By Karen Brewer, Publisher & Editor, The Pickens County Chronicle
The historic Hagood-Mauldin House and Irma Morris Museum of Fine Arts, located at 104 North Lewis Street in Pickens, will be open for free tours from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, October 18, 2025. The Pickens County Historical Society, the caretaker for the Hagood-Mauldin House, will also hold a yardsale during the same hours on October 18 as a fundraiser. Pickens County Historical Society board members and other volunteers serve as docents for the tours.
The Hagood-Mauldin House is the only house in Pickens still standing that was moved from Pickens Courthouse (which is now called Old Pickens and is located in Oconee County). It was the home of James Earl Hagood and his wife, Esther Benson Robinson Hagood, and their daughter, Frances Miles Hagood. James Hagood was appointed Clerk of the United States Circuit Court in Charleston, and he donated land to Pickens for a public cemetery, which is now known as Sunrise Cemetery, or City Cemetery.
After Esther Hagood passed away, Frances Hagood continued to live with her father, and, then, following the passing of James Hagood, Frances married Thomas Joab Mauldin, whose father was Pickens County’s first Sheriff, and the house became their home.
Thomas Joab Mauldin was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives and to the South Carolina State Senate and then, in 1914, became a Judge for the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit.
Frances Hagood Mauldin, in 1920, was the organizing Regent of the Fort Prince George Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), which first met in her home, now known as the Hagood-Mauldin House. She served as an officer on the state and national level of DAR, and she and her husband helped with establishing the Tamassee DAR School in Oconee County.
She was a member of the Daughters of 1812, as well, and she served as the Chair of the Pickens County Chapter of the American Red Cross during World War I.
The Hagood-Mauldin House was last home to Irma Morris who, upon her death, bequeathed, through her will, the historic house to the Pickens County Historical Society.