Bamberg grew alongside the South Carolina Canal and Railroad line, built in the early 1830's on its way to Hamburg, after local landowners donated property for the right of way. The village that later became Bamberg was chartered in 1855, and the railroad, then the longest in the world at 137 miles of roadbed and rail, was the first to offer scheduled passenger service and carry mail; in 1970 the Charleston to Hamburg railroad was designated a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers, and today the former line is a city-owned walking trail. The Hooten-Black House, built circa 1880 by Drew Hooten, now serves as Bamberg's Welcome Center and anchors the northwestern end of Bamberg's National Historic District, which includes 75 properties such as the homes of General Francis Marion Bamberg, for whom the county is named, and South Carolina Supreme Court Justice Julius B. Ness. During the Civil War, Bamberg, then part of the Old Barnwell District, was home to three signers of the Ordinance of Session from the Union and to David Flavel Jamison, president of the Secession Convention, who owned a local plantation. Jamison died before the end of the war and before General William T. Sherman's Carolinas Campaign, but because of his role in the secessionist movement Sherman ordered the Jamison Plantation destroyed. Sherman's campaign was especially destructive in Bamberg, tearing up railroad ties vital to the town's economy and destroying most antebellum structures, leaving the Simmons House as one of the few survivors.