LEXINGTON YESTERDAY

The arrival of the Spanish on the mainland was fatal for the natives. Explorers found this inland domain pleasing and full of riches. But the native inhabitants were not always peaceful and fought to keep their property.

Despite enormous losses of natives, the Spanish withdrew from the territory north of the Caribbean after the final visit to Cofitachqui in the Midlands in 1627.

This opened the way for British settlement in 1670. Henry Woodward arrived in Charleston with English Barbadians. Woodward travelled inland to Cofitachqui and found it abandoned.

In 1718 the British built Fort Congaree at the Cherokee and Occaneeche Path crossroads. It provided a safe location for trading and protection from Spanish attack.

Captain Charles Russell built a wooden palisade fort for a 12-man garrison but by 1737 it was abandoned.

In 1730 King George II commissioned a map of the Cherokee Path from Charleston to Tellico near the Little Tennessee River. Cherokee leaders returned with the surveying party to London to meet the king. For many years after their visit, Charlestown merchants and the Cherokees prospered.

In 1734 the Township Act was passed establishing eleven townships in the Carolina Backcountry. Saxe Gotha was established on the western shore of the Congaree River between Sandy Run in the south and 12 Mile Creek to the north. Swiss and Germans were eager to settle after years of hardship from years of war in their home countries. Here they found land, opportunity, and religious freedom inspired by the Reformation.

Jacob Gallman wrote: “Each person was given an ax, a hoe, ½ acre for a home and garden in the town. After that we were given 50 acres of land for each person, free for 10 years and provisions for one year.”

They became expert woodsmen and “little more than white Indians.”

The Rev. Christian Theus, a Swiss Reformed minister, was one of the first to arrive. He established St. John’s church near Sandy Run, St. Jacob’s in the Dutch Fork and Zion in Switzer’s Neck on 12 Mile Creek, a tributary of the Saluda River.

Around 1750-1760 Indian troubles began to brew with the French and Indian War. The largest trading center east of the Mississippi River needed protection.