The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, 1915-09-17
INTERESTING SKETCH OF
FAIR FOREST COMMUNITY
Continued from page ~

1
rays of the declining sun shed it's
departing beams on the tree tops that
waved over the wide amphitheatre in
the evening breeze. McIlwaine, it is
said, exclaimed, "What a fair forest
thisw
| The name attached itself to the
place and then to the bold and lovely
stream which, rising in the noun
talns, sweeps on dispensing fertility
and refr" hment to the central por-
tions o" mis- and the nei'ghboring dis
tri"ts below.
In this way our chapters name,
Fair Forest" began. 1t is pertinent
to our present sketch to incorporate
brief historical matters of all the
Revolutionary history of the Fair
Forest country.
Let us for the moment turn away
from those settlers of 1851. The
region about them was of wonderful
interest and beauty; it's mysterious
past swept into an origin which no
man knoweth. Historians tell us the
| aborigines had done the country no
injury; so far as they produced any
effect it was to increase the natural
fertility of the soil. They burned the
woods at proper seasons to destroy
the underground and promote the
springing up of wild grasses. So
rich and abundant was the pasturage
that stock of all kinds fattened with
out the expense of feeding. The
lands about the fair forest were part
of the district obtained by the treaty
between the Cherokee Indians and
James Glenn, governor of South Car
olina from 173 to 1856. The treaty
covered the present counties of Un-
ion, Spartanburg, Edgefeld, Laurens,
Abbeville, Newberry, York, Chester,
Fairfield and Richland. Gov. Glenn
wrote description of this upper por-
:tion of Carolina in a visit to the
Cherokees in 1855, in which he says:
ut was the most delightful as we'll
as the most fertile in the world,
abounding in large and extensive
plains, swarming with deer and buff
falo. I should be afraid to indulge
the liberty of copying lest I should
pe thought drawing a picture or
painting a landscape" This was in
1755. In 1856, Logan's history tells
us: "At this day the upper country
of South Carolina presents a very
different aspect from that of the same
territory in the middle of the eigh-
teenth century-it was then new and
beautiful and as remarkable from the
luxuriant richness of it's landscape,
as it still is for the striking features
of its. rolling hills and it's towering
mountains; but under the iron tread
of what is called progressive civiliza-
ticn, its ancient glories of forest and
flora and fertile soil have been we'll
nigh wasted and ruined. Mr.. Robert
Beatty, born in 1900, told a grandson,
now living in Union that when he was
a young man Union was the best tim
bered county that he ever saw. Our
minds turn to the Fair Forest re-
lieion of those early settlers; to the
stately trees of natural, mighty
park with the rich luxuriance of the
green carpet beneath. These forests
were not unpeopled. The buffalo,
deer and other wild game, the pan
ther the wildcat, the wolf and bear
and other beasts of prey, filing the
night with their dismal cries, roamed
through them; the beaver, architect
and engineer together, built his works
across the cold streams and birds of
varied plumage sang through the day
and night around them. With all that
there was to attract settlers, our first
white pioneers were bold men and
women to settle here.
South Carolina had its race prob
lem in those days also ,and then it
was red. The Enoree river was the
line between the Cherokees and the
whole settlement and the travel of a
few hours would bring the Indians
among them Within single night
the savage enemy might come and
perpetrate his deeds of blood and re-
turn before the dawn. The frequent
murders and robberies of the Indians
led to the building of three forts; one
of these was on the Fair Forest.
They were block houses consisting of
a few log cabins, notched down so
closely and otherwise secured as to
be impervious to rifle ball, save at
the port holes.
| In the spring and summer of 1776
the Indians exceedingly troubled our
people on the Tiger river. The fam
lilies had to live in the forts. When
they did work they carried their rifles
to the field and while some laborcd
others watched as sentinels. Not
withstanding this care many lives
were lost. In some few instances
whole families were found murdered
and scalped and were buried in the
same grave, without coffin or shroud
One of these massacres was that of
the Hampton family in Spartanburg
district. 1t was the family Of Wade
/ Concluded on page 81.