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Historic Hagood-Mauldin House/Irma Morris Museum of Fine Arts in Pickens to be open for free tours on Saturday, July 19 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

By Karen Brewer, Publisher & Editor

The Hagood-Mauldin House/Irma Morris Museum of Fine Arts (Photo by Karen Brewer, The Pickens County Chronicle)

 

The Hagood-Mauldin House and Irma Morris Museum of Fine Arts in Pickens will be open for free tours from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, July 19, 2025. (It will also be open for free tours on the third Saturday in August, September, and October.) The caretakers of the Hagood-Mauldin House are members of the Pickens County Historical Society, who are also docents leading tours of the historic home.

 

The house is the only building still standing in Pickens that was moved from Pickens Courthouse (now called Old Pickens and located in Oconee County).  It was the home of James Earl Hagood and his wife, Esther Benson Robinson Hagood, both at Pickens Courthouse (Old Pickens) and at its current location in Pickens, with their daughter, Frances Miles Hagood.  James Hagood was appointed Clerk of the United States Circuit Court in Charleston. He donated land in Pickens for a public cemetery, which is now known as Sunrise Cemetery (City Cemetery). 

 

After the death of Esther Hagood, Frances continued to live with her father, and, after the death of her father, Frances married Thomas Joab Mauldin (son of 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 became a Judge for the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit in 1914. 

 

In 1920, Frances Hagood Mauldin 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 the Hagood-Mauldin House/Irma Morris Museum of Fine Arts). She also served as an officer on the state and national levels of DAR. She and her husband helped with establishing the Tamassee DAR School in Oconee County.

 

She also was a member of the Daughters of 1812 and 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 Hendricks Morris, who, upon her death, in her will, gave the historic house to the Pickens County Historical Society.

 

The Hagood-Mauldin House/Irma Morris Museum of Fine Arts is located at 104 North Lewis Street.