HISTORIC OCONEE COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA
Subject: Oconee County
Version 1.0, 30-Dec-2002, H-19.txt
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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
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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 : Rev. George B Shealy at gs1954@innova.net in 1995
OCONEE COUNTY:
The area of present-day Oconee County was home to unknown groups of Native
American Indians as early as 300 A.D, About 1100, the Etowah Indians probably
occupied the region. Muskogeans inhabited parts of the territory 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 A.D. (This date is subject to change in
the future as additional materials on the Cherokee are discovered and as the
relationships 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 Chero-
kee 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 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 moved 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 between the
states of Georgia and South Carolina 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.
(At that time, the state of Georgia claimed lands on the eastern side of the
river in what is today Oconee County.) 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 rivers 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 attacked 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 small number of outposts, including Oconee Station (after
which Oconee County was probably named in 1868.) The entire Stumphouse Mountain
Range of mountains was originally called Oconee Mountain, possibly the name of
one of the many Indian tribes in the area. By 1799, the Indian dangers had
passed and new white settlers moved into the area. The Cherokee sold their
remaining lands in what is today northwestern Oconee County in 1816. Native
American Indians who lived in what is today Oconee County were a part of the
infamous Trail of Tears to Oklahoma reservations in the 1820s.
Oconee County was a part of the old Ninety-Six and Pendleton districts. In 1828
the Pendleton District (comprising Anderson, Pickens and Oconee counties) was
divided into Anderson District to the southeast and the northwestern portion
into Pickens District, named for Revolutionary War hero Andrew Pickens, who
lived on the eastern side of the Seneca River near present-day Clemson
University. Pickens District stretched from Anderson District to the south to
the North Carolina state line to the north, and from Greenville District on the
east to the Tuga-loo River and the Georgia state line on the west. The town of
Pickens Court House on the western side of the Keowee River near the Duke Power
Dam on 183, often called Old Pickens, came into being too as the District Seat.
When the District was divided in 1868 into Oconee and Pickens counties and
Walhalla became the County Seat of Oconee, Old Pickens disappeared into a ghost
town, its inhabitants moving to Walhalla or new Pickens further to the east.
Some of the notable area land-marks included Knox's Bridge, Harris Shoals,
Mullen's Ford, Jenkins Ferry and Jarret's Bridge on the Tugaloo River, and Fair
Play, Rockwell, Townville, Snow Creek, Bachelors Retreat, Kilpatrick's, Mason's,
Steel's, Horse Shoe, Colonel's Fork, Bounty Land, Richland, Oconee Station, West
Union, Smeltzer's Mountain, High Falls, Stumphouse, Henderson's, Whetstone, and
Cheohee.
In 1850, a small groups of Germans under the leadership of General John A.
Wagener and the German Colonization Society of Charleston, SC, founded and
settled the town of Walhalla. The name comes from Nordic-Germanic mythology and
means "Garden of the Gods." Their plans of continued German immigration
and settlement in Walhalla were interrupted by the Civil War, and afterwards
German immigration never reached the point to keep the town significantly
German. When Pickens District was divided into Oconee and Pickens counties
in 1868, Walhalla was made the Oconee county seat. A number 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
Irish workers, was perhaps the largest town in extreme northwestern South
Carolina in the mid and late 1850s. The Blue Ridge Railroad was chartered to
connect Charleston with inland areas of commerce near the Mississippi
River, but for economic reasons and the Civil War, was never completed any
further than Walhalla on the South Carolina side of the mountains. The old
railroad right away and bed can still be seen crossing the mountain terrain
several miles north and west of Walhalla, and Stumphouse Tunnel is today a
tourist attraction on the National Register of Historic Places.
After the Civil War, the Richmond and Air Line Railroad (now 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 Upstate in the 1890s, with Newry in
southeast Oconee County remaining as one of the earliest, least-altered textile
villages in extreme northwestern South Carolina. The Lonsdale Manufacturing Co.
built a textile plant near Seneca in 1901. It is now operated by Westpoint
Steverts Manufacturing Company, employing 600 people.
The mountain town of Salem was chartered in the early 1900s. Special schools for
rural and mountain children originated between 1910 and 1930, with the Long
Creek Academy and Tamasee D.A.R. School, where the adult education program in
South Carolina was founded, One of the first soil conservation districts in the
United States was located slightly west of Seneca on the Quincy Adams farm. This
farm has now been developed into a community of homes, churches and schools and
is now a part of the incorporated city 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
government 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. Oconee County is a land
of natural beauty and a somewhat diverse population. It is also the home of a
rare windflower, the Oconee Bell, first recorded by Micheaux in the late 1700s.
In the late 1960s, Duke Power Company purchased huge tracks of lands on either
side of the Whitewater and Keowee Rivers, and Oconee Nuclear Station is one of
the largest industries of the county and surrounding areas. Keowee Key, 10 miles
north of Seneca near Salem, an exclusive retirement community, attracts many
out-of-state retirees, particularly from Northern and Midwestern states. Keowee
Key has over 2,000 inhabitants, 880 homes and 300 condominiums. 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 construction of
large lakes displaced many people and drastically altered the landscape of the
county. 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.
Submitted by: Rev. George B. Shealy, 201 W. South Boundary St., Walhalla. SC
29693 in Dec-2002.