A movement was afoot in the colonies. The king was an ocean away. The colonial government was on the coast and the backcountry was filling with settlers who liked their independence. Charleston was too far away to help in an emergency.

As a result, frontier settlers provided their own law enforcement they called the Regulators. They were akin to plantation justice, a system in which ordinary citizens provided protection for local residents.

After the Indian wars, people were ready for peace. When the situation reached a boiling point, a group of 4,000 led by the Rev. Charles Woodmason gathered at Gran-by to march on Charleston and demand an end to lawlessness on the frontier.

The Rev. Woodmason’s petition to the Assembly in Charleston resulted in passing the Circuit Court Act in 1769. It divided South Carolina into seven judicial districts, each with a courthouse. Granby (formerly Saxe Gotha) was in Orangeburg District.

At this point, self-government was inevitable and the American Revolution began in our state in Charleston in 1776 and local militias were formed to protect the frontier.

In 1781, the British captured Ft. Granby, but the American victory at Eutaw Springs turned the tide for the patriots.

In the years after the American Revolution the people set about building a country. Columbia was made the capital in 1785, moving the seat of government inland.

Columbia perched on the high plain on the Congaree River’s eastern bank overlooking Granby to the west. In 1820 the county seat was established at Lexington complete with a new courthouse on Laurence Corley’s plantation. Barbara “Granny” Corley sold lots for homes and businesses.

Free schools were opened for the poor. Field schools educated children before the Civil War. And the Lutheran Seminary was established in Lexington.

The village of Lexington was incorporated in 1861 and boomed with cotton mills and a brick yard. America’s oldest brickyard was on the Congaree River. The railroads were coming and timber was making money.

Then came the Civil War. Gen. Sherman vowed to make the people of South Carolina howl, and howl we did. The streets did not run with blood as some predicted, but we did feel the pain of defeat.

Once we recovered from the occupation, we began to rebuild. In 1901, RFD delivered our mail and in 1911 Heber and W.W. Barr built an electric generating plant.

In 1918 we joined the fight in Europe and finally gave up speaking German.

WWII brought further change to Lexington through air powers. Today we boast a legal and political history which is felt nationally despite our size. We have helped to define the 21st Century experience.