HISTORIC OCONEE COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA Subject: FORT RUTLEDGE & FORT MADISON Version 1.0, 15-Dec-2002, H-10.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 **************************************************************** DATAFILE INPUT . : Paul M. Kankula at kankula1@innova.net in Dec-2002 DATAFILE LAYOUT : Paul M. Kankula at kankula1@innova.net in Dec-2002 HISTORY WRITE-UP : Mary Cherry Doyle, Clemson, SC in Jan-1935 Dedicated To: Dr Edgar Clay Doyle FOREWORD In presenting these fragmentary facts that have come to my knowledge, it is my hope that they may prove helpful in preserv- ing the history of Oconee county for the youth of the land and all who are interested in the history of Oconee county for South Carolina. With knowledge there will follow a fuller appreciation of the great heritage that is ours. I wish to acknowledge a great debt of gratitude to Dr. J. Walter Daniel, an author- ity on Indians of the South. We are indebted to members of the Wizard of Tamassee Chapter S. C. D. A. R. and many other friends. MARY CHERRY DOYLE. January, 1935. FORT RUTLEDGE & FORT MADISON FORT RUTLEDGE When the American colonists made the first move to- ward throwing off the British yoke, in 1775, South Carolina rushed headlong into the struggle without the consent of all her citizens. In the northwestern part of the colony, known then as the "Back Country", there were many settlers who had no quarrel with the king nad were still loyal to him. Even after George Washington had been appointed com- mander of the American forces, Maj. Robinson, a Scotch loyalist, aided by Fletchall, Kirkland, the Cunninghams, and others, gathered some 1,500 men to their standard and raised the English flag. These loyalists had already been at work among the Cherokee Indians of the up-country. John Stuart, Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the Southern Provinces of North America, had a tremendous influence over them. He had an agent, named Cameron, who lived among the Indians and had taken a Cherokee squaw as his wife. In 1775, the liberty people asserted that Stuart was endeavoring to raise the Cherokees against them and all that Stuart could say would not convince them to the contrary. In July, Sir James Wright heard that the Provincial Congress had agreed to send 2,000 lbs. of gun powder into the Indian Country as a present from the people-not from the king or from the governor or the traders, but from the people. The pov.-der was siezed by the royalists, but as an off set the annual presents of Stuart were seized at Tybee by the Liberty people. It was stated that the best friends of Great Britain lived in the back parts of Carolina and Georgia. If the Indians were put in motion, the royalists and not the patriots would suffer. Nevertheless, the first blow from the Indians came from that quarter. Early in July, 1776, news was received at Savannah, at Charleston, and at Fincastle, Va., that the Indians were at work upon the bor- der, carrying death and destruction wherever they went. When news of the outbreak in South Carolina reached Col. Andrew Williamson, he immediately rallied the inhabitants of that state. By the middle of July he had collected a force of 1,150 volunteers. With this force, he invaded the Indian country and during the remainder of July and the first half of August he was engaged in destroying the Cherokee lower towns. On his return to his camp from a raid, he found that many of his men had gone home and that many of those who remained, were suffering for clothes and other necessities. He erected a fort at site of the Indian town, Essenneca, and dealt the Indians such a blow that they re- manied quiet for several years. The fort was named after Pres. Rutledge. In Drayton's Memoirs of the American Revo- lution, published in 1821, it is stated that in an attack upon the Indians at Essennecca, on July 31, 1776, one Capt. Salva- dor, aid to Col. Williamson, was shot and scalped, dying in 45 minutes, retaining his senses to the last, and rejoicing in the fact that the enemy had been defeated. His fate excited universal regret, and his name has been perpetuated in the term Ft. Salvador, now sometimes applied locally at Ft. Rutledge or to the Lewis Plantation nearby, where this gallant warrior fell. Capt. Salvador was an Englishman, wealthy, educated and accomplished, who in 1773 had come to South Carolina expecting to settle and have his wife and children from London join him. Owing to his untimely death, they never came. During his brief three years in the land of his adoption, Capt. Salvador lived with a friend, Mr. Rapley, at Coronaca, Ninety-Six District. When the child of a neighbor sought refuge in his home from the tomahawk of the hostile Red Men, his warm heart directed him to the assistance of the terrorized settlers. He volun- teerd his services, with the result already stated. The site of the Old Ft. Rutledge is on a ridge overlooking Seneca River, about a mile from the present administration of concrete blocks in the form of a miniature fort, has been placed on, or near, the supposed location, and on the marker is a bronze tablet, bearing this inscription: Site of Fort Rutledge, Erected in 1776 This Memorial Is Raised by the Trustees of Clemson College, at the Request of the Andrew Pickens Chapter, D. A. R., 1908 FORT MADISON Regarding the early settlement of Fort Madison, the histories are silent and the oldest citizens are vague. It seems, from the best information available, that the name Fort Madison, was first used by the late James A. Doyle to designate his plantation on the Tugaloo. The name was later absorbed by the village and railroad station. It is assumed that the place was named for President Madison. If there was ever any fort at Madison, it surely did not figure in any military operation. There might have been a block house for the protection of settlers against Indians. Mrs. Rebecca Doyle Alexander says that there is (or was) a large walnut tree in the pasture between her old home and the river, and that it was said that the fort had stood on this spot, though she had never seen any fort or any ruins of one. The chief historical interest of Fort Madison lies in the fact that it was for many years the home of Col. Ben Cleve- land, one of the heroes of the battle of Knig's Mountain. A native of Virginia and a citizen of North Carolina, it is not known with certainty how Col. Cleveland was first attracted to that portion of upper South Carolina in which he spent the last 20 years of his life, but the generally accepted explanation is that Col. Cleveland had seen this section while participating in some Indian advance, prob- ably that of Maj. William son in 1776, and that having lost his North Carolina home through defective titles, he re- solved to become one of the first squatters in the Tugaloo valley to which he moved in 1785, or 1786. During his residence in upper South Carolina, Col. Cleveland served for many years as a judge of old Pendleton District. He was a very large man, and it is said that sometimes, while on the bench, he would go to sleep and snore so loudly as to disturb the proceedings of the court. Gov. Perry states that the Colonel in his later life became very corpulent weighing four or five hundred pounds. It is said that Perry's father visited Cleveland one bitter cold morning to find the old warrior sitting on his porch with nothing on but a thin calico gown, his legs purple with cold. Mr. Perry said to him, "This is a very cold morn- ing, Col. Cleveland." The Colonel replied, "No, it is a very fine morning, and I have come out to enjoy the fresh morn- ing air." In 1887, the descendants of Col. Cleveland erected to his memory a granite shaft, near the Southern Railway, now the automobile highway, to Ft. Madison. A full genealogy of the Cleveland family was given by Mr. John Sam Verner in a speech which he delivered at the unveiling of this monument. An interesting account of the ceremonies of this occasion, together with Mr. Verner's speech, was published in the Keowee Courier of June, 1932. LALLA BALLENGER.