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This posting shows some additional early Orangeburgh Township plats that were located along Caw Caw Swamp. This group of plats adjoined the ones from my previous post with the Andreas Marchy plat shown on each map as a common reference point.

George Haig was again the surveyor who laid out all of these tracts. Unfortunately, he did not provide much detail about the landscape features on these drawings. In this group of plats there are only two marks that could clearly be interpreted as some sort of water feature. Those are shown on the map below on the boundary of plats 1 and 2 and on the edge of plat 6. One of the line points on plats 10 and 14 was described as “edge of swamp.” There are some other marks on several plats but it is not clear whether they are intentional or accidental lines.

The unnumbered square is a tract that was not surveyed during this period. Plat number 12 was surveyed for Martin Koone (or Kuhn) even though it was indexed by the South Carolina Archives as Martin Rowe. (Adjoining plats show the name more clearly.) The northernmost corner of plat 6, surveyed for Peter Lorier, was marked 4x rather than the usual 3x corner marking. A notation on the plat indicated that this was the corner of the 20,000 acres laid out for the township. All of these plats can be viewed online at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History website.

Buser, Faust, Hugg, Kuhn, Larry, Kummerton, Marchy, Moorer, Pinche, Spring, Staley, Stricker, Tanner

This link will open a PDF file of the map above:

Orangeburgh Township plats along Caw Caw

Today’s posting shows some of the original Orangeburgh Township grants along the North Fork of the Edisto River. Most of these plats were mapped in my first book but many folks have asked to see the results on a topographic map. In an earlier posting I have previously shown some of the original grants for the lower portion of the township. This map features plats at the western corner of the original 20,000 acres reserved for the township.

George Haig was the surveyor who laid out all of these plats except the last one. Most were surveyed as adjoining tracts on the same few days. This makes the cluster of plats easy to put together. The only challenging one was the last one, for Henry Schilling. It was surrounded by vacant land when surveyed, even though there were nearby plats in this group. A state plat, filed in 1785 for Francis Bremar, shows the location of the Schilling plat (State Plats, Charleston series, volume 4, page 401-402).

Keep in mind that the plats shown below were probably not surveyed quite as neatly as they have been drawn. The plats are accurate with regards to their relative positions but the actually boundary lines should not be interpreted as precise.

Baltzegar, Bersinger, Brimer, Crim, Croytery, Evans, Hilte, Hutchler, Lehander, Marchy, Ott, Peterly, Reber, Salley, Schilling, Session

Click here for a PDF file link for this map of Orangeburgh Township plats:

Orangeburgh Township plats along river

One of the plats that I’ve included in this blog entry has intrigued me since I first came across it several years ago. It is the one for 756 acres surveyed on September 4, 1822 for Bennett Kittrell on Robert Swamp and the South Edisto River. The tract appears to be part of 1200 acres (represented by the dashed lines on the drawing at the end of this post) that was originally surveyed for Obediah Allen in April 1737.

This area along the South Fork of the Edisto River was being used for cattle raising as early as the 1730s as indicated by the one adjoining property noted on the Allen plat. John Hearn’s cowpen was located on the southeastern boundary of the Allen tract. As the cattlemen left the area when more of the land was claimed, timbering became another economic activity in river swamps like this.

Benjamin Curry was the surveyor for the Kittrell plat. Curry’s drawing shows the outlines of several fields in addition to Robert Swamp and the river. He also showed a road and a path. The road, which seems to be similar to what is today Cleckley Road, looks like it might be labeled “limbe” or “timbe” road, possibly for lumber or timber road. (Note: I have not checked with the archives to see if there is an original plat that may be more legible with regards to this term.) There is a path shown on the plat as coming into the “Old Field” but I’ve not found evidence of this path on any modern map of the area.

The railroad came across this land in the late 1800s. The 1913 soil map of the area shows a small cluster of buildings in the area of the “Old Field” along the rail line. Notice how the area of the Old Field corresponds rather well with the Rs soil type on the map. Did whoever first develop that field recognize the better soil or did the soil surveyor trace the boundaries of the field?

Now, back to the thing I find most interesting on the Kittrell plat, the set of parallel dashed lines marked “Race Ground.” Since surveying was not extremely accurate in the early 1800s, the Race Ground was probably located on the slightly higher ground just above the swampy area. What type of racing was done here?

I have an ancestor, Adam Davis Hare (1825–1895) who is said to have been very fond of horse-racing. He was actually expelled from Two Mile Swamp Baptist Church in 1849 for such activity, among other things. This church is located about eight miles from this site. Is this where my ancestor spent his time horse racing? Does anyone else have any family stories or traditions about horse racing in this part of Orangeburgh District? If you do, I would be delighted to hear from you.

Allen, Coalter, Hearn, Jennings, Kittrell, Valentine