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Official Website
History
For hundreds of years, the Catawba Indians occupied what became organized as Lancaster County as part of their historic tribal lands. The Siouan-speaking Catawba were once considered one of the most powerful Southeastern tribes. The Catawba and other Siouan peoples are believed to have emerged and coalesced as individual tribes in the Southeast. Primarily sedentary, cultivating their own crops, the Catawba were friendly toward the early European colonists.
When the first Anglo-Europeans reached this area in the early 1750s, they settled between Rum Creek and Twelve Mile Creek. Waxhaw Creek within this area was named after the Waxhaw Indian tribe that was prominent in the region. The majority of the new settlers were Scots-Irish who had migrated from Pennsylvania, where they had landed in Philadelphia. Other Scots-Irish from the backcountry of North Carolina and Virginia joined them. A significant minority of the population was German.
Many of the early settlers migrated to South Carolina from Lancaster, Lancashire in the northwest region of England. They had named their county for the House of Lancaster, which had opposed the House of York in the struggles of 1455–85, known as the War of the Roses. The House of Lancaster chose the red rose as their emblem while their neighbor, York County, boasts the white rose.
A second settlement was made in the lower part of the present Lancaster County on Hanging Rock Creek. The South Carolina colony first made a grant to settlers there in 1752; it included the overhanging mass of rock for which the creek was named. About the time the colony opened up this section, other settlers came in and settled along Lynches Creek, Little Lynches creek, Flat Creek, Beaver Creek, and lower Camp Creek. In coming to the Lancaster area, the first settlers followed old Indian paths. The increased traffic began to enlarge the paths and improve them as dirt roads.
The Rocky River Road was also based on an Indian path. During the American Revolutionary War, Colonel Abraham Buford and his forces fled from Tarleton along this road. He was overtaken a few miles south of the North Carolina state line, where the Patriot forces were defeated in the Battle of Waxhaws. Locals call it Bufords Massacre. Today, the Rocky River Road has been absorbed by part of South Carolina Highway 522, which was constructed following the old thoroughfare very closely.
Adjacent Counties
- Chesterfield County
- Kershaw County
- Fairfield County
- Chester County
- York County
- Union County, NC
- Mecklenburg County, NC
Cities, Towns & Communities
- Buford
- Elgin
- Heath Springs
- Indian Land
- Irwin
- Kershaw
- Lancaster (County Seat)
- Lancaster Mill
- Springdale
- Taxahaw
Links