8 minute read
Before there was a lake
556 OLD CHAPMAN BRIDGE ROAD • $2,499,000
Advertisement
The Cliffs at Keowee Falls Listing Agent Trip Agerton
(404) 281 - 0475 / trip@justinwinter.com
304 CLUB COVE WAY • $4,855,000
The Cliffs at Keowee Vineyards Listing Agent Justin Winter
(864) 506 - 6387 / justin@justinwinter.com
246 EASTATOE PARKWAY • $1,199,000
The Cliffs at Keowee Vineyards Listing Agent Justin Winter
(864) 506 - 6387 / justin@justinwinter.com 105 SCENIC CREST WAY • $1,489,000
The Cliffs at Keowee Springs Listing Agent Trip Agerton
(404) 281 - 0475 / trip@justinwinter.com
112 WHITE VIOLET WAY • $5,939,000
The Cliffs at Keowee Vineyards Listing Agent Justin Winter
(864) 506 - 6387 / justin@justinwinter.com
208 SHORELINE DRIVE • $1,399,990
Listing Agents Cate & Tom Kassab
C: (864) 567 - 9744 / cate@justinwinter.com T: (864) 616 - 7529 / tom@justinwinter.com
THE FINEST COLLECTION
Lake Keowee Office: 15740 N. Highway 11, #2A, Salem SC 29676
144 SUNBLEST TRAIL • $2,969,000
The Cliffs at Keowee Springs Listing Agent Trip Agerton
(404) 281 - 0475 / trip@justinwinter.com
SOLD
102 RAPID RIVER TRAIL • $779,000
Greenville - Eastside Riverview Listing Agent Kayley Winter
(904) 540-3367 / kayley@justinwinter.com
SOLD
118 MOUNTAIN MINT WAY • $4,369,000
The Cliffs at Keowee Vineyards Listing Agent Justin Winter
(864) 506 - 6387 / justin@justinwinter.com
SOLD
320 KNOLLWOOD DRIVE • $2,759,000
The Cliffs at Keowee Falls Listing Agent Trip Agerton
(404) 281 - 0475 / trip@justinwinter.com
UNDER CONTRACT
739 PLACID COVE WAY • $2,689,000
The Cliffs at Keowee Falls Listing Agent Katherine Fili Brandt
(203) 521 - 9033 / katherine@justinwinter.com 121 RUNNING BEAR LANE • $2,299,000
Shallowford on Keowee Listing Agent Justin Winter
(864) 506 - 6387 / justin@justinwinter.com
THE FINEST COLLECTION
BEFORE THERE WERE LAKES …
story by Brett McLaughlin
This painting of an early Cherokee community is indicative of how the Chattooga Town community in northern Oconee County may have looked in the early 18th century. Photo courtesy of National Park Service
ong before anyone thought about harnessing the potential of the Keowee and Little rivers to produce energy, those waterways were the lifeblood of countless Cherokee inhabitants. For more than a century, Native Americans fished the waters, forged the rapids and made their homes on the fertile bottomlands along these rivers.
From the late-16th to early-18th centuries, Cherokee settlements were located throughout the Appalachian Summit area of North and South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. In the early-18th century, an estimated 2,100 Cherokee lived in 16 villages dotting the bottomlands east of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
One such village — considered by historians to be among the smallest — was Chattooga Town.
Today, aside from a roadside historic marker on SC 28 eight miles northwest of Mountain Rest, there is virtually no evidence of the town’s existence.
In its day, however, Chattooga Town was on a main trading path that crossed the Chattooga River and connected Cherokee towns in geographic areas known as the Lower, Valley, Middle, Out and Overhill Towns of the Cherokee people. Within each region, satellite villages such as Chattooga Town would pop up near larger regional towns. These minor settlements shared architecture and a common culture but were politically autonomous.
“The British never understood the democracy of the Cherokee,” explained Luther Lyle, director and curator of the Museum of the Cherokee in Walhalla and a leading expert on the Upstate’s Native American history. “Each village ruled itself, electing a chief and deciding who would run the village.”
As the roadside marker explains, in 1721 Chattooga Town appeared on maps as “Chattoogie.” It was listed as having only 90 inhabitants in that year’s British census of Cherokee towns.
However, despite its small size, archeological evidence indicates that the village functioned similarly to other Lower town communities, many of which were concentrated in the Upstate and what is now Oconee County.
Large canoes unearthed and preserved in recent years are, according to Lyle, proof that these vibrant communities were moving vast amounts of trade goods through the region.
Those canoes, including one on display at the Oconee History Museum, would not have been used to move people up and down the river as much as they would have been employed to transport goods across the rivers.
According to Lyle, archeological work at Chattooga was done during three summers between 1989 and 1994, under the guidance of University of Tennessee professor Dr. Gerald Schroedl.
According to a report on the Chattooga project, written by Schroedl and included in a
Happy Holidays
During this holiday season, we wish you all the best.
For three summers between 1989 and 1994, college students, the majority from the University of Tennessee, conducted archeological digs at Chattooga Town under the guidance of University of Tennessee professor Dr. Gerald Schroedl (white hat in picture). Photo courtesy of Luther Lyle
David Adrian Jr
David Adrian Jr
David Adrian Jr
Financial Advisor edwardjones.com 501 Rochester Hwy Suite Member SIPC A2 Seneca, SC 29672 864-882-5763 Financial Advisor 501 Rochester Hwy Suite A2 Seneca, SC 29672 864-882-5763
edwardjones.com
Member SIPC
2002 University of Illinois publication, a delegation of students from several universities conducted excavations that uncovered a village plaza and both domestic and public structures. Included were the townhouse or council house, summer townhouse structures and at least seven other house sites. Because the final townhouse appears to have burned and collapsed, researchers were able to ascertain that it contained a central hearth and burning pit where hundreds of pottery shards were found.
Those shards, according to Schroedl’s report, were among 5,800 artifacts collected. Others included stone tools and 18th century trade goods, such as fragments of brass kettles, gun flints and smoking pipes. More than a metric ton of rocks was also collected.
While the Chattooga project’s findings testified to the importance of the community on the Southeast trade route, it appears the town’s existence was short-lived. Expeditions to the area in 1760-61 do not mention Chattooga, and the lack of journal entries indicates the town was largely abandoned by 1740.
“Smallpox epidemics, intermittent conflicts with other Native Americans and European colonizers, and changes in social and economic institutions surely contributed to its (Chattooga’s) demise just as the same conditions subsequently led to the destruction of all the Lower towns and, eventually, all the Cherokee villages of the Appalachian Summit,” Schroedl concluded.
Early in the 19th Century, these forces culminated in the removal of most Cherokee people to Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. Lyle notes, however, that no less than 36 treaties were forged between all the various parties before the infamous “Trail of Tears” took place in 1938-39. In the treaty-forging process, most Cherokees in South Carolina avoided removal. Their families are now part of the Cherokee Eastern Band.
“The Brasstown Cherokees continued to gather right up until 1947,” Lyle noted. “Today, 10 to 15 percent of Oconee’s residents have Cherokee bloodlines.”
Ironically, the last Cherokee to live at Chattooga Town, Walter Adair, sold his land in 1816 and moved to Georgia where he
{above} Pictured is a group of early 19th century Cherokee people like those who would have inhabited the Upstate region. Photo courtesy of Piddlin.com
{below} This marker is the only indication that a Cherokee village once existed near SC 28 northwest of Mountain Rest. Photo by Luther Lyle
SHADES OF A NEARBY FARMSTEAD
Also located near the Chattooga Town historical marker are remnants of the Russell family farmstead, established in 1867 by
William Ganaway Russell, a wealthy cattle driver.
Initially, Russell lived in an existing house on the property, but, when that dwelling burned, he replaced it with a more spacious farmhouse and several outbuildings.
Because the Blue Ridge Railway brought tourists flocking to Highlands only as far as Walhalla, Russell established a “half-way” house for travelers continuing their journey by stagecoach. In the 1890s he added an
L-shaped, two-story addition on the rear of his farmhouse that could accommodate up to 80 guests. The farmhouse and three outbuildings were destroyed by arsonists in 1988. However, stone ruins of the house remain as do vestiges of a barn, storage buildings, an icehouse, a corn crib and a spring house.
was, eventually, caught up in the forced migration to Oklahoma.
Equally ironic is the fact that while only a marker offers visual proof of Chattooga Town’s existence, the fact that the land is located in the Sumter National Forest and is included in the Chattooga Wild and Scenic River Area means it will be forever preserved for its Cherokee ancestors to visit. n
{above and inset} This 1884 map outlines the boundaries of the various areas that were ceded by the Cherokee to the colonies and to the United States prior to their removal west of the Mississippi River. Most Upstate villages, some of which are shown in the inset, were part of the eighth cession.
LIFELIFE BEGINSBEGINS ATAT
Home
Call, text, or email Shane Miller to discuss your home loan options. Loan products include, but not limited to: Conventional, JUMBO, VA, FHA, Construction, Renovation, and Refinancing of existing mortgages. Let The Miller Team welcome you home in 2021!
On Q Financial, Inc. is an Equal Housing Lender. NMLS 5645 | SC MLS-5645 SM0201210681Y00000Bh653
864.906.6019864.906.6019
Shane.Miller@OnQFinancial.com
SVP Sales Manager | Sr. Mortgage Consultant NMLS 986246 | SC MLO-986246 107 W. North 1st Street, Seneca, SC 29678
