TIME LINE – CHRONOLOGY

1670 – The Colony of Carolina is founded at Charles Town.

1685 – Indian traders establish trading posts at Savannah Town near present-day Beech Island.

1715 – A militia company sent out by the Colonial government to secure the backcountry during the Yamassee War encounters a cow drover by the name of John Stevens on the Savannah River at the mouth of a creek which thereafter becomes known as “Stevens Creek.”

 

1716 – Following the Yamassee War, Fort Moore is built on the Savannah River at Savannah Town to provide protection for the South Carolina colony against attacks by the Indians and the Spanish.

1723 – At the invitation of the Provincial Council in Charleston that was seeking friendly Indians to serve as a buffer against hostile Indians and the Spanish, a band of Chickasaw Indians under the leadership of the “Squirrel King” comes to South Carolina and settles on the Savannah River just north of the mouth of Horse Creek.

1723 – The British naturalist, Mark Catesby, visits Fort Moore and records his observations of the flora and fauna of the region which, with text and drawings, are published in London several years later.

1730’s – The first settlers arrive in what later became known as the Edgefield District. One group arrives from Switzerland, settling in the Beech Island area, and others, including English and Germans, begin to drift into the Saluda River Valley.

1737 – The founding of Augusta in Georgia, at the head of navigation of the Savannah River, creates a strong base for trade with the Indians and provides an outpost from which settlers can come into the area that later becomes Edgefield County.

1749 – John Chevis, a free Negro carpenter from Virginia, becomes one of the first settlers within the borders of current-day Edgefield County. 

1749 – George Galphin establishes his trading post on the Savannah River at Silver Bluff.

1751 – Isaac Cloud, a retired Indian trader who had settled at what is now Ridge Spring, hospitably receives two Savanna Indians, providing food and shelter for the night. At dawn the next morning the Indians brutally murder Cloud and his family.

1751 – Robert Gouedy establishes his trading post at Ninety Six some thirty miles north of where the Town of Edgefield was later founded and begins to direct settlers into this area.

1754 – The French and Indian War breaks out in the Northern Colonies, creating widespread fear among settlers who might otherwise have moved west into the Ohio River Valley and causing them to move south on what will be later known as the “Great Wagon Road.” For the next two decades the southern terminus of this Wagon Road was Gouedy’s trading post at Ninety Six. 

1757 – The Piney Wood House is built six miles south of Edgefield and the 200 acres on which it is situated is surveyed for Richard Pace.

1762 – Big Stevens Creek Baptist Church is founded by the Rev. Daniel Marshall.

1767 – Frustrated by the lack of law enforcement and courts in the South Carolina backcountry, law abiding settlers form the “Regulators,” the first vigilante group in America. Their efforts ultimately result in the passage of the Circuit Court Act of 1769 which establishes courts in the backcountry. In 1774 a court house at Ninety Six is finally built.

1768 – Daniel Marshall founds Horn’s Creek Baptist Church. 

1775-1783 – The American Revolution brings an end to British rule in America. The people of this area, who had become fairly numerous by the 1770’s, become very actively engaged, on one side or the other, in the struggle for Independence, fighting in battles at Charleston, Camden, Kings Mountain, Cowpens, Augusta, Ninety Six and Eutaw Springs. The 1775 capture of Fort Charlotte on the Savannah in present-day McCormick County is the first overt military action in South Carolina against the British government. In 1781 at the Battle of Rogers’ Old Field on the edge of the current town limits, the Patriot militia wins a decisive victory over the Tories. 

1785 – Edgefield County and its seat of government are established by an Act of the South Carolina legislature when the Ninety Six District is divided into smaller counties.

1786 – The capital of South Carolina is moved from Charleston to Columbia, signaling the acknowledgement of the importance of the South Carolina upcountry.

1788 – The United States Constitution is ratified over the opposition of almost all of the upcountry delegates who object to so much power being given to the federal government.

1789 – Arthur Simkins of Edgefield becomes a member of the Electoral College that votes for George Washington for President.

1791 – George Washington makes his Southern tour through South Carolina, stopping at the Piney Wood Tavern a few miles south of Edgefield. 

1793 – The Cotton Gin is invented by Eli Whitney, setting the stage for the transformation of the economy of the South. During the first two decades of the nineteenth century, the growing of cotton spreads like wildfire throughout the Edgefield District, bringing substantial wealth to the area, as well as a dramatic increase in the number of slaves. 

1797 – Becky Cotton is tried for the murder of her first husband, John Cotton. 

1809 – Dr. Abner Landrum begins the development of the pottery industry in Edgefield.

1812-1815 – The War of 1812, and particularly the cession of land which followed the 1814 victory over the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, opens up the Great Southwest, including the area which becomes the states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, and begins a substantial outmigration from Edgefield County to these new rich lands.

1816 – Andrew Pickens is the first upcountry resident to be elected Governor of South Carolina.

1821 – The market town of Hamburg on the Savannah River across from Augusta is founded by Henry Shultz, creating a strong rival for the commercial activity of Augusta.

1822 – As a result of the Denmark Vesey plot in Charleston in which slaves were planning an uprising, the South Carolina legislature begins to impose restrictions on the emancipation of slaves. 

1823 – Edgefield Village Baptist Church is founded. 

1826 – Furman Academy, the forerunner of Furman University and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is founded in Edgefield.

1828 – The Vaucluse textile mill is established by Christian Breithaupt.

1830 – Edgefield Methodist Church is founded.

1830 – Edgefield Village, which was founded in 1785, is incorporated by act of the South Carolina legislature.

1831 – The Edgefield County Poor House, the first formal public charitable home for the poor, is established.

1832 – The Nullification Crisis, led by Edgefield’s Congressman George McDuffie, embroils the state and nation in a major political debate over whether a State has the power to nullify a federal law with which it disagrees.

1833 – Instigated by Charleston merchants anxious to capture the valuable cotton trade from the Savannah River Valley, the South Carolina Railroad is completed from Hamburg to Charleston, becoming the longest railroad in world. 

1834 – George McDuffie is elected Governor of South Carolina.

1836 – The Edgefield Advertiser is founded by Maximilian LaBorde and James Jones.

1836 – Following the fall of the Alamo in which William Barrett Travis and James Butler Bonham of the Edgefield District were martyred, Texas gains its independence from Mexico. 

1836 – Trinity Episcopal Church is founded.

1836 – Pierce Mason Butler is elected Governor of South Carolina.

1839 – The present Edgefield County Courthouse is completed. 

1840 – Duels between Preston S. Brooks and Louis T. Wigfall are fought.

1842 – James Henry Hammond is elected Governor of South Carolina.

1846-1848 – The Mexican War is fought with the Palmetto Regiment playing a major role. Colonel Pierce Mason Butler and many others from Edgefield are among the casualties.

1856 – The Brooks-Sumner Affair, in which Congressman Preston Brooks of Edgefield canes Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on the floor of the U.S. Senate, galvanizes the nation and leads the country towards war.

1858 – St. Mary’s of the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church is built in Edgefield. 

1858 – Former Congressman Francis W. Pickens marries the beautiful Lucy Holcombe of Texas and becomes the United States Ambassador to Russia. A year later, their daughter, “Douschka,” is born in the Winter Palace of the Czar in St. Petersburg.

1860 – Francis Pickens of Edgefield is elected Governor.

1860 – South Carolina secedes from the Union, with an Ordinance of Secession written by Edgefield lawyer and Chancellor of the Court of Equity, Francis Hugh Wardlaw. 

1861-1865 – The War Between the States is fought, with Edgefield contributing thousands of soldiers and much blood to the cause. Confederate Generals from Edgefield include Milledge L. Bonham, James A. Longstreet, M. C. Butler, Martin Witherspoon Gary, Louis T. Wigfall, R.G.M. Dunovant and Abner Perrin.

1862 – Milledge L. Bonham of Edgefield is elected Governor.

1865 – The slaves are freed, creating a tremendous transformation of the economic, social and governmental institutions in Edgefield as throughout the South.

1865-1876 – The Reconstruction period in South Carolina is the longest of any state in the South. During this period federal troops occupy Edgefield; Freedmen, Carpetbaggers and Scalawags hold the reigns of state and local government; considerable corruption in State Government and widespread social unrest keeps the state in constant turmoil.

1866-1871 – The Charlotte, Columbia & Augusta Railroad is built through the County, leading to the establishment of depot towns of Ridge Spring, Ward, Johnston and Trenton.

1868 – The Reverend Alexander Bettis, a former slave, is ordained and forms the Mt. Canaan Baptist Church, the first of over forty churches which he founds for the freedmen as they withdraw from white churches which they had formerly attended. 

1869 – Macedonia Baptist Church and Pleasant Grove Baptist Church are founded for the freedmen. 

1870’s – Widespread use of commercial fertilizers, in part facilitated by rail transportation, vastly improves the productivity of sandy areas of the County, including areas of the Ridge and the Sandhills on the County’s eastern side which were formerly considered marginal farm land. Also, many of these areas, being fairly flat, are more suitable for mechanized agricultural production which begins in this period and increases through the mid-twentieth century. 

1871 – Aiken County is created out of parts of Edgefield, Barnwell, Orangeburg and Lexington Counties by an Act of the South Carolina legislature.

1876-1877 – The “Red Shirt” movement, led by Martin Witherspoon Gary and Matthew Calbraith Butler of Edgefield, adopts the plan for running a “Straight-Out” Democratic ticket in South Carolina. Former Confederate General Wade Hampton of Columbia agrees to be the candidate for Governor. With the galvanizing events of the Hamburg and Ellenton Riots, the Democratic leaders adopt red shirts as the symbol of their campaign. In the hard-fought election with considerable fraud on both sides, the state’s Democrats succeed in overthrowing the Reconstruction government by reaching a compromise with National Republicans in which the Democrats are allowed to have their Governor while the state’s electoral votes go to elect the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes as President.

1878 – Edgefield Presbyterian Church is founded.

1878 – The Booth-Toney shootout on the Town Square leaves three persons dead and several others wounded.

1881-1952 – Founded by Alexander Bettis and supported by the Mount Canaan Baptist Association, Bettis Academy provides educational opportunities for black youths of the county and the region. Bettis began the tradition of having a major 4th of July celebration at Bettis Academy which continued into the 1970’s.

1880’s – Increasingly difficult conditions plague the agricultural economy, setting the stage for the rise of Edgefield farmer, Benjamin Ryan Tillman, as the leader of the South Carolina farmers. It is in this period that the hilly, red clay lands of the southern, western and northern parts of the county begin their decline as productive agricultural lands. The topography of these areas results in substantial erosion of the rich top soils which characterized these lands in the earliest days of settlement. Also, the dramatic increase in productivity which resulted from agricultural mechanization eludes these areas because of their small fields and hilly terrain.

1880’s – The Greenwood and Augusta Railroad is built, passing some twenty miles to the west of Edgefield, creating the depot towns of Clarks Hill, Modoc, Parksville, Plum Branch, McCormick, Troy and Bradley and sapping commercial activity which would otherwise have come to Edgefield.

1881, 1884 & 1892 – Fires burn almost all buildings in the commercial portion of the town except the Court House, necessitating the re-building of the town. 

1886 – John C. Sheppard of Edgefield becomes Governor.

1888 – The railroad finally reaches the Town of Edgefield, leading to a substantial commercial boom. From this time, town merchants enjoy a remarkable period of economic prosperity which extends, with some breaks, through the 1950’s. 

1890 – Benjamin R. Tillman of Edgefield is elected Governor.

1891 – The first telephone is installed in Edgefield.

1891 – The Edgefield Opera House is built by Governor John C. Sheppard and Edgefield merchant Alvin Hart.

1894 – John Gary Evans is elected Governor.

1895 – Saluda County is created out of Edgefield County.

1896 – The Edgefield Manufacturing Company, spearheaded by D. A. Tompkins, builds the Edgefield Cotton Mill. 

1897 – Greenwood County is created out of Edgefield and Abbeville Counties.

1898-1913 – The South Carolina Co-Educational Institute in Edgefield provides excellent education for local and boarding students. 

1900 – The Confederate Monument is erected on the Edgefield Town Square.

1903 – Lieutenant Governor James H. “Jim” Tillman of Edgefield fatally shoots N.G. Gonzales, the editor of The State newspaper, on the street in Columbia but is acquitted in a trial which garners national publicity.

1900-1920 – Many leading Edgefieldians support and participate in the Progressive Movement, with most supporting Prohibition and some supporting women’s suffrage, particularly Mrs. William L. (Emma Anderson) Dunovant, who became a statewide leader of the movement.

1908 – The first automobile comes to Edgefield.

1915 – The Town of Edgefield gets electric power.

1916 – McCormick County is created out of Edgefield, Abbeville and Greenwood Counties.

1917-1918 – The United States participates in World War I, with many young men of Edgefield County engaged in the fighting.

1917-1918 – The influenza epidemic hits the country and Edgefield County.

1919-1920 – The Dixie Highway Hotel, now known as “the Plantation House,” is built on the Edgefield Town Square. 

1920 – The Town of Edgefield gets its first modern water and sewer systems.

1921-23 – The boll weevil arrives in Edgefield County, decimating the cotton economy and leading to a many-decades-long decline in the agricultural economy and to the outmigration of many of the rural people of the County. 

1922-24 – The Town Square and Main Street are paved.

 

1929-1941 – The Great Depression which hits the entire nation adds to the extreme economic conditions which the boll weevil had brought. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) employ many local citizens to build public works. Thousands of acres abandoned by farmers in Edgefield County are acquired by the United States government, thus establishing the Sumter National Forest.

1941 – The Timmerman-Logue Affair results in the death of eight persons and world-wide notoriety for Edgefield.

1941-1945 – World War II leads to major economic and social changes in the County. Nolan Herndon flies with the Doolittle Raiders to bomb Japan; Strom Thurmond, J. L. Doolittle and Fritz Huiet participate in the Normandy invasion; and thousands more Edgefieldians are involved in the war effort. 

1946 – Strom Thurmond of Edgefield is elected Governor.

1946-1950 – Postwar prosperity, which energized much of the country, eludes many in Edgefield County who are still affected by the agricultural decline.

1946 – The Edgefield Industrial Development Corporation is formed and assists in the establishment of the Edgefield Shirt Manufacturing Company and the Crest Manufacturing Company.

1948 – Strom Thurmond becomes a candidate for the Presidency of the United States on the ticket of the States’ Rights Democratic Party, which is dubbed the “Dixiecrat Party” by the national media. In this election Thurmond wins four states (South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi & Louisiana) and thirty-nine electoral votes.

1949 – Mrs. Grace Rawl White is appointed to fill the unexpired term of her husband, A. Jack White, as Sheriff of Edgefield County who had died after less than a year in office. As the first woman to occupy this office in Edgefield County history, Mrs. White serves until the expiration of her husband’s term ending December 31, 1952.

1950 – The Savannah River Plant, a major nuclear facility of the United States government, is established, leading to an economic boom in Aiken, North Augusta and throughout the region.

1954 – The United States Supreme Court rules segregation unconstitutional in its “Brown vs. Board of Education” decision, setting the stage for the Civil Rights movement. The Edgefield County Colored School, now the W.E. Parker School, is built in a belated effort to address the “equal” in the discredited “separate but equal” doctrine laid out by the Supreme Court in its 1896 “Plessy vs. Ferguson” decision.

1954 – Strom Thurmond is elected to the United States Senate on a write-in vote.

Circa 1960 – Widespread use of the automobile, in which County citizens increasingly travel to Augusta, Aiken and Greenwood to shop, results in the gradual decline of commercial activity in the towns of Edgefield, Johnston and Trenton.

1961 – Strom Thurmond High School is built, consolidating high schools in Edgefield and Johnston. Trenton High School had previously closed with students coming to either Edgefield or Johnston. 

1965 – Integration of the races in Edgefield County public schools begins under the “freedom of choice” system.

1960s and 1970s – Other industrial plants locate in Edgefield, including National Cabinet Company, Federal Pacific Electric, Star Fibers, Tranter and Consolidated Yarns, bringing a new group of managers from Northern states who make many positive contributions to the County in ensuing decades. 

1968 – The Edgefield County Water & Sewer Authority is established and begins the design of a new water system for the County, drawing water from the Savannah River.

1969 – Pine Ridge Country Club, featuring a golf course and swimming pool, is built through the efforts of many County citizens.

1970 – The County population reaches its low point and then begins to expand.

1970 – The Tri-Centennial of South Carolina is celebrated in Edgefield County with Vice President of the United States Spiro T. Agnew delivering a speech from the portico of the Court House with thousands of citizens from all over the state gathered in the Town Square.

1970 – Full integration of the County’s public schools begins. Wardlaw Academy, named for Ordinance of Secession author Francis Hugh Wardlaw, is established, providing a private school option to public schools.

1970-1977 – W. W. Mims, editor and owner of the Edgefield Advertiser, brings a lawsuit against the Edgefield County Water & Sewer Authority, alleging that the federal funds for the new water line are being misused by not bringing the water line across the rural areas of the County. His suit is ultimately dismissed. However, in protest against Mims’ suit, a number of the county’s prominent citizens boycott the Edgefield Advertiser and support Mims’ former employee, Amelia D. Reece, who establishes the Edgefield County News to compete with the Advertiser. Mims responds with a suit against the citizens involved in the boycott, alleging that their boycott was a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. A federal jury ultimately awards Mims a significant financial verdict against some of the defendants, which verdict is then trebled, pursuant to the provisions of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

1972 – The Edgefield County Hospital opens.

1974 – The National Wild Turkey Federation moves its headquarters to Edgefield.

1974 – Butler C. Derrick, Jr. of Edgefield is elected to the United States Congress where he serves for twenty years, ultimately becoming a member of the Democratic Congressional leadership.

1976 – For its Bi-Centennial project, the County undertakes to restore Horn’s Creek Church. Many county residents are involved in this project.

1978 – The Welcome Mural on the Main Street side of the Park Row building is dedicated.

1980 – The Edgefield Health Care Center, an 81-bed nursing home adjacent to the Edgefield County Hospital, is opened.

1982 – Apple Square Shopping Center, anchored by a BiLo grocery store and a Revco drug store, is built two and a half miles east of Edgefield on S. C. Highway 23.

1982 – The Edgefield County News, the Ridge Citizen in Johnston and the Edgefield County Press are merged to form the Citizen News, which becomes the dominant newspaper in Edgefield County.

1982 – The Kendall Company, owner of the old Edgefield mill, announces that it is closing the mill and terminating all 200 employees. 

1983 – Edgefield Cotton Yarns, Inc., a new company headed by former Riegle president, Erwin Maddrey of Greenville, announces that it is purchasing the old Kendall mill and retrofitting it to produce fine-count combed cotton yarns for the knitting trade. The Edgefield mill is thus the first venture of Delta Woodside Industries, Inc., company that goes on to become listed on the New York Stock Exchange and to be a one-time member of the Fortune 500.

1984 – Martin Color-Fi, Inc., a company that recycles plastic products into colored fibers for industrial uses, is founded by Edgefield entrepreneur, James F. Martin. The company goes public in 1993 and expands its operations across South Carolina and Georgia.

1984 – The statue of Strom Thurmond on the Town Square is dedicated.

1974-1984 – Dr. Thomas C. McCain, an Edgefield County native and an Ohio State University Ph.D., initiates a lawsuit against Edgefield County, pursuant to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, to require the county to go to single-member districts for its elective public offices so as to make election of black citizens more feasible. After nearly a decade, the suit makes its way to the United States Supreme Court which issues a unanimous decision in favor of Dr. McCain. The Court remands the case to the district court where Federal Judge William W. Wilkins, Jr. issues an Order on July 11, 1984 putting in place a single member district plan for the county. In the county council election of 1984, three black citizens and two white citizens are elected as council members.

1985 – In the first meeting of the year, the black majority council elects one of the black members, Willie Bright, as chairman and then fires the long-time administrator and the county attorney. In the next meeting, the council hires Dr. McCain, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, as county administrator.

1986 – In the election of 1986, county citizens elect three white council members and two black members. The white-majority council retains Willie Bright as chairman and Dr. McCain as administrator.

1988 – Pursuant to a Revitalization Plan published in 1978, the Town of Edgefield implements a major streetscape program for the Town Square and Main Street to Bacon Street.

1991 – Delta Woodside Industries announces that it is building a new $40 million spinning mill on a site east of town to replace the capacity of the old mill and will be moving its employees to the new site.

1992 – Mount Vintage Plantation, a new real estate development project ten miles south of Edgefield on the Sweetwater Road, is started with plans to build amenities, including stables, kennels and trails for fox hunting. Mount Vintage ultimately encompasses 5,000 acres, 800 developed lots, an athletic club/town center and a 27-hole golf course. By 2008, over 550 lots are sold, mostly to well-to-do retirees from all over the nation.

1997 – That Darn Cat, a remake of the 1965 Walt Disney movie, starring Christina Ricci, Doug E. Doug, and Dean Jones, which was largely filmed in Edgefield, was released.

1997 – Concurrent Technologies Corporation of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a Department of Defense research contractor, announces that it is converting the old Edgefield mill into a state-of-the-art research facility for the Department of the Navy. It operates here for approximately three years before losing its DOD contract.

1997 – The Edgefield Inn, a new 46-room hotel, opens on the outskirts of Edgefield.

1997 – Piedmont Technical College announces that it has acquired the old Hart Bonded Warehouse on Main Street and is converting that building into its new Edgefield Center.

1997 – Mount Vintage Plantation announces that it will build an 18-hole golf course on its property south of town. The course opens for play on St. Patrick’s Day, 2000. Nine additional holes are added by 2008.

1998 – The Federal Correctional Institution opens in Edgefield, employing approximately 300 people.

2001-2004 – The Asahi Ryokuken International Championship, a major LPGA golf tournament, is held at Mount Vintage Plantation, bringing world-wide recognition to Edgefield County.

2003 – Strom Thurmond dies and is interred in Edgefield’s Willowbrook Cemetery in a ceremony that brings national attention to Edgefield.

2004 – The Joanne T. Rainsford Discovery Center in Edgefield, owned by the Edgefield County Historical Society and operated by the South Carolina National Heritage Corridor, opens.

2005 – The Town of Edgefield undertakes the streetscape of Main Street from Bacon Street to Oakley Park, restoring the avenue of oak trees which graced Edgefield in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

Events after 2005 will be addressed in the future.