First Families of Edgefield County South Carolina Vol. 1

The First Families of Edgefield County, SC is an on-going project to research and publish information on the first families of Edgefield, South Carolina. Today this metropolitan area is known as the Central Savannah River Area or CSRA and has a population of 400,000. This project focuses on the families who were in the current Edgefield County area prior to 1800. Before the year 1785, Edgefield County was a part of Ninety-Six District, which then included a very extensive territory in the upper part of the State. In 1785 Ninety-Six was divided into the Counties of Edgefield, Abbeville, Newberry, Laurens, Union, and Spartanburg. Parts of Edgefield later went to form Aiken (1871), Saluda (1895), Greenwood (1897), and McCormick (1916) counties. Today, Aiken County has the majority of the population, although early records are still in the Edgefield County Courthouse. This area is particularly significant as the "end" of the Great Wagon Road from the New England States. Generally the area was not settled until just prior to the Revolutionary War, but following the war, thousands of people passed through as they pushed into Georgia, Alabama, and points west.