YORK COUNTY,

SOUTH CAROLINA

 

 

Introduction

Family Surnames

Ancestral Gen-Site(s)

List of Localities

Gen-Info Websites

Image Gallery

 

Contact Information

INTRODUCTION

Source: Wikipedia

county seal

   

      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%.

York County, SC

Family Surnames

The following are surnames of persons, found within our data bases, who were either born, married or died in this county.

 

 

McVicker; Moreland; Pinnell; Scruggs and allied families

Henderson;   Montgomery;   Moreland;   Neely;   Pinnell

Bozarth; Peiffer; Quigley; Rhubart and allied families

 

Dellinger; Knecht; Pfeffer; Silar and allied families

 

To find out more about each family listed here click on the appropriate LINK(s).

York County, SC

Ancestral Gen-Site(s)

 

SITE NAME:

Bethesda Presbyterian Church & Cemetery

Bethesda Church (front)

LOCATION:
South Carolina, York County, McConnells

COORDINATES:

345353 N     08.11.038 W

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
Highway Rt. 322 on the left side of the road. (Where the second private road takes off to the right). 

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.

Entrance to Cemetery

ANCESTRY:

Samuel and Elizabeth Neely are buried here. Est. 1769 also known as Bethesda Presbyterian Church; Bethesda Meeting House; Bethlehem Church. 

 

 

SITE NAME:

Neelys’ Creek

Map showing area around Neelys’ Creek

LOCATION:

York and Chester

COORDINATES:

344859N     0805727W

DIRECTIONS;

 

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.

ANCESTRY:

Most probably the area where Samuel Henry Neely settled sometime prior to 1758.

 

 

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

 

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

 

 

York County, SC

Gen-Info Websites

 

The following are links to websites that will provide you with specific

genealogical  information to assist with your research for this county.

 

 

 

 

Use the following LINKS to find more information that may pertain to this location.

 

 

 

York County, SC

Image Gallery

 

During 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

 

If you have any photographs or other images relating to this ancestral

location we would greatly appreciate hearing from you.

 

Use the following LINK to ascertain whether we have any images that pertain to this location. 

ANCESTRAL LOCATION PHOTOGRAPHS and IMAGES

 

Contact Information

 

Email

Pony Express:

Tom
27 Christopher Dr.
Burton, NB E2V3H4
Canada

Email

Snail mail:

Fred
889 Dante Ct.
Mantua, NJ 08051

USA

 

 

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