Camden, South Carolina

Camden’s most famous personage has stood watch over the town for the better part of 200 years. From about 1750 until 1763 King Haiglar, a Catawba chief, was a valuable friend to the pioneers of Pine Tree Hill, as Camden was then known.

Some time between 1815 and 1826, J.B. Mathieu, executed a 5’1” iron effigy of King Haiglar and presented it to the town. It stands as a weather vane atop the Opera House tower that was constructed in 1886. This is the third clock tower built in Camden. The first was built for the town marketplace at the corner of Bull and Market streets. It was destroyed by fire in 1812. A bell and clock joined the second marketplace/tower in the 1820s. The present tower was erected in 1885.

In addition to the market on the first floor, it also served as an opera house and City Hall offices. In 1954 the city sold the building but retained the rights to the 107-foot tower. When the government moved into new offices at the end of Rutledge Street in 1995 a copy of King Haiglar was placed atop new City Hall.

When it came time to move into new quarters in the mid 1950s city fathers chose to build a Neo-Georgian City Hall that harkens back to the days of the American Revolution.