The Beginning of a Nation – Charles Baxley, chair of the state’s 250th Centennial Committee, praised the work of Lawrence County historians telling the story of the county’s people and places during the Revolutionary War.Photo by Judith Brown
Lawrence County, South Carolina — In 2026, the United States will celebrate its 250th anniversary of independence, and historians across the state are working to tell the stories of South Carolinians who lived through that period.
“We want to tell the stories of South Carolina. We want to tell them from perspectives that have never been told before,” said Charles Baxley, chairman of the South Carolina American Revolution Centennial Committee, which recently met with the local committee at the Lawrence County Museum. member.
“Nobody’s talking about the women and children who have been hit hard here,” Baxley said, adding that among the educated residents, there are about the same number of loyal to England as those who are not. “No one talks about enslaved African Americans and Native Americans here. The Catawba Indians allied with South Carolina, the Cherokees allied with Great Britain. We wanted to discover those stories and tell them accurately.”
Baxley was in Lawrence for the quarterly meeting of the state-level American Revolution Centennial Committee, which included Diane Caberson of Gray Court. It meets at the Lawrence County Museum with the Lawrence County Centennial Commission, which is tasked with developing and promoting local perspectives for the upcoming 250th anniversary of the state’s independence.
Over the next two to three years, the county commission hopes to use the grant money to develop a driveway with signage marking specific sites known to be of Revolutionary War significance in the state.
“Lawrence County has identified 14 sites of significance,” said Lawrence County Centennial Commission Chairman Ernie Seggs. “These sites are located throughout the county, from near Joanna to Cross Hill to Greenville County. Wire.”
These include some of the more familiar ones, such as the Battle of Musgrove Mill at the historic site, and Hayes Station not far from the Newbury County Line.
Others are known for the general location where they took place, such as near the Langston Baptist Church outside Clinton, where a young woman named Daisy Langston acted as a spy to get information from the British and report it To the Patriot Militia.
Another location is the Hammond Store near Greenplain Road outside Clinton, one of the Revolutionary War sites the committee hopes could be developed.
“There might be six websites that we could pay to develop, not just a simple sign,” Segars said, but we wanted to connect interactive technology to all 14 signage and websites, even if we didn’t know the exact location.
“We have grant funding to work with and we now have about three years to develop several of those sites and signage.”