(Mary Long) In Pinckneyville, a small section of Union County, we find the ruins of one of South Carolina's early establishments for law and order... the courthouse.

Administrative decisions were made here.

The courthouse also provided protection by the high sheriff from murderers, horse thieves, and renegades, and there are other facts about Pinckneyville you will find interesting.

This is Waxhaw Presbyterian Church, located in Lancaster County.

It is in this area where the Scotch-Irish of the early eighteenth century began settlement in the colony of South Carolina.

Here is also where we find the grave marker in memory of Andrew Jackson Sr., father of the seventh President of our country, Andrew Jackson.

Other members of his family are also buried here, along with pioneers of engineering and education.

Join us as we travel to two crossroads in history... in Union County at Pinckneyville and in Lancaster County at Waxhaw Presbyterian Church.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ This is a quiet place... a place of peace, solitude, memories.

Here you have only nature, the birds, and a sense that spring will soon be here.

We are at the Waxhaw Presbyterian Church, the oldest settlement of the Scotch-Irish in this area of South Carolina.

The church was established in 1755, originally a log church used for devotions by the people of the entire area, as a gathering place for the community when information needed to be dispersed, and as a field hospital for the wounded of the Revolutionary War.

Because of that, the original building was burned by the British.

With imagination you can see in the churchyard the entire span of American history.

Here is the resting place of men, women, and children whose lives encompassed th e entire span of our country.

We have veterans from every war in which our country has engaged.

We also have many remarkable people I would like to tell you about.

Come with me into the churchyard.

This is the oldest part of the cemetery.

Many graves are marked simply by stones from the Catawba River.

There are some granite pieces from the early 1800s.

Here, under such a stone as this, was buried Andrew Jackson Sr.

He was born in Ireland.

Some records think that he was born onboard ship coming from Ireland.

However, he grew to manhood in New England, moved South, and married Elizabeth Hutchison, one of five sisters who came also from Ireland.

The Hutchison sisters married men who settled in the Waxhaws.

In due course, two sons were born to the Jacksons, and unfortunately, Andrew died.

His coffin was placed on a cart, and with Elizabeth and several men to accomplish the internment, they set out for the Waxhaw Presbyterian Church.

It was in February... cold, snowy, very bitter.

and as the cart would pass various houses, men would come out and offer liquid libation to the gentlemen of the funeral cortège.

When they finally arrived here at the Waxhaw Church, there was no coffin in the cart.

The men had to retrace three miles to find the coffin in a ditch.

It was placed on the wagon and brought here, where a tired Elizabeth, the minister, and the men of the cortège attended the internment.

Here, under a stone for many years, has been Andrew Jackson Sr., but later his grave was marked.

[no audio] This monument was erected by the Catawba Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Rock Hill in the 1930s to mark the resting place of Andrew Jackson Sr.

The night he was interred in this cemetery, Elizabeth returned to the home of her sister, Anne.

Andrew Jackson Jr. was born that night.

Twelve years later, a copy of the Declaration of Independence came to the Waxhaws, and Andrew Jackson read it to the assembled people.

We like to think he read it from the steps of the Waxhaw Presbyterian Church.

[no audio] This rectangular stone wall was built to enclose three graves of the family of Robert Leckie.

There is no entrance.

Robert Leckie was the construction engineer for the Landsford Canal, a very important waterway in this area designed by Robert Mills, the architect of the Washington Monument.

Mr. Leckie imported stonemasons from Scotland.

Everything was going be autifully in the construction when an epidemic of typhoid fever struck.

His wife and two children died in the epidemic.

Mr. Leckie brought them to the Waxhaws and buried them, enclosed within this wall so that-- as I was told the story he was so broken-hearted-- that whenever anyone looked upon their gravestones, they would have to bow their heads in sorrow and look downward.

[no audio] [footfalls] [no audio] This imposing place of four or five graves marked by a large, rectangular brick wall is the resting place of William Richardson Davie.

Here on the iron gate we have his coat of arms.

William Richardson Davie, a fascinating gentleman, had a most remarkable life.

When he was seven years old, he came from Scotland to live with his minister uncle, William Richardson, and to attend the Waxhaw Academy.

In 1776, he graduated in law from Princeton University and came home to the Waxhaws to fight in the American Revolution on the side of the Patriots.

He was in many skirmishes and at one time was the only real officer in South Carolina.

His commission came from North Carolina.

After the war he became a judge.

He was on the committee that selected the site for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Anybody from Chapel Hill will remember Davie Poplar, the ancient tree in the old quadrangle.

Mr. Davie not only helped select the site for the oldest state university, he also helped select the faculty and curriculum.

Later he became governor of North Carolina, ambassador to France, representing the baby United States of America under President John Adams.

He retired in 1805 from public office and came to his home near Landsford Canal, the home called Tivoli, which he loved so very much.

He died there in the 1820s and is buried here in this beautiful memorial.

As I understand it, this memorial has been given to the University of North Carolina in memory of William Richardson Davie.

[no audio] We have come to the memorial to Elizabeth Hutchison Jackson, mother of Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the United States.

Elizabeth was one of the five Hutchison sisters who were born in Ireland, immigrated to the colonies, married gentlemen who eventually settled together in this area.

With her husband and two small children, she came by wagon and mules to this area to found a small farm.

She arrived here in... 1765.

This is not a grave marker.

This is a memorial, and on one side of the memorial it says, "It was her zeal for accomplishment "that made handicaps seem to resolve themselves "in her favor "which enabled them to endure the hardships of the Great Wagon Road to the garden of the Waxhaws."

In the garden of the Waxhaws, her son Andrew was born the night her husband, Andrew Sr., was buried, 1767.

Elizabeth and her three sons continued to make their home with her sister, Anne Hutchison Crawford, and her hands and feet were needed to help with the work around the homestead.

The Crawford boys and the Jackson boys were raised as brothers, and all were affected when the American Revolution became so imminent and later so terrible in these parts.

Her son, Hugh... Jackson, died at age 17... in 1779.

Robert Jackson died in 1781, age 16.

We forget that so many of our soldiers in so many wars have been so very, very young.

Elizabeth Jackson heard that her nephews, the Crawford boys, had been taken prisoner aboard a prison ship in Charleston Harbor.

Not only had word come that the Crawford boys were prisoners, but also, there was a very severe outbreak of smallpox.

At that time, without personal nursing, the prisoners were liable to die a very dreadful, dreadful death.

So Elizabeth Jackson and two other ladies of the Waxhaws filled a wagon with medical supplies, blankets, warm clothing, and they left alone to attend the sick on these prison ships, hoping that someday the Crawford boys could return to their home.

Elizabeth said to her son, Andrew, 14 years old, as she left... "Make friends by being honest.

"Keep them by being steadfast.

"Never tell a lie nor take what is not your own, nor sue for slander."

Elizabeth gave her son Andrew his father's rifle, and she left.

Among many others, she died of the smallpox and was buried in a group grave somewhere near Charleston.

Therefore, this is a memorial to her.

Yes, the Waxhaw Church is a quiet place, a place of solitude, a place for remembering... for remembering that what we are today is the result of those who have gone before us.

It's a place to listen to the birds and to know that spring is coming and to wait for the changing of the seasons.

♪ [acoustic guitar music] ♪ [birds chirping] ♪ [birds chirping] ♪ [birds chirping] ♪ [birds chirping] ♪ [birds chirping] ♪ [birds chirping] ♪ [birds chirping] Pinckneyville... once the seat of law and order in the Upcountry in the days when this was a frontier.

Today we see only ruins of a ghost town, which disappeared, almost, about 1850.

If we project our minds back into history, in 1791 the Upcountry was being inhabited so that law had to be brought to this area.

The Assembly decided to spend the grand sum of 1,300 pounds to build a courthouse and a jail.

This was like a circuit court at that time and was created to accommodate a new district, taking the counties of York, Chester, Union, and Spartanburg from the old Old Ninety Six District and old Chester District to form a new way to control the government.

There was a high sheriff, and all the sheriffs reported to him.

Therefore, this was an extremely important place for the accommodation of the settlers which were here and were entering this area of the Upcountry.

From 1791 to 1800, this became a very important little village.

However, today we see only ruins.

Until Easter Sunday of 1983, there was a roof on this building of the courthouse, but then it was deliberately fired, and as you see from graffiti and the weathering of time, we have only walls and bricks to remind us of this once very important community.

Pinckneyville was started arbitrarily in the wilderness on the west bank of the Broad River hoping that the Broad River here, just south of the Pacolet River-- the rivers would become areas of transportation and that this section of upper Union County would thrive and develop.

The first foundations were laid too close to the river.

When a spring flood ruined everything, the commissioners decided to place the courthouse and jail on top of a nearby bluff.

It's been determined by archaeologists that this building is that of the courthouse, and among its interesting features are the Flemish bond of the brickwork and the double-shouldered chimney.

Both are typical of late eighteenth-century buildings.

The work was done by a Mr. James Bankhead, who later moved to Alabama.

He was one of the ancestors of the famous American actress Tallulah Bankhead.

In this building we have a very interesting feature, a type of jail called "the jug," and possibly, that's why we still have the term today.

There was a very small opening here.

Prisoners would be let down into the basement and evidently pulled up by rope when it was time to come before the judge.

These prisoners were not normally kept here but were kept in the jail, which we'll see in a little while.

The first court was held here in November of 1792, but the judge couldn't cross the river.

There was no tavern here.

The only place for visitors to stay was in a boardinghouse or tavern on the York County side of the Broad River.

People had to be ferried across.

During court the river rose, so the judge sent his servant to announce, "The judge says this court is closed, and you go home now."

Pinckneyville was never a large village.

It did receive a post office in 1795, and we don't believe too many people lived in this general area because they never built a church.

In order to go to church, they had to cross the Broad River and attend services in Bullock's Creek.

At Bullock's Creek there was a very interesting minister, a very alive, well-educated gentleman, Mr. James Alexander.

Everyone in the area attended his services at Bullock's Creek.

Indeed, here the Presbyterian Church hoped to found a school to be called the College of Alexandria, named in his honor.

Unfortunately, that never came to pass.

Sadly, there were many dreams for Pinckneyville which never really were finished.

Only a portion of the walls of the old jail is still standing.

Inside we can see some of the stucco with which, obviously, the courthouse and the jail were finished on the exterior as well as the interior.

We understand that, mainly, the bricks were sun-dried and had to be enforced with concrete.

On the outside edges, without concrete or stucco, the bricks would disintegrate through time.

This must have been a very interesting building, built in 1791.

However, we noticed that four years later, a complaint was made that the building had become too small for the comfort of the unfortunate prisoners here, which points out either that the designers had thought we were a very law-abiding area, or too many horse thieves, counterfeiters, murderers, and whatever had come into this area.

A very interesting story about Pinckneyville is that it was either the home of clockmakers or the dispersal point for clocks made at Bullock's Creek.

Thomas and Abbie Suggs brothers were very active in clockmaking, and one of their clocks can be seen today in the homestead at Brattonsville.

They evidently use this as a shipping point, either down the river or by stagecoach as it went south and west.

Seth Thomas, the famous clockmaker from Litchfield, Connecticut, owned property here, and we aren't aware whether he did or he did not make his clocks, but he was aware of Pinkneyville as a center for his industry.

(silence) in the middle 1790s, somewhere in this general area.

Thomas Taylor built a wooden tavern.

He evidently decided that all of the trade of the stagecoach should not be on the York County side of the river because the great stagecoach path from New York to Atlanta passed this way.

And so he put up his wooden building and accommodated the guests who were traveling, as well as the people who came to the court.

It said that when the stagecoach driver got to the ferry at Broad River, he would toot his horn very loudly to signal his coming and then a very short toot for the number of passengers that he was carrying.

And that warned the cook about how many people would be here for a meal, and the cook could so prepare.

However, it is also said that the chickens became so conditioned to the sound of the coach horn, that the minute that they heard it, they would run for their very lives rather than being in the pot for dinner.

Thomas Taylor as the other people who had made their homes here, were greatly affected when the court system was revamped in 1800 and the courthouse and jail were moved from Pinckneyville to Union.

That was the death of Pinckneyville as a judicial area.

However, life kept on and people appreciated the location.

In the early 1800s.

This site was proposed to Congress as the place where a military academy should be established.

A group of congressmen came to investigate the area because with Broad River, it was hoped that this would satisfy the needs not only for the Academy, but also for a water way whereby a naval group of young men could be trained.

However, in 1802, Congress passed the law, which placed the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York.

And once again, Pinckneyville was disappointed.

About this time, an arsenal was proposed for the South.

There were three.

One in the North.

One in the center of the area.

And the southernmost near Great Falls in Chester County.

Again, Pinckneyville was considered for the site of the arsenal, but lost it by one vote in Congress.

After 1800, Pinckneyville became very quiet and Thomas Taylor, the gentleman who built the tavern, turned to the growing of cotton.

And before his death in the 1830s, he became extremely wealthy.

He owned 4000 acres of land and was quite a wealthy, well-respected gentleman of the area.

However, about 1804, a George McMahan came from Ireland and bought the building, which had been the old courthouse and turned it into a home.

And nine years later, all of the government land here in Pinckneyville was to be sold at auction.

But the residents here were given first choice for purchase.

Taylor and McMahan fought continually over the purchase of land, the value of land.

And even after they had received what they had bid and paid for, they became mortal enemies, fighting each other through the courts and innumerable lawsuits.

And even at the end, there is a very interesting story.

Thomas Taylor and George McMahan continued their feud until the bitter end.

In his will, Thomas Taylor stated that he wanted his grave to be placed right outside George McMahan's home so that every time Mr. McMahan looked out of his door, even though Taylor was gone, that he would be reminded of his ancient enemy.

And so here we are by the gate of the enclosure, which has the tomb of Thomas Taylor.

And we wonder if McMahan felt that Taylor's ghost was with him until the end of his life.

Or perhaps Thomas Taylor's spirit is with us still.

Just an idea.

But Pinkneyville, although it became truly a ghost town in the 1850s, Pinkneyville has not been forgotten.

I would like to see with you a monument which was placed here in 1986.

The granite monument was placed by the Daughters of the American Revolution of Union County and reads the site of the Pinckneyville Courthouse 1791.

Unfortunately, the monument has been badly defaced by vandals.

But behind it is a magnificent old pecan tree which lifts its arms to the sky.

And if through imagination, we are very quiet, Perhaps we may hear the sounding of the coach horn as it approaches the ferry on Broad River waiting to cross to Pinckneyville.

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