the infamous Chief Justice Jeffries, who, on insufficient evidence, ordered the jury to find him guilty and was obeyed.

[Sketch of park at top of page from Historic Columbia website, which notes: "Local publisher and city council member Algernon Sidney Johnston oversaw the building of a public park here in the 1840s. Featuring trees, paths, reflecting pools, benches, and a bandstand, this pastoral retreat was named in his honor in 1852. The city sold the park in 1899 to the Seaboard Airline Railroad, which turned the area into an industrial district. Ninety years later, the area was reborn as a public green space and named in honor of Kirkman Finlay, the visionary mayor credited with much of Columbia's downtown revitalization." For more, see this link.]

[Algernon Sidney Johnston (October 17, 1801-September 22, 1852)].