YORK COUNTY,
SOUTH CAROLINA
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INTRODUCTION
Source:
Wikipedia |
county seal |
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York County is a county located in the U.S. state
of South Carolina. According to the 2005 estimates by
the U.S. Census Bureau, the county's population
stands at 190,097. Its county seat is York.
York County is located in north central South
Carolina, along the North Carolina border. Its natural boundaries are
the Broad River on the west and the Catawba
River on the east. All of York County is within the piedmont region.
The colony
of South Carolina was founded in 1670, and was divided into three counties 12 years later.
Craven County, which roughly encompassed the northern half of South Carolina,
included the southern half present-day York County, while the top portion of
present-day York County was considered part of North
Carolina.
Before the boundary between the two Carolinas was fixed in 1772, the northern
portion of the York County was part of Bladen County, North Carolina, and
in 1750 it was
included in the newly created Anson County; the first land grants
and deeds for the region were issued in Anson County. In 1762 Mecklenburg County, was formed
from western Anson County and included present-day northern York County. Five
years later, the area became part of Tryon County, which comprised all of
North
Carolina west of the Catawba River and south of Rowan County. The area would remain
a part of Tryon County until 1772, when the boundary between North and South Carolina was
finally established.
The first European settlers in the Carolina piedmont, or traditionally
called the Upcountry, were Scots-Irish
Presbyterians.
Rising rent and land prices in Pennsylvania
drove them southward down the Great
Wagon Road, and they began arriving in the greater region west of the
Catawba River during the 1740s and settled in present-day York County in the 1750s.
After its transfer to South Carolina in 1772, the much of the area was
known as the New Acquisition.
In 1785, York
County was one of the original counties in the newly created South
Carolina, and its boundaries remained unchanged until 1897, when a small
portion of the northwestern corner was ceded to the newly-formed Cherokee County.
By 1780,
the Carolina Upcountry had an estimated population of more than 250,000,
predominantly Scots-Irish Presbyterians, with significant numbers of English,
Welsh, native Irish, native Scots, Swiss, French and Germans. The Scots-Irish
settled in a dispersed community pattern denoted by communal, clannish,
family-related groups known as "clachans", much the same as in
Pennsylvania and Ulster,
Northern Ireland. The clachans developed around the Presbyterian Kirks,
or meetinghouses, and became the forerunners of the congregations. In York
County, the "Four B" churches, all Presbyterian—- Bethel, Bethesda,
Beersheba and Bullock Creek—- are the county’s oldest. Revolutionary War.
A county seat was laid out in 1786 at Fergus's
Cross |
Roads, where several roads converged
near the geographic
center of the county. The new town was first known as the village of
York, or more commonly York Court House. In 1841, the town was
incorporated and officially became Yorkville.
With the introduction of the cotton gin
in the 1790s,
the county's economic prospects increased as the importance of "King
Cotton" grew, and slavery become an integral part of the economy.
In 1810 the York District had increased in population to more than
10,000, of which over 3,000 were slaves. By 1850, York District included
15,000 residents, over 40% of whom were slaves. On the eve of the Civil War,
the county's population had grown to approximately 21,500, with almost 1/2 of
the population enslaved labor. In 1825 only three post offices operated in all of York County,
at Yorkville, Blairsville and Hopewell, but by 1852 York District had 27. The
county's first newspaper, The Yorkville Pioneer, was established in 1823, and ran for
little more than a year, and was followed by several others until The
Yorkville Enquirer, which remains in publication today, was begun in 1855.
On the eve of the Civil War, York District was one of the more
populated districts in Upstate South Carolina. The 1860 white male population
of York County was just over 5,500. 14 infantry
companies formed in York County after war was declared, and during the war
the York District would have the highest death rate of any county in South Carolina.
Only one minor battle was fought in the York District, the battle for the
Catawba Bridge at Nation’s Ford in 1865.
Residents of the Upcountry were initially slow to take sides in the Revolutionary War, content to remain neutral as
long as left unmolested; the conflict was initially viewed as one between the
British
Crown and Charleston plutocrats. The New Acquisition entered into vocal
opposition to Royal authority in 1780 only after three "invasions" of the region: the
first by Banastre Tarleton and his "Green
Dragoons", and two more by Lord
Cornwallis. Most of the state had capitulated to the British after their
apture of Charleston, but after the Waxhaw
Massacre in nearby Lancaster County in May 1780, residents of
the New Acquisition took part in a regional resistance, led by men such as
William "Billy" Hill, William Bratton and Samuel Watson. Both the
battles of Huck’s Defeat
and Kings Mountain, a direct response to the
Waxhaw Massacre, were fought in the New Acquisition, and Lord Cornwallis was
forced northward, and ultimately to surrender at Yorktown, after facing defeat in the
Carolina Upcountry. After playing a significant role in the defeat of the British, Upcountry residents enjoyed a greater share of administration in their region and experienced phenomenal growth after the war. In first United States census, in 1790, York County had a population of 6,604; 923 were listed as slaves, and a quarter of the county’s slaves belonged to just nine men. Less than 15% of its population lived in bondage in 1790, while the state averaged 30%. |
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York County, SCFamily Surnames
The
following are surnames of persons, found within our data bases, who were
either born, married or died in this county. |
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Henderson;
Montgomery; Moreland; Neely;
Pinnell |
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To find out more about each
family listed here click on the appropriate LINK(s). |
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York County, SC Ancestral Gen-Site(s) |
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SITE
NAME: |
Bethesda
Presbyterian Church & Cemetery |
Bethesda
Church (front) |
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LOCATION: |
South Carolina, York County, McConnells
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COORDINATES: |
345353 N 08.11.038 W |
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DIRECTIONS; |
US 321 runs between York to
the north, and Chester to the south.
The first Bethesda Church and Cemetery was about a mile up McConnells |
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HISTORY
/ DESCRIPTIVE INFORMATION: |
Bethesda Church was located in York
District, eight miles southeast of York. The church gave its name to the
region surrounding it, which was occupied by the members of its congregation.
The year 1758 is given as the date of the church's beginning. About the year
1760 a plain but substantial wooden structure was erected as a house of
worship about a mile east-ward from the present church. The building erected
in 1760 burned accidentally in 1780 caused by the burning of adjacent woods.
A new church was built a few feet south of the present one. It was a frame
building which stood for forty years.
The current brick building was built in 1882. |
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Entrance
to Cemetery |
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ANCESTRY: |
Samuel and Elizabeth Neely
are buried here. Est. 1769 also known as Bethesda Presbyterian Church;
Bethesda Meeting House; Bethlehem Church.
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SITE
NAME: |
Neelys’
Creek |
Map
showing area around Neelys’ Creek |
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LOCATION: |
York and Chester
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COORDINATES: |
344859N
0805727W |
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DIRECTIONS; |
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HISTORY
/ DESCRIPTIVE INFORMATION: |
Neelys’ Creek is a tributary
of Tinkers Creek. The watershed occupies 17,005 acres of the
Piedmont region of South Carolina. Land use/land cover in the watershed
includes: 86.7% forested land, 8.8% agricultural land, 3.6% scrub/shrub land,
0.4% water, 0.4% urban land, and 0.1% barren land. Tinkers Creek accepts the
drainage of Rum Branch and Neelys Creek before draining into Fishing Creek.
There are a total of 41.3 stream miles and 15.1 acres of lake waters in this
watershed. |
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ANCESTRY: |
Most probably the area where Samuel Henry Neely settled sometime prior to 1758. |
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York County, SC List of Localities The list below will assist
in your research regarding the matching of your ancestors birth, marriage,
death dates and in what locality of this county these events may have
occurred. Source: Wikipedia |
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Cities and Towns that make up York County. They
are: Clover ;
Fort Mill ; Hickory Grove ; India Hook ; Lake Wylie ; Lesslie ; McConnells ; Newport ; Riverview ; Rock Hill ; Sharon ;
Smyrna ;
Tega Cay ; York |
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York County, SC The following are links to
websites that will provide you with specific genealogical information to assist with your research for this county. |
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Use the
following LINKS to find more information that may pertain to this location. |
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York
County, SC
Image GalleryDuring our research we have collected and images and
photographs that are of general interest to a variety of localities. Some of them are presented on this website
because we believe they tend to provide the reader with additional information which may aid in the understanding of our ancestors past
lives. |
York
County, Courthouse, York,
South Carolina |
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If you have any
photographs or other images relating to this ancestral location we
would greatly appreciate hearing from you. |
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Use the
following LINK to ascertain whether we have any images that pertain to this
location. ANCESTRAL
LOCATION PHOTOGRAPHS and IMAGES |
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Contact Information
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Pony Express: Tom |
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Snail mail: Fred USA |
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