Puzzling Dutch Fork Graves
Graves are strung out approximately 50 yards along the south bank of Hollings Head (or Holly Head) Creek where it enters the Broad River almost exactly opposite Richtex Brick which bear the date 1749 located on the land of Carl Derrick.
George H____ 1749
Job H_____ 1749
Dorothy H_____ 1749
"In loving memory of Elizabeth M_____. The daughter of Joseph Kennerly and wife Leah. She was born March the 21, 1820 and died June 30, 1820, aged three months and nine days."
(another inscription on the stone beside it is same except substitute "Margaret" for "Elizabeth")
Some local people speculate that the people were either settlers moving upriver from Grandby Landing in search of farmland and were massacred by Indians, or had already settled in the immediate area and were wiped out by a sudden and violent epidemic.
According to David D Wallace's History of South Carolina, the early German settlers of the Dutch Fork and Lexington region (Saxe Gotha Township) were the first line of defense (for Charleston) and were thrown directly across the path of marauding Indians from as far north as central New York.
Source: The State Magazine, August 6, 1950 pg 12
