Wood burning narrow gauge (36”) Consolidation type
(2-8-0) locomotive #7 was built by H. K. Porter in Pittsburgh, PA, in 1911 and bought by the Dennis-Simmons Lumber Co., in Williamston, NC, and later sold to the Argent Lumber Company in Hardeeville, SC. #7 weighs 58,000 lbs, 51,000 lbs on its 33” drivers. With 12” x 16” cylinders, it operated at a boiler pressure of 160 psi delivering 11,150 lbs tractive effort.
The Argent Lumber Company was established in February 1916, when Horace W. Phillips Jr., J. Ross McNeal and William B. McNeal formed a company in order to log an 8,000 acre tract of original growth short-leaf pine twenty-five miles north of Savannah, GA. The name "Argent" came from the friend of the company's lawyer who had a race horse of that name. In 1956, the company was sold to the Union Bag-Camp Paper Corporation of Savannah, GA. The following year, the old Argent Lumber assets were all sold, including #7.
The engine was donated to the City of Hardeeville, SC, in 1960 and is on display adjacent to the Hardeeville Chamber of Commerce on Main St.
