Calhoun County Museum
Come and enjoy the history of Calhoun County and South Carolina presented with a personal southern touch.
Calhoun County Chronology
A Historical Chonology of the area of Calhoun County, South Carolina
1,000,000 BC: Calhoun County area is under the Atlantic Ocean
AD 1682: Calhoun is included in old Berkeley County, SC, home of Congaree and Santee Indians
1700: Lawson, the explorer, visits local Indians
1704: 570 acres of land on Lyons Creek granted to George Sterling
1715: Yemassee War
1718: Nearby Fort Congaree is commanded by Captain Charles Russell
1719: William Heatly is born, the first European child born in the area
1725: Charles Russell, by then married to widow Mary Sterling Heatly, is living on old Sterling land
1730: Amelia, Saxe-Gotha, and Edisto (later Orangeburgh) townships are laid out
1735: Swiss-German settlers begin arriving
1737: The Reverend J. U. Giessendanner (Lutheran) begins work while living in Orangeburgh
1739: The younger Reverend J. U. Giessendanner begins in Orangeburgh and Amelia
1739: The Reverend Christian Theus (German Reformed) begins what will become half a century of work in Saxe-Gotha
1748: George Haig of Haig’s Hill, deputy surveyor, is taken by the Indians and murdered
1750: Rachel Heatly Lloyd is said to have routed the Devil at Buckhead
1751: Joint Lutheran and German Reformed Meeting House is standing near Sandy Run, Saxe-Gotha
1757: Amelia Chapel is built for the younger Giessendanner (by then an Anglican priest)
1759-1761: Cherokee War
1765: St. Matthew’s Parish is established as a religious (Anglican, later called Episcopal) political division
1767: Parish Act is repealed by King George III
1768: Parish is re-established
1769: The Reverend Timothy Dargan has a Baptist Meeting House (near the later site of Lone Star)
1775: The Reverend Paul Turquand, Anglican priest of St. Matthew’s Parish, preaches the opening sermon of the SC Revolutionary Provincial Congress at Charleston
1776: Colonel William Thomson and Rangers from Amelia Township help defeat the British at the Battle of Sullivan’s Island
1778: Orange Parish is cut off of St. Matthews; Church is separated from State
1780: British overrun and fortify Belleville Plantation, as well as Mt. Joseph Plantation, which they rename “Fort Motte”
1781: Americans are repulsed at Belleville
1781: Americans capture a British convoy of supplies at McCord’s Ferry
1781: Americans win the battle of Fort Motte. Mrs. Motte provides arrows for them to burn the British out of her mansion. Belleville is evacuated.
1781: Emily Geiger’s traditional ride to carry messages from General Greene to General Sumter
1782: Governor John Adam Treutlen is said to have been butchered by the Tories
Property of Calhoun County Museum Archives.
Not to be used without written consent.