Wofford's Fort
Most
people
nowadays would say that the Indian Wars were something
that happened out West with the Apache and the Sioux.
However, in the time leading up to the Revolutionary
War, the area around Glendale
and Pacolet
was on America’s wild frontier.
When
the first white Europeans came to Lawson’s Fork Creek and
the Pacolet
River, American Indians had been living here and
using the land and water for thousands of years.
Eventually,
as
more and more settlers came to settle the SC Upstate,
the conflict between the settlers and the Indians grew
worse. The settlers in what is now Greenville,
Spartanburg and Cherokee Counties were building cabins
and farms on land that the Cherokees had always used for
hunting. The Catawba Indians also sometimes hunted in
this area. The soapstone
quarries
near both Pacolet
and Glendale had been used by
several Indian tribes for hundreds of years. There were
no permanent Cherokee towns at Glendale
or Pacolet.
The closest one was Socony. This was near the present
town of Pickens, about 50 miles away.
The British Government
had long tried to protect the Indians, and their
valuable trade, by establishing an “Indian Line” that
the settlers were supposed not to cross to claim land
and settle. That line ran between what are now the
towns of Spartanburg and Greenville near Greer.
Many
settlers
ignored the Line and built farms on Indian land anyway.
It all came to a head just at the beginning of the
American Revolution. In the summer of 1776, the
Cherokees rose up and attacked settlers all along the
frontier. Settlers including women and children were
killed within 25 miles of Pacolet and
Glendale along
the Tyger, Pacolet
and Broad Rivers.
The settlers built
several so called “forts” where people could gather
and be more secure than on their individual farms.
Many of these forts were not much more than
fortified log houses. One of these, Wofford’s
Fort, was constructed on Lawson’s
Fork Creek in
the vicinity of the Ironworks near what is now Glendale. This fort was built
sometime in 1776 by William Wofford. Some older forts,
like Fort
Thicketty in
nearby present day Cherokee County, had been built
earlier by the British Government as protection
against the Indians.
Wofford’s Fort was
important to the settlers in the area. When the word
came of a possible Indian attack the settlers would
hurry to the fort. Sometimes, they would have to stay
there for weeks at a time. Records exist that show
that Joseph Buffington, an ironworker, and his wife, Mary,
were staying at Wofford’s Fort when their seventh
child, Elizabeth was born. They had already been at
the fort for three weeks when the baby was born.
The
fort was also important for the use of the militia going
to fight the Cherokees. After the Cherokee Uprising, the
officials of the states of South Carolina, North
Carolina and Virginia called out the militia to wage war
on the Cherokees. Each state sent an army into different
parts of the Cherokee Nation to destroy the towns
and crops. The SC militia army was led by General Andrew
Williamson. His army had militia units from various
parts of the state. One of these was commanded by
Captain Peter Clinton of the York district. On their
march to the Indian territory they camped at Wofford’s
Fort. There, they got word that the Indians were
attacking Prince’s Fort, 15 miles away, in what is now
northwest Spartanburg County. They marched there the
next day.
Soon, they joined the rest of Williamson’s army
of about 1,000 men to lay waste to Cherokee towns and
crops. When the fighting was over, month’s later in
October, Captain Clinton and his men came back through
Wofford’s Fort and Grindal
Shoals on the way back to the York territory. One
of the soldiers marching with Clinton was named Arthur
Faires. He kept a diary of his adventures that can be
read at Fighting the
Cherokee.
This web site has been started as a
public service to share the story of Glendale.
See more information about Mary and her Glendale
connection at Mary McKinney
Teaster.