Edgefield SC where the Rountrees settled

From Wikipedia with editing by myself...go here for whole article, as I'm only posting around the time when I know my ancestors lived there.

The county of Edgefield, South Carolina

History

"... the area which later became Edgefield County was a vast wilderness of virgin forests, occasional prairies, great cane brakes and sparkling rivers and creeks. It was bisected by the fall line, with sandy soils on the southeast side of this line growing primarily pine trees, and rich clay soils on the northwest side growing primarily oak and hickory. Wildlife was abundant with deer and turkey, but also with elk, buffalo (bison), panther and bear.

"The initial settlement of present-day Edgefield County occurred in the quarter century between 1750 and 1775. Some settlers came up from the South Carolina low country but more poured down "the Great Wagon Road" from the colonies to the north.

[Great post describing the Great Wagon Road in detail here! You could actually follow it from Philadelphia to Edegfield County!]

"In this colonial period the economy was primarily a subsistence one in which the settlers consumed what they raised. Initially there were no courts or law enforcement here, but beginning in the mid-1760s, the law-abiding settlers began their struggle to bring law, order and government to the "backcountry" of South Carolina.

"The colonial period was followed by the prolonged conflict with Great Britain which began in 1775. By this time there were many settlers living in present-day Edgefield County and almost all of them were involved, on one side or the other, in the Revolutionary War. Some Edgefieldians were die-hard patriots from the outset who believed that the American colonies should be free and independent. Others were loyal to the king who had granted them land and provided a home for them in the New World. Still others wanted no part of the conflict but were inevitably drawn into it by partisans on each side. Finally, others were strictly opportunists who switched sides back and forth as they perceived their best interest. The conflict was, in this area, a bitter civil war in which personal vendettas often superseded politics as the cause for fighting. Cousins fought against cousins and neighbors against neighbors. When General Lighthorse Harry Lee later wrote about the Revolution in this area, he stated that "in no part of the South was the war fought with such asperity as in this quarter. It often sank into barbarity."

"Following the Revolution, citizens turned their attention to establishing local government and to rebuilding the economy. In 1785 the 96 District was divided into smaller counties. The boundaries of Edgefield County were established at that time and the Courthouse site was designated. Although a substantial but unsuccessful effort was made in the late 1780s to bring tobacco to Edgefield County as a money crop, short staple cotton began to assume that role in the late 1790s. For the next two decades the cultivation of cotton spread like wildfire across the county. The rich clay soils of the piedmont proved ideal for growing cotton. African slaves were brought in to provide the labor for cotton cultivation, resulting in a mushrooming of the slave population of Edgefield County. During the first two decades of the 19th century, Edgefield County, like most of piedmont South Carolina, began to experience unprecedented prosperity.

"With the construction of the jail and court house at the designated county seat beginning in 1785, a village began to grow up around the public buildings: first, houses for the public officials, then a tavern, then a store, gradually other houses and then other stores. By 1811 a school was established, then several churches and more houses. By 1826 South Carolina architect Robert Mills could describe Edgefield Courthouse Village as "a neat little village ... [with] between forty and fifty [houses]. The buildings are neat, commodious, and generally painted . ... The population is estimated at 300."

"In the antebellum era, Edgefield was not the market town of the District. In the Plantation economy, the plantation owners took their cotton to market in Augusta or Hamburg and bought the majority of their supplies from merchants in those market towns. The merchants of Edgefield Courthouse Village primarily filled in the needs of the planters between trips to the larger market towns.

"While planting, politics and violence captured the imagination of most white Edgefieldians, a number of other bright young men looked for opportunities in industry and commerce.

"Dr. Abner Landrum developed a pottery industry which was to have a major impact on Edgefield for more than half a century. [As a potter, I was interested to see this industry included in the history of the county.]

"Edgefield has rich clay deposits which provide the source for alkaline-glazed stoneware pottery which was developed by Dr. Abner Landrum in the early 19th century. The slave potter David Drake, who produced many large storage jars in the period between 1830 and 1870, was literate, signed his work, and became more widely known as [a] popular artist a century after his death.^[6] Unsigned pottery from kilns in Pottersville and Edgefield today are known by the names of their owners; the artists were largely undocumented.

"The upland area also was developed for cotton plantations, after invention of the cotton gin made growing short-staple cotton profitable. Several mansions and a plantation have been preserved from this era: Blocker House, Cedar Grove, Darby Plantation, and together with the Edgefield Historic District, Horn Creek Baptist Church, and Pottersville, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.^[7]

Horn Creek Baptist Church, Edgefield SC

Horn Creek Baptist Church is a historic Baptist church located near Edgefield, Edgefield County, South Carolina. It is a one-room meeting house style frame church building on a fieldstone foundation. A door behind the pulpit leads to a creek for baptizing. The church’s adjoining cemetery has excellent iron work. It is one of the oldest Baptist churches in the South Carolina Upcountry, having been incorporated in 1790.^[2][3]

Blocker House facad

 One of the oldest surviving houses in the area, the Blocker House is an important visual example of eighteenth century living in Edgefield. Originally built in 1775 as an overseer’s house by Michael Blocker, a Prussian émigré, the house was later used by the Blocker family after their large plantation house burned. In Edgefield, Blocker became known as “the Colonizer” because he sent his son John back to the Fatherland to persuade emigrants to settle in Carolina. The last member of the Blocker family to own the house was Mrs. Nancy Brooks Blocker, an aunt of U.S. Congressman Preston Brooks. After being owned by the Blocker family, the Hughes family purchased the home. One Hughes family member, Dr. William Crawford Gorgas, was noted for his control of yellow fever and malaria in the Panama Canal Zone. The house is a two-story white clapboard with a one-story shed-roofed porch supported by four original, square columns. Two original end chimneys and double front doors are intact. Michael Blocker brought magnolias and cedars to the area for his home, and the centuries old trees still stand on the property and add to the historic landscape. The family cemetery, with its large graves, is a town landmark dating back to 1811, as are several outbuildings. Listed in the National Register May 14, 1971.{4}

Cedar Grove, Edgefield SC Photo by By Bigskybill - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39175783

Cedar Grove is a historic plantation house located near Edgefield, Edgefield County, South Carolina. It was built between 1790 and 1805, and is a large two-story, Federal style house with a white clapboard exterior and high gable roof. It features a double-tiered portico with delicate Adamesque detail. This home has many unusual architectural features including a barrel-vaulted hallway, elaborately carved mantelpieces, and the right front parlor retains an early hand-painted French wallpaper.
The property features a landscape of tall cedars, as well as old English boxwoods and traces of an original rose garden like at John Blocker's father’s home, the Blocker House. The gardens at Cedar Grove were reputedly laid out by Andre Michaux, the renowned botanist who had designed the gardens at Middleton Place in Charleston, South Carolina. The famous English boxwoods of Cedar Grove were sold during the Great Depression to the Rockefeller family and placed in the gardens of the Governor's Palace in Williamsburg, Virginia.{5}


Pottersville is a historic archaeological site located near Edgefield, Edgefield County, South Carolina. It was the site of the Pottersville kiln, which was in existence until the American Civil War when it was abandoned. The kiln was involved in the production and distribution of the alkaline glazed wares. The Pottersville kiln site is now a large mound in a grassy field atop a hill. An adjoining depression may have been the kiln itself with the waste dumps now the mound.^{{8}
A photo is given showing a diorama of a possible pottery yard, but is under copyright, so I can only give the link, not the photo.{9}}


 {2} Ruhr, Nancy F.; Willette W. Fay. "Horn Creek Baptist Church" (pdf). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. Retrieved 5 July 2012.
{3} Horn Creek Baptist Church, Edgefield County (off S.C. Sec. Rd. 133, Edgefield vicinity)". National Register Properties in South Carolina. South Carolina Department of Archives and History. Retrieved 5 July 2012
{4} National Register.SC 
{5) Wikipedia
{6} Dave the Slave Potter". Our Infamous History. Edgefield, South Carolina. Retrieved 14 March 2015.
{7} National Park Service (2010-07-09). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
{8} Pottersville, Edgefield County (Address Restricted)" 
 {9} dave-slave-potter

 
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And on another topic, today, Feb. 12, is the birth anniversary of Elizabeth "Bettie" Bass Rogers, my great grandmother. She was born in Old Waverly, San Jacinto County, Texas in 1860, and lived until July 17, 1924, when she died in Galveston, TX.