Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Royal Grants in Saxe Gotha by lot number

1. John Hubert Spear & Jacob Spear (Spuchel)
2. Jacob Hackaboe (Haughabuch, Huckabee)
3. Weldrich Bootman
4. John Coleman (Johannes Gallman)
6.Henry Weiber (Hans Heinrich Weber)
7. Jacob Theiler (later Tyler)
8. John Theiler (Hans Theiler)
9. Henry Bouine (probably Heinrich Bohni, Henry Boney)
10. Hans Buss (John Boose)
11. Martin Friday (Fridig)
12. Roody Cooplet (Rudolph Capeler)
13. John Jacob Rodey *(Hans Jacob Rodi; Roddy?)
14. Heiman Christopher Perdrink (Dertrinken, Dortringene)
15. John Sodriker (possibly Sandifer)
16. Henry Lockly (Heinrich Gloeckle; Henry Kleckley_
19. Hans Jacob Annis
20. Samuel Chubb (Tchupp, Schupp)
21. John Weldrick Miller (later granted to Casper Faust)
23. John Matthews (Johannes Mattersz; John Mathias)
27. Barbara Appheal
28. Magdalen Appheal
29. Jacob Burckhardt (Burkhart)
31. Stephen Crell
32. Joseph Crell
33. Thomas Berry (named in Crell grants)
42. Hannah Maria Stole (Stoles, Stohl, Stoele)
53. Ulrich Bussir (Booser)
54. John Galliser (possibly Eleazer)
61. Hans Jacob Gyger (Geiger)
62. Herman Gyger (Geiger)
64. John Shillig (Shelley?)
71. William Baker (Wilhelm Bacher)
72. John Liver (Hans Liffer, Johannes Liever, John Lever)
74. Jacob Reimensperger
81. John Ulrich Shillig
82. Caspar Fry (Frey)
83. Charles Hansleir (Karl Kinsler later to Abraham Gyger)
84. Casper Hanslear (Kinsler)
91. Richard Myrick
98. John Granget
99. Frederick Arnold
100. Anthony Ernest

Friday, February 8, 2013

Towns & Communities

Gilbert

Gilbert is half between Batesburg-Leesville and Lexington, and was once called Gilbert Hollow.
A Revolutionary War skirmish took place on 18 June 1781, when "a party of Sumter's soldiers harassing a rear guard of British foragers under Lord Rawdon(en route to relieve besieged Ninety Six) was ambushed".
Gilbert was also called Lewieville from 1886-1899 after the family of Samuel and Nancy Hendrix Lewie. Solomon Lewie founded Lewie Chapel in 1870s in Gilbert. Lewie Chapel was later known as Lewiedale Methodist Church and after 1910 as Gilbert Methodist Church.

Irmo

Irmo was possibly named by taking the first two letters of Iredell and Moseley. Mr Moseley was the first President and Mr Iredell the first Secretary of the CN&L Railroad.

Samaria

Samaria is 8 miles south of Batesburg. It was a Post Office and a well-known railroad stop until the railroad was abandoned in 1941. The Southern Railroad for many years maintained a line from Batesburg to Perry. It was well-known by some as Old Midland, but countless others knew the branch railroad as "The Swamp Rabbit".

Summit

The name derives from a claim that the location is the highest elevation on the Southern Railroad between Columbia and Augusta Georgia.

Boiling Springs

Boiling Springs is a community 6 miles below Red Bank. The name comes from a spring of water which does not literally boil, but does come from the sandy soil with considerable strength. The water is said to be so close to the surface in the surrounding area that mules would sink into watery holes while plowing. In another day Boiling Springs was a great and popular site for political rallies.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Towns & Communities

Batesburg-Leesville

Batesburg-Leesville are called the "Twin Cities" on the Saluda River basin ridge in western Lexington County. They were developed as trade centers in an agricultural area.

Leesville grew from the establishment of a private school in the 1880s while Batesburg's growth was stimulated by the organization of a textile mill in 1900.

Deriving its name from the Lee family, Leesville was the site of Captain John Lee's tavern (said to have been visited by George Washington on his 1791 tour). By 1883 the population was only 177. The Mitchell-Shealy House built ca 1855 by prominent local planter J A J Mitchell, Leesville's first postmaster, is one of the town's few remaining antebellum homes.

Steedman

Steedman's name was derived from a member of the Steedman (now Steadman) family who settled in Lexington County in 1785.

Hilltown (Hilton)

Hilton is about 3 miles west of White Rock. The name, Hilltown, was applied by the railroad to a needed stop there. Later the Hiller family built a large general store there and the name was changed to Hilton.

Happytown

Happytown was a negro area west of West Columbia and Saluda Gardens, so called for the loud carousing expected there. It grew up around the former Friday-Mayrant slave quarters so that in the middle of Happytown even in the middle of the street is located the iron-fenced burial plot of Revolutionary War hero Gabriel Friday and his family.

Chapin

Chapin was named after Martin Chapin, born 5 June 1821 in Chapin, NY. He developed tuberculosis and his doctor suggested he go south and "work among the pines because the fumes would be good for him".

Martin Chapin came to the vast "pineywoods" country ca 1850 and established a sawmill. It is said he cut most of the best timber between the two rivers. The railroad was completed there in 1890 and Mr Chapin gave land for streets and the little town of Chapin was laid out with the first train coming through 18 July 1890. Mr Chapin and his family are buried at Latticoo approximately three miles north of Chapin on Hwy 176 east of Pomaria. He died 21 August 1894.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Gibson Pond

Gibson Pond figured prominently in the town of Lexington's Civil War history. When Union forces occupied Lexington in February 1865, the pond, known then as Laurel Falls, was the site of an 8-spindle 3-loom cotton mill, which had been making Confederate uniforms and other military cloth goods.

The Laurel Falls mill was owned by Sam George, who moved in 1848 to Lexington from Cedar Creek. George's mill was on the same spot where a 500-spindle 16-loom mill owned by the Laurel Falls Manufacturing Company had been until destroyed by fire in 1852.

During the 3-4 days that General Hugh J Kilpatrick's calvary and Major General Henry W Slocum's 14th and 20th Infantry Corps were in Lexington, Sam George's mill was burned to the ground along with the courthouse, St Stephen's Lutheran Church and several private homes.

George's son, Erby Joel George, a boy of 13 who was taken prisoner by Union forces during the occupation of Lexington, built a flour mill and saw mill there in 1884. The flour mill was destroyed by fire in 1918 and was rebuilt and continued in operation until 1965.

The George family opened the pond to the public as a recreational area around 1925. A two-story wooded pavillion was erected . There was swimming, boating, fishing, picnic areas, campgrounds and dancing. It was even used for wedding receptions. If you came dressed in your bathing suit admission was free; otherwise you were charged 10 cents for use of the bathhouse.

Bright-colored Model Ts parked on each side of Gibson Road any weekend during the summer. The pond was the setting for 12 and 15 table bridge parties.

When M S Gibson bought the property in 1943 from the Georges, he continued to operate it as a recreation area, adding some rental cottages.

The pond was closed to the public in 1971. Gibson Pond was purchased by the Town of Lexington to help meet the water demand of one of South Carolina's fastest growing areas. The pond has since re-opened to the public.

Source: https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC5XQN2_laurel-falls-mill

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Roads & Trails

Old Lexington Road

The Old Lexington Road is a road which once connected Chapin with the county seat of Lexington County. Before Lake Murray appeared in 1929, the Lexington Road crossed the Saluda River on what many older people called The Steel Bridge.

Old Two Notch Road

Old Two Notch Road runs from U S 1 near the Oak Grove community southward toward Batesburg- Leesville area. Tradition has it that the road was named for the notches blazed in the trees by the Indians to identify the trail. It was widely used in colonial times as a stage coach route and trading path.

George Washington followed Two Notch Road on his journey from Augusta to Camden in 1791. It is said that Washington's coach broke down at a large sycamore tree on the way and he rested beneath the tree. A historical marker has been erected at that site which is near the junction of Old Two Notch Road and U S 1.

Mineral Springs Road

Mineral Springs Road is part of the Old Cherokee Trail. Years ago a well-known spring was found nearby and bottled water was sold. This area is still known for water with high mineral content.

Old Barnwell Road

Old Barnwell Road runs SW from Columbia to Barnwell.

The Cherokee Trail

The Cherokee Trail parallels Hwy 378 west of Lexington between Hwy 378 and Lake Murray. This is the trail which Cherokee Indians followed from their up-country villages to Granby and the Low Country. The Cherokee Trail is possibly the  oldest road system still intact to some degree.

Remnants of the Cherokee Trail are found in several roads in the county including Old State Road, Leaphart Road, Mineral Springs Road and Old Cherokee Road. The Cherokee Trail is usually considered one of the most historic and important roads in the development of central South Carolina and in opening the frontiers in the upper part of the state.

The trail came from Charleston through Lexington County along the Congaree and Saluda Rivers through Ninety-Six area and to the lower town of the Cherokee nation in what is now Oconee and Pickens Counties. This ancient trail became a major trading route in the early 1700s for deerskins and other articles of trade between the Indians and the white men.

In 1747 it was ordered that commissioners be appointed for the Township of Saxe-Gotha for building bridges over several creeks in the area and the General Assembly passed an act to establish the Old Cherokee Path as a public road.

The route became well established and by 1820 the Board of Public Works laid out the Old State Road from Charleston to Columbia and to the mountains. The Old State Road survives today in Lexington County leading from near the Calhoun County line north along the Congaree River into Cayce and West Columbia and known as State Street within the town.

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Communities and Towns

Red Bank

Red Bank, located on SC Hwy 6 south of Lexington, first gained notoriety as a health resort. The property where the Red Bank Mill stood was owned by Dr. Frederick William Green prior to the Civil War. Green built a "mosquito cottage" on the property which he used to escape the malarial condition that plagued Columbia during the summer.

The Green family continued to live in Red Bank after the Civil War. In 1869 Green built a textile mill on the banks of Red Bank Creek, the first in Lexington County. The original wooden structure burned down in the early 1890s, but a new stone building was erected in 1895. In the early 1900s a brick addition was constructed.

Historians are not sure whether the town was named in honor of Robert Hilton of Red Bank, New Jersey, who was hired as an assistant supertendent of the mill in the 1890s, or whether it was a reference to the red clay creek bank that ran along side of the mill. After coming to work at the mill, Hilton married Irene Klapman and named the new community in honor of her. Many local residents, however, preferred the name Red Bank.

The Red Bank Mill continued to play a prominent role in the community's history. On 28 June 1994, torrential rains caused the mill pond dam to break, starting a chain reaction that broke dams at Crystal Lake and Durham Pond and flooded a considerable portion of Red Bank and downstream neighborhoods.