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Data Description:Excerpts from
A History of the Upper Country of South Carolina,
From the Earliest Periods to the Close of the War of Independence
by John H. Logan, Charleston, S.C.: Courtney & Co., 1859. Greenville, S.C.:
Southern Historical Press, 1980
Submitter: Betty B. Osborne
Date Posted: 26 August 2001

Note from Submitter: I was given written permission to place some excerpts from the first chapter on the Long Cane site by the president of Southern Historical Press. Our thanks go to him. SHP didn�t send me any of the requested ordering information and I�m assuming it is out of print.

I copied the first chapter while at the FHL in SLC. If you want a copy of the table of contents and the index I�m sure someone there could do that for you, then you can decide if you want more of the book. This is a natural history of the upper Carolina region. Few ancestor names here, but this is how it looked to the pioneers that arrived first. The writing is almost poetic. I hope you enjoy this. We read it aloud as we drove through the area.

Subsequent chapters deal with deer, panthers, fish, rattlesnakes, mineral wealth, cow-drivers, horses, Indian traders, Cherokee towns, pack-horsemen, the French, James Adair and Col. John Galphin, Gov. Nicholson, Virginia traders, Old John Youngblood and Wm. Buchanan, Gov. Glen, etc.

A History of the Upper Country of South Carolina, 
From the Earliest Periods to the Close of the War of Independence

Chapter 1

At this day the upper-country of South Carolina presents a very different
aspect from that of the same territory in the middle of the eighteenth century.   
It was then new and beautiful, and as remarkable for the luxuriant richness of 
its landscape as it is still for the striking features of its rolling hills and towering 
mountains; but under the iron tread of what is called progressive civilization, 
its ancient glories of forest, and flora, and fertile soil have been well nigh wasted 
and ruined.

The natural characteristics of this region present just such features of climate, 
surface, soil, and vegetable growth, as would attract and fix upon its valleys 
and hills, the energetic race, which, we shall see, by-and-by, were the first to 
clear away its forests and appropriate its vast agricultural resources.   A country, 
whose landscape was neither wholly rugged with mountains, nor monotonously 
tame with unbroken plains, but a scene of mingled elevated ranges, undulating hills, 
and flowery vales, formed a glorious analogue of the true Scotch-Irishman�s heart 
and nature.

It is sufficient to remark, that when our fathers first penetrated this region, it was 
mostly covered with a wild, luxuriant vegetation, and possessed by a race of 
people totally different from themselves, in complexion, manners, customs, and 
religion.  They were scarcely less struck, however, with its fertility and magnificent 
scenery, than with the remarkable race which inhabited it.

The beauty and fertility of this region, however, were not confined to the mountains; 
the valleys and ridges that lay along the rivers and creeks of the eastern slope, to 
the utmost limits of the Cherokee country on the south, abounded in forests, fertile 
lands, prairies, and every species of American game.   This was the favorite 
hunting-ground of the lower Cherokees, whose principal settlements were situated 
on the head waters of the Savannah.

In the cane brakes of the Saluda, Long-cane, Ennoree, Broad River, Buffalo of York, 
and numerous other streams, and on the extensive prairie ridges the early pioneers 
and hunters found large herds of buffaloes and elks; while in the higher woodland 
country, deer abounded in vast numbers.   Even here, though the blue tops of the 
mountains were only here and there dimly seen in the distance, the country exhibited 
many pleasant and romantic scenes.

The face of this region of romance, interspersed with forests, and prairies, and vast 
brakes of cane--the latter often stretching in unbroken lines of evergreen for hundreds 
of miles, from the alluvial country on the south, to the interior sources of the streams, 
was not surpassed in picturesque beauty and grandeur, by the best portions of Texas 
of the present day; and its virgin soil was not then inferior to that of the same 
boasted State.

As late as 1775, the woodlands, carpeted with grass, and the wild pea-vine, 
growing as high as a horse�s  back, and wild flowers of every hue, were the 
constant admiration of the traveler and adventurous pioneer.  The forests of 
those early times were far more imposing than any now remaining in this 
portion of the ancient Cherokee Nation.   The trees were generally larger, and 
stood so wide apart that a deer or a buffalo could be easily seen at a long 
distance--there being nothing to obstruct the view but the rolling surface.   On the 
elevated hilltops the strolling hunter often took his stand, to sweep, at a single 
view, a large extent of country.   The pea-vine and grasses occupied the place 
of the bushes and young forest growth that render the woods of the present 
time so gloomy and intricate.

The wild pea-vine grew chiefly on the highlands, while the cane flourished 
best in the valleys, and filled the lower grounds of all the streams.  Upper 
Carolina was then not inferior to any portion of the Great West, as a grazing 
country.   On certain rich soils, however, the cane was frequently found by the 
earlier settlers, growing luxuriantly on the tops of the highest hills.

That fertile section of the Old Ninety-six District which was afterwards known as 
the Flat-woods of Abbeville, presented to the view of the hunters, and pioneer 
settlers, the magnificent prospect of the hills and valleys of an extended tract 
of prairie country, waving under a rich growth of cane, from five to thirty feet in 
height.   Patrick and William Calhoun who, with several others, built the first 
Scotch-Irish cabins ever erected in this section of the present district, often 
affirmed, that when they settled it, it was one vast brake of canes--not a tree or 
a bush appeared to break the view of the astonished beholder. 
*(Conversation of Col. John A. Calhoun and others.)

The cane growth of the country soon became the standard by which the early 
settlers estimated the value of lands.   If it grew no higher than five feet, or the 
height of a man�s head, the soil was deemed ordinary; but a growth of twenty 
or thirty feet indicated the highest degree of fertility.
(Conversation of Joseph Duncan, of Duncan�s Creek, one of the oldest residents 
of Laurens District.)

Hence, all the early settlements of the upper-country were planted on, or near, the 
rich hill-sides of the rivers and creeks.   There was little danger to be apprehended 
then, from any bilious diseases in such situations; even the old-fashion chill and 
fever were almost unknown,  and the cabins, and premises of the pioneers, were 
far too recent to generate the miasm of the loathsome typhus.

At the period when the hunters and cow-drivers first penetrated the upper-country, 
there were considerable portions of it, as before intimated, as destitute of trees, 
and as luxuriant in grass and flowers, as any prairie of modern times.   The ordinary 
observer may discover that much of the forest of the present day is of comparatively 
recent growth;  the greater number of the trees have sprung up in the memory of 
living men; few are so old as a hundred and sixty years, and only here and there, 
at immense intervals, towers a patriarchal pine or oak, whose germination dates 
back to the beginning of the sixteenth century.

What remains of the oak forests of the Flat-woods, resemble, very much, the open 
woods of primitive times, and of many portions of the West, at the present day; and 
it is a fact not often observed in any Atlantic State, that so strongly is the soil 
impregnated with its own lime, that in a little while after the leaves have fallen from 
the trees in autumn, scarcely a shred of them can be seen upon the ground.  
(Neither old leaves, nor ticks, nor stumps are ever seen in the Flat-woods.)

While upper-Carolina thus abounded in attractions for the farmer and stock-raiser, 
it was no less inviting to the sportsman and hunter, farther back than history or 
any tradition runneth, it had been the hunting-ground of the Cherokees.

In the swamps and low-grounds of the water-courses, the forest was often intricate 
and gloomy.   The deep alluvial soil of those places nourished the largest  trees and 
densest brakes.   These afforded cover and food for wild animals of many kinds, 
and as numerous as those that lurk on the Trinity or Yellow Stone; and with the natural 
pastures of the up-lands, rendered the country first the blest home of the Indian, and 
at a later period, the paradise of the Anglo-American hunter.  

The buffalo, now to be met with only on the most distant plains of the great West, 
roamed in large herds through the open woods and prairies, and found both pasture 
and concealment in the cane -thickets of the rivers and creeks.   At the earliest period 
of emigration into the upper-country, an old pioneer from Virginia often counted a 
hundred buffaloes grazing on a single acre of ground, in the present territory of 
Abbeville and Edgefield.�

In the time of the old hunters, or as late as when the early settlers were building their 
cabins on Buffalo Creek, on lands now embraced in York District,  that stream was 
famous for its herds of the animal from which it derives its name.  The valleys of this 
stream are exceedingly fertile, and their cane pastures afforded inexhaustible pasturage.  
The hunters, we are told, sought the buffalo here, more frequently than in any other of 
their haunts in that region.   They not only found them in great numbers, but secured 
them as game with greater ease; for, after being shot, they seldom escaped by plunging 
into the water, as they often did on Broad River.  
(Conversation of the Hon. Wm. C. Black, of York District.)

When John Duncan built his house in a cane-break  on the creek  which bears 
his name, he opened a path, some fifteen paces long, through the cane to the 
stream, for the convenience of getting water.   In after years he related to his 
children, that there was scarcely a minute in the day that he could not see some 
wild animal moving stealthily up or down the creek across that path.

Sitting, one evening at dusk, in his door, with his foot against the frame, a bear 
slily approached the house, and threw him for a moment into a great fright, by 
springing suddenly over his leg into the cabin.   Recovering himself, he seized 
his gun, and before the bold intruder could effect his escape, shot him dead 
upon the hearth.