HISTORIC OCONEE COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA Subject: A Short History of Oconee County Version 1.0, 5-Jan-2003, FCH-01.txt **************************************************************** REPRODUCING NOTICE: ------------------- These electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format for profit, or presentation by any other organization, or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. Paul M Kankula - nn8nn Seneca, SC, USA Oconee County SC GenWeb Coordinator Oconee County SC GenWeb Homestead http://www.rootsweb.com/~scoconee/oconee.html Oconee County SC GenWeb Tombstone Project http://www.rootsweb.com/~scoconee/cemeteries.html http://www.usgwtombstones.org/southcarolina/oconee.html Contributor: Frederick C. Holder, Box 444, Pickens, SC 29671 **************************************************************** DATAFILE INPUT . : Paul M. Kankula at kankula1@innova.net in Jan-2003 DATAFILE LAYOUT : Paul M. Kankula at kankula1@innova.net in Jan-2003 HISTORY WRITE-UP : Frederick C. Holder in 1989 A SHORT HISTORY OF OCONEE COUNTY The area of present-day Oconee County was home to unknown groups of Indians as early as 300 A.D. About 1100, the Etowah Indians probably occupied the region. Muskogeans inhabited parts of the ter- ritory previously occupied by the Etowahs from approximately 1350-1600, and recent studies place the arrival of the Cherokee in present-day far eastern Georgia and extreme northwestern South Carolina after 1500. (This date is subject to change in the future as ad- ditional materials on the Cherokee are discovered and as the relation- ships between the Cherokee and other Indian people are redefined.) In 1760, a bitter war between South Carolina and the Cherokee resulted in the destruction of most of the Lower Cherokee villages, and the loss by the Cherokee of lands south and east of the present-day South Carolina counties of Anderson and Greenville. An attack by the Cherokee on the settled parts of South Carolina in 1776 resulted in one of the early campaigns of the Revolutionary War. The Lower Cherokee villages, most of which were in the area of present-day Oconee County, were destroyed, and all but a few of the Lower Cherokee mov- ed out of the boundaries of present-day South Carolina. Norwood's Station, a guard post to warn of possible Indian attacks was erected along the Tugaloo River in the latter years of the Revolutionary War and apparently continued in operation for a number of years after 1783. Following the Revolutionary War, Colonel Benjamin Cleveland and a group of his followers received land grants from Georgia and settled along the Tugaloo River. When these people arrived in 1784, they became the first known domestic white settlers of the area that eventually became Oconee County. After Georgia gave up all claims to the land between the Tugaloo and Keowee River by the Treaty of Beaufort in 1787, Cleveland and some other settlers were re-granted select lands by South Carolina on the east side of the Tugaloo River. During the 1780s, small bands of mixed Cherokees and Creeks at- tacked the small settlements along the Tugaloo River in 1792, a threatened major attack by the Creeks and dissident Cherokee along the frontiers of the South led to the construction of a number of small outposts including Oconee Station (after which Oconee County was probably named in 1868). By 1799, the Indian dangers had passed, and the area received numbers of new settlers. The Cherokee sold their re- maining South Carolina land in what is today northwestern Oconee County in 1816. The town of Pickens Court House, often called Old Pickens, came into being in 1828. This town was the courthouse seat of Pickens District (present Oconee and Pickens counties) from 1828-1868, after which time it was abandoned. Other noted settlements and crossroads before 1850 were Bachelors' Retreat, Fairplay, and West Union. In the 1850s, a small group of Germans settled the present town of Walhalla, and numbers of Irishmen came to Stumphouse Mountain in the mid-1850s to build a tunnel for the Blue Ridge Railroad. The town of Tunnel Hill, located above Stumphouse Tunnel and built by the Irish workers, was perhaps the largest town in extreme northwestern South Carolina in the late 1850s. The Blue Ridge Railroad, conceived to connect Charleston and other coastal towns with inland areas of commerce near the Mississippi, was never com- pleted any further than Walhalla on the South Carolina side of the mountains. After the Civil War, the Air Line Railroad (now commonly called the Southern Railroad) was built through Oconee County in the 1870s, and the present towns of Seneca and Westminster came into being. Richland and Fort Madison subsequently developed along the railroad line but have not survived to the present as towns. Large textile mills were built in the area starting in the 1890s, with Newry remaining as the earliest, least altered, textile village in extreme northwestern South Carolina. The mountain town of Salem was chartered in the early 1900s. Special schools for rural and mountain children originated between 1910 and 1930 at Long Creek and Tamassee, where the adult education program in South Carolina was founded. One of the first soil conserva- tion districts in the United States was located slightly west of Seneca. Approximately one-fourth of Oconee County is now owned by either Clemson University or the United States Forest Service. Located in the hills of Oconee County and surrounded by the govern- ment forests are the mountain communities of Long Creek, famous for its apple industry, and Mountain Rest, once an overnight stopping point for persons on their way from Walhalla to the mountains of North Carolina. The construction of huge government and private lakes starting in the 1950s turned Oconee County into an ideal tourism, recreation, and retirement area. Today, Oconee County is a land of natural beauty and a somewhat diverse population. It is also the home of a rare wildflower, the Oconee Bell, first recorded by Micheaux in the late 1700s, Occupying a land once inhabited by American Indians, almost everyone living in Oconee County might be termed newcomers. For two centuries, the non-Indian residents of Oconee County have welcomed new arrivals; however, there are problems associated with an increased population and uncharted growth and change. The con- struction of large lakes displaced some people and drastically altered the landscape. At present, rising real estate values in some areas of the county threaten to displace families who have resided there for several generations. Land in parts of the county is being altered through development or as a result of theories on land and forest management. It is beyond the scope of this article to analyze these changes, but it is a function of this publication to make readers aware that alterations in the county are occurring.