African American Church, Moncks Corner, SC Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, www.loc.gov   Berkeley County, in the lower pine belt of the Coastal Plain, the largest county of the state, has an area of 1,238 square miles, and 22,558 inhabitants, virtually all native. The county is level, the maximum elevation being 150 feet. It was re-established in 1882, but embraces part of the original county named in honor of two of the original eight Lords Proprietors, John Berkeley, and William Berkeley, established May 10, 1682, along with Craven and Colleton counties. Its present territory was long part of Charleston County. Moncks Corner, the county seat, has 309 inhabitants, Lincolnville 247, and St. Stephens 312. The soil is of varying kinds and degrees of fertility; the richest being along the rivers and swamps, shading off into light sandy soil, extremely responsive to proper fertilization and cultivation. Technically the soils are divided into six series: Norfolk, Rustan, Coxville, and Portsmouth in the uplands, and Johnston and Congaree in the bottom lands. Norfolk and Rustan are the most important and best drained, and about 60 per cent of their area is under cultivation. The growing season is from 250 to 280 days. Agriculture developed early under the plantation system, and nowhere was the social and economic life which it fostered more typical, with indigo, rice and cotton as the staple crops. This condition continued to 1860, many of the plantations date from colonial times, and some are still in the possession of original families. Some of these are of more than local interest, as the original homes of distinguished South Carolinians. The present crops consist of cotton, corn, peas, oats, sweet potatoes sugar cane and tobacco. Any crop that will grow in the Coastal Plain will flourish here. One of the first crops of long cotton in South Carolina was grown by Major General William Moultrie on his Northampton Plantation in 1793.