Lancaster County was formed in 1798 from the old Camden District. Many of the early settlers here were from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. That area was named for the region in England of the same name. This was the same Lancaster with the symbol of the red rose that had opposed the House of York in England in the War of the Roses.

Prior to the European settlement in the 1750′s this area was settled by the Catawba Indians. The Indian paths that crossed through this area were important routes for the early settlers and in some cases current roads follow their trail. The Rocky River Road followed one such path and today SC Highway 522 follows it fairly closely.

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Lancaster, SC 29721

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Cities and towns of Lancaster County:

Abney
Heath Springs
Kershaw
Lancaster (County Seat)
Pleasant Hill
Spring Mills
Stoneboro
Taxahaw
Van Wyck
White Bluff

As of 2003, the Census Bureau estimated the population of the city proper as 101,024, a 4% growth over the population as of the 2000 census. The metropolitan area of Charleston and North Charleston had a population of about 549,000, 76th largest in the country.

The city of Charleston is located roughly at the mid-point of South Carolina’s coastline, at the junction of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers. Charleston’s name is derived from Charles Town, named after King Charles II of England.

Charleston is the location of Fort Moultrie, which was instrumental in delivering a critical defeat to the British in the American Revolutionary War, and Fort Sumter, the reputed site of the “first shot” of the American Civil War. City nicknames include The Holy City, The Marina City, The Capitol of the Gullah Culture, and Chucktown.

1 History
1.1 Early history of Charleston
1.2 After the United States Declaration of Independence
1.3 The American Civil War
2 The Old Exchange

History

Early history of Charleston

After Charles II of England was restored to the English throne, he granted the chartered Carolina territory to eight of his loyal friends, known as the Lords Proprietor, in 1663. It took seven years before the Lords could arrange for settlement, the first being that of Charles Town. The community was established by English settlers in 1670 across the Ashley River from the city’s current location. It was soon chosen by Anthony Ashley-Cooper, one of the Lords Proprietor, to become a “great port towne,” a destiny which the city fulfilled. By 1680, the settlement had grown, joined by others from England, Barbados, and Virginia, and relocated to its current peninsular location. The capital of the Carolina colony, Charleston was the center for further expansion and the southernmost point of English settlement during the late 1600s.

The settlement was often subject to attack from sea and from land. Periodic assaults from Spain and France, who still contested England’s claims to the region, were combined with resistance from Native Americans as well as pirate raids. Charleston’s colonists erected a fortification wall around the small settlement to aid in its defense. The only building to remain from the Walled City is the Powder Magazine, where the city’s supply of gun powder was stored.

A 1680 plan for the new settlement, the Grand Modell, laid out “the model of an exact regular town,” and the future for the growing community. Land surrounding the intersection of Meeting and Broad Streets was set aside for a Civic Square. Over time it became known as the Four Corners of the Law, referring to the various arms of governmental and religious law presiding over the square and the growing city. St. Michael’s Episcopal, Charleston’s oldest and most noted church, was built on the southeast corner in 1752. The following year the Capitol of the colony was erected across the square. Because of its prominent position within the city and its elegant architecture, the building signaled to Charleston’s citizens and visitors its importance within the British colonies. Provincial court met on the ground floor, the Commons House of Assembly and the Royal Governor’s Council Chamber met on the second floor.

While the earliest settlers primarily came from England, colonial Charleston was also home to a mixture of ethnic and religious groups. In colonial times, Boston, Massachusetts and Charleston were sister cities, and people of means spent summers in Boston and winters in Charleston. There was a great deal of trade with Bermuda and the Caribbean, and some people came to live in Charleston from these areas. French, Scottish, Irish and Germans migrated to the developing seacoast town, representing numerous Protestant denominations, as well as Catholicism and Judaism. Sephardic Jews migrated to the city in such numbers that Charleston became one of the largest Jewish communities in North America. The Jewish Coming Street Cemetery, first established in 1762, attests to their long-standing presence in the community. The first Anglican church, St. Philip’s Episcopal, was built in 1682, although later destroyed by fire and relocated to its current location. Slaves also comprised a major portion of the population, and were active in the city’s religious community. Free black Charlestonians and slaves helped establish the Old Bethel United Methodist Church in 1797, and the congregation of the Emanuel A.M.E. Church stems from a religious group organized solely by African Americans, free and slave, in 1791.

By the mid-18th century Charleston had become a bustling trade center, and the wealthiest and largest city south of Philadelphia. Rice and indigo had been successfully cultivated by gentleman planters in the surrounding coastal lowcountry, while merchants profited from the successful shipping industry. The first American museum opened to the public on January 12, 1773 in Charleston.

After the United States Declaration of Independence

As the relationship between the colonists and England deteriorated, Charleston became a focal point in the ensuing Revolution. In protest of the Tea Act of 1773, which embodied the concept of taxation without representation, Charlestonians confiscated tea and stored it in the Exchange and Custom House. Representatives from all over the colony came to the Exchange in 1774 to elect delegates to the Continental Congress, the group responsible for drafting the Declaration of Independence; and South Carolina declared its independence from the crown on the steps of the Exchange. Soon, the church steeples of Charleston, especially St. Michael’s, became targets for British war ships causing rebel forces to paint the steeples black to blend with the night sky. A siege on the city in 1776 was successfully defended by William Moultrie from Sullivan’s Island, but by 1780 Charleston came under British control for two and a half years. After the British retreated in December 1782, the city’s name was officially changed to Charleston. By 1788, Carolinians were meeting at the Capitol building for the Constitutional Ratification Convention, and while there was support for the Federal Government, division arose over the location of the new State Capital. A suspicious fire broke out in the Capitol building during the Convention, after which the delegates removed to the Exchange and decreed Columbia the new State Capital. By 1792, the Capitol had been rebuilt and became the Charleston County Courthouse. Upon its completion, the city possessed all the public buildings necessary to be transformed from a colonial capital to the center of the antebellum South. But the grandeur and number of buildings erected in the following century reflect the optimism, pride, and civic destiny that many Charlestonians felt for their community.

As Charleston grew, so did the community’s cultural and social opportunities, especially for the elite merchants and planters. The first theater building in America was built in Charleston in 1736, but was later replaced by the 19th-century Planter’s Hotel where wealthy planters stayed during Charleston’s horse-racing season (now the Dock Street Theatre). Benevolent societies were formed by several different ethnic groups: the South Carolina Society, founded by French Huguenots in 1737; the German Friendly Society, founded in 1766; and the Hibernian Society, founded by Irish immigrants in 1801. The Charleston Library Society was established in 1748 by some wealthy Charlestonians who wished to keep up with the scientific and philosophical issues of the day. This group also helped establish the College of Charleston in 1770, the oldest college in South Carolina and the 13th oldest in the United States.

Charleston became more prosperous in the plantation-dominated economy of the post-Revolutionary years. The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 revolutionized this crop’s production, and it quickly became South Carolina’s major export. Cotton plantations relied heavily on slave labor. Slaves were also the primary labor force within the city, working as domestics, artisans, market workers or laborers. Many black Charlestonians spoke Gullah, a dialect based on African American structures which combined African, Portuguese, and English words. By 1820 Charleston’s population had grown to 23,000, with a black majority. When a massive slave revolt planned by Denmark Vesey, a free black, was discovered in 1822, such hysteria ensued amidst white Charlestonians and Carolinians that the activities of free blacks and slaves were severely restricted. Hundreds of blacks, free and slave, and some white supporters involved in the planned uprising were held in the Old Jail. It also was the impetus for the construction of a new State Arsenal in Charleston. Recently, research published by historian Michael P. Johnson of Johns Hopkins University has cast doubt on the veracity of the accounts detailing Vesey’s aborted slave revolt.

As Charleston’s government, society and industry grew, commercial institutions were established to support the community’s aspirations. The Bank of South Carolina, the second oldest building constructed as a bank in the nation, was established here in 1798. Branches of the First and Second Bank of the United States were also located in Charleston in 1800 and 1817. While the First Bank was converted to City Hall by 1818, the Second Bank proved to be a vital part of the community as it was the only bank in the city equipped to handle the international transactions so crucial to the export trade. By 1840, the Market Hall and Sheds, where fresh meat and produce were brought daily, became the commercial hub of the city. The slave trade also depended on the port of Charleston, where ships could be unloaded and the slaves sold at markets.

In the first half of the 19th century, South Carolinians became more devoted to the idea that state’s rights were superior to the Federal government’s authority. Buildings such as the Marine Hospital ignited controversy over the degree in which the Federal government should be involved in South Carolina’s government, society, and commerce. During this period over 90 percent of Federal funding was generated from import duties, collected by custom houses such as the one in Charleston. In 1832 South Carolina passed an ordinance of nullification, a procedure in which a state could in effect repeal a Federal law, directed against the most recent tariff acts. Soon Federal soldiers were dispensed to Charleston’s forts and began to collect tariffs by force. A compromise was reached by which the tariffs would be gradually reduced, but the underlying argument over state’s rights would continue to escalate in the coming decades. Charleston remained one of the busiest port cities in the country, and the construction of a new, larger United States Custom House began in 1849, but its construction was interrupted by the events of the Civil War.

Prior to the 1860 election, the National Democratic Convention convened in Charleston. Hibernian Hall served as the headquarters for the delegates supporting Stephen A. Douglas, who it was hoped would bridge the gap between the northern and southern delegates on the issue of extending slavery to the territories. The convention disintegrated when delegates were unable to summon a two-thirds majority for any candidate. This divisiveness resulted in a split in the Democratic party, and the election of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate.

The American Civil War

On December 20, 1860, the South Carolina legislature was the first state to vote for secession from the Union. They asserted that one of the causes was the election to the presidency of a man “whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.”

On January 9, 1861, Citadel cadets fired the first shots of the American Civil War when they opened fire on a Union ship entering Charleston’s harbor. On April 12, 1861, shore batteries under the command of General Pierre G. T. Beauregard opened fire on the Union-held Fort Sumter in the harbor. After a 34-hour bombardment, Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort. Cadets from the Citadel, South Carolina’s liberal arts military college, continued to aid the Confederate army by helping drill recruits, manufacture ammunition, protect arms depots, and guard Union prisoners. The city under siege took control of Fort Sumter, became the center for blockade running, and was the site of the first submarine warfare in 1863. In 1865, Union troops moved into the city, and took control of many sites, such as the United States Arsenal which the Confederate army had seized at the outbreak of the war.

After the eventual and destructive defeat of the Confederacy, Federal forces remained in Charleston during the city’s reconstruction. The war had shattered the prosperity of the antebellum city. Freed slaves were faced with poverty and discrimination. Industries slowly brought the city and its inhabitants back to a renewed vitality and growth in population. As the city’s commerce improved, Charlestonians also worked to restore their community institutions. In 1867 Charleston’s first free secondary school for blacks was established, the Avery Institute. General William T. Sherman lent his support to the conversion of the United States Arsenal into the Porter Military Academy, an educational facility for former soldiers and boys left orphaned or destitute by the war. Porter Military Academy later joined with Gaud School and is now a well-known K-12 prep school, [Porter-Gaud School]. The William Enston Home, a planned community for the city’s aged and infirm, was built in 1889. An elaborate public building, the United States Post Office and Courthouse, was completed in 1896 and signaled renewed life in the heart of the city.

A 125 mile-an-hour hurricane hit Charleston August 25, 1885, destroying or damaging 90 percent of the homes and causing an estimated $2 million in damages.

In 1886 Charleston was nearly destroyed by a major earthquake that was felt as far away as Boston and Bermuda. It damaged 2,000 buildings and caused $6 million worth of damage, while in the whole city the buildings were only valued at approximately $24 million.

However, though there have been many fires, hurricanes, tornados, several wars, and urban renewal in the 20th century, many of Charleston’s historic buildings remain intact

The Old Exchange

The Old Exchange Building in downtown Charleston was finished in 1771. It was to be The Royal Exchange & Customs House. It is one of the oldest buildings in the nation. This building has had many historic things happen in its walls. It has a dungeon which has held many famous pirates and Patriots. It has also housed George Washington, The Constitution, and tea stolen from trade ships during the revolution and then was sold for the revolutionary cause. This building has also been a bank and a postal office. Now it is an Exchange again, a major tourist destination which gives tours daily, and it is the place of many galas, festivals, and other grand events. It was succeded in its official capacity by the Greek revival style US Customs House at the intersection of East Bay and Market Streets.

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Hernando de Soto passed through the area in the 1540s in his search for gold, and several decades later Juan Pardo entered what is now York County and recorded his observation of a predominant Native American tribe, later confirmed to be the Catawba, in the vicinity of present-day Fort Mill, on the eastern bank of the Catawba River. The Catawba were a band of Siouan speakers with a population of nearly 6,000 at the time of first European contact. Primarily agriculturists, the Catawba gave much support to their new neighbors. The colony of South Carolina was founded in 1670, and it was divided into three counties 12 years later. Craven County, which roughly encompassed the northern half of South Carolina, included present-day York County.

The first European settlers in the Carolina piedmont, or traditionally called the Upcountry, were Scots-Irish Presbyterians. Rising rent and land prices in Pennsylvania drove them southward down the Great Wagon Road, and they began arriving in the greater region west of the Catawba River during the 1740s and settled in present-day York County in the 1750s.

Before the boundary between the two Carolinas was settled in 1772, the area was part of Bladen County, North Carolina, and in 1750 it was included in the newly created Anson County; the first land grants and deeds for the region were issued in Anson County. In 1762 Mecklenburg County, was formed from western Anson County and included present-day York County. Five years later, the area became part of Tryon County, which comprised all of North Carolina west of the Catawba River and south of Rowan County. The area would remain a part of Tryon County until 1772, when the boundary between North and South Carolina was finally established.

The New Acquisition

After its transfer to South Carolina in 1772, the area was known as the New Acquisition and ran nearly 11 miles north-south and 65 miles east-west. In 1785, York County was one of the original counties in the newly created South Carolina, and its boundaries remained unchanged until 1897, when a small portion of the northwestern corner of the county was ceded to the newly-formed Cherokee County.

By 1780, the Carolina Upcountry had an estimated population of more than 250,000, predominantly Scots-Irish Presbyterians, with significant numbers of English, Welsh, native Irish, native Scots, Swiss, French and Germans. The Scots-Irish settled in a dispersed community pattern denoted by communal, clannish, family-related groups known as “clachans”, much the same as in Pennsylvania and Ulster, Northern Ireland. The clachans developed around the Presbyterian Kirks, or meetinghouses, and became the forerunners of the congregations. In York County, the “Four B” churches, all Presbyterian—- Bethel, Bethesda, Beersheba and Bullock Creek—- are the county’s oldest.

Sandwiched between unfriendly natives to the west, Cherokee, Shawnee and Creek Native American tribes, and indifference on the part of English officials in Charleston, who considered residents of the Backcountry uncivilized, the early settlers frequently found themselves the targets of Native American raids, and the local militia became an early police force, patrolling the area for possible Native American or slave troubles and controlling the seemingly numerous outlaw bands which roamed the region. Militia units, or “Beat Companies”, enrolled every able-bodied man on the frontier.

Revolutionary War

Residents of the Upcountry were initially slow to take sides in the Revolutionary War, content to remain neutral as long as left unmolested; the conflict was initially viewed as one between the British Crown and Charleston plutocrats. The New Acquisition entered into vocal opposition to Royal authority in 1780 only after three “invasions” of the region: the first by Banastre Tarleton and his “Green Dragoons”, and two more by Lord Cornwallis. Most of the state had capitulated to the British after their apture of Charleston, but after the Waxhaw Massacre in nearby Lancaster County in May 1780, residents of the New Acquisition took part in a regional resistance, led by men such as William “Billy” Hill, William Bratton and Samuel Watson. Both the battles of Huck’s Defeat and Kings Mountain, a direct response to the Waxhaw Massacre, were fought in the New Acquisition, and Lord Cornwallis was forced northward, and ultimately to surrender at Yorktown, after facing defeat in the Carolina Upcountry.

Early York County

After playing a significant role in the defeat of the British, Upcountry residents enjoyed a greater share of administration in their region and experienced phenomenal growth after the war. In first United States census, in 1790, York County had a population of 6,604; 923 were listed as slaves, and a quarter of the county’s slaves belonged to just nine men. Less than 15% of its population lived in bondage in 1790, while the state averaged 30%.

Establishment of the County Seat

A county seat was laid out in 1786 at Fergus’s Cross Roads, where several roads converged near the geographic center of the county. The new town was first known as the village of York, or more commonly York Court House. In 1841, the town was incorporated and officially became Yorkville. In 1823 its population, as recorded by Robert Mills, was 441 and included 292 whites and 149 blacks. By 1840 the population had reached 600, and in 1850 Yorkville was comprised of 93 dwellings and 617 inhabitants. In the years just prior to the Civil War, the town gained a reputation as a summer resort for many Lowcountry planters trying to escape the malarial swamps of the Lowcountry for the moderate climate to be found in the Upstate. By 1860, the population of the town had topped 1,300, an increase of more than 125% in only one decade. During the Civil War, the town also became a focal point for residents from the Lowcountry as a refugee destination during Federal occupation of their towns.

Antebellum York County and the Civil War

With the introduction of the cotton gin in the 1790s, the county’s economic prospects increased as the importance of “King Cotton” grew, and slavery become an integral part of the economy. In 1800, 25% of all white families in the Upcountry owned slaves, but by 1820 nearly 40% were slaveholders. Slave ownership increased significantly in York County between 1800 and 1860, though most slaves worked on small and medium sized farms rather than large plantations. In 1800, whites made up 82.10% of the total population in York County, but by 1860 the white percentage of the total population had dropped to 62.50%. Figures from 1860 reveal slave holdings in York County were relatively small, with approximately 70% of all farms holding fewer than 10 slaves and less than 3% of the farms with 50 or more.

Nearly 20% of all York District farms in 1860 had less than 50 acres of land, 23.9% contained from 51 to 100 acres, 53.9% ranged from 101 to 500 acres, and only 2.7% had over 500 acres. In 1810 the York District had increased in population to more than 10,000, of which over 3,000 were slaves. By 1850, York District included 15,000 residents, over 40% of whom were slaves. On the eve of the Civil War, the county’s population had grown to approximately 21,500, with almost 1/2 of the population enslaved labor. York County was heavily tied to agriculture, with 93% of the work force involved in raising crops in 1850, while the rest of the United States averaged a 78% agricultural work force.

In 1825 only three post offices operated in all of York County, at Yorkville, Blairsville and Hopewell. By 1852, however, York District had 27 post offices. The county’s first newspaper, The Yorkville Pioneer, was established in 1823, and ran for little more than a year, and was followed by several others until The Yorkville Enquirer, which remains in publication today, was begun in 1855. Chartered in 1848, the Kings Mountain Railroad Company began construction of a connecting line between Yorkville and the Charlotte and South Carolina Railway at Chester completed in 1852. Rock Hill, located on the Charlotte and South Carolina, rapidly developed as a transportation center in eastern York County, from a crossroads with 100 residents in 1860. More than a dozen academies were operating in the county at the outbreak of the Civil War. The most famous was the Kings Mountain Military Academy in Yorkville, founded in 1854 by Micah Jenkins and Asbury Coward. On the eve of the Civil War, York District was one of the more populated districts in Upstate South Carolina. The 1860 white male population of York County was just over 5,500. 14 infantry companies formed in York County after war was declared, and during the war the York District would have the highest death rate of any county in South Carolina. Only one minor battle was fought in the York District, the battle for the Catawba Bridge at Nation’s Ford in 1865.

Postbellum York County and Early Industrialization

Reconstruction brought changes to established agricultural patterns. Many of York County’s larger property owners were forced to sell off portions of their land to smaller farmers; the size of the average farm in York County dropped considerably while the number of small farming operations increased. Late-19th century agriculture in York County was characterized by relatively small farm operations and an ignorance of soil qualities and the benefits of diversification, which eventually led to the agricultural difficulties of the 1890s and 1920s and 1930s. Railroad development continued in York County after the war’s end, and in 1880 the Rock Hill Cotton Factory, the first steam-powered cotton factory in South Carolina, ushered in a new era of agricultural expansion and industrial development. The Rock Hill Buggy Company, founded by John Gary Anderson, eventually grew to become the highly successful Anderson Motor Company, the first automobile manufacturing facility in the South. Concurrently, Rock Hill’s population increased from 809 to over 5,500 from 1880 to 1895.

20th Century

Cotton production remained the dominant agriculture in early 20th century York County, and the textile industry continued to develop. Rock Hill became the hub of this industry, while mills blossomed throughout the county. South Carolina’s peak cotton crop was harvested in 1921 and thereafter, cotton production began a long and steady decline, due in part to the boll weevil and soil erosion. The New Deal programs of the 1930s prodded farmers into switching to crops, and cotton gradually became less and less important to the economy.

In 1904 the Catawba Dam and Power Plant was completed. The Catawba Power Company had been founded in 1899 by William C. Whitner, Dr. Gill Wylie and his brother Robert Wylie. Construction began in 1900 and when finally completed, the dam and power plant were one of the most important engineering accomplishments in the southeastern United States. The venture eventually led to the formation of Duke Power Company, and a later series of dams and hydroelectric facilities were built on the Catawba in both North and South Carolina. The Catawba Power Plant sparked the industrialization of the Catawba Valley; by 1911 more than a million textile spindles were powered by it.

By the late 20th century, York County faced increasing developmental pressure from Charlotte and the decline of small-scale farming; however, much of York County remains rural in character.

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