Hernando DeSoto in Georgia

Hernando de Soto, born ca. 1500, nobleman, conquistador, Governor of Cuba, with rights to conquer Florida, traveled in 1540 through what later became Georgia on an expedition to find gold. His exact route is unknown and certain landmarks mentioned by ...

Congregation of the Dead

On January 27, 1777, Deborah Norris wrote to her friend Sally Wister of a "shocking sight." Large pits are dug in the negroes burying ground (Washington Square), and forty or fifty (soldiers) coffins are put in the same hole.

Throughout ...

Horton House Historic Site

the French Emigre'

By the end of the 18th century, William

Horton's small farm had become a large and

prosperous plantation. After Horton's death, the

island had several owners prior to the arrival

of Christophe Anne Poulain du Bignon in 1791.

Christophe du Bignon was ...

The Battle of Harris Farm

Final Battle Around Spotsylvania Court House

From May 8-18, 1864, Union troops battered Gen. Robert E. Lee's lines at Spotsylvania Court House. Unable to defeat the Confederates by direct assault, Union commander Ulysses S. Grant determined to head south, drawing Lee ...

South Carolina's First National Bank

This historic site, home of South Carolina's first nationally charted bank in 1873, has served as the cornerstone of the spirit of community banking in Greenville ever since. Carolina First Bank is honored to uphold the banking heritage that puts ...

North 4th Street

Original Hotel Victor

The Original Hotel Victor was built by the Woods family in 1894 at the corner of 4th and Victor Avenue – where JET Service now stands. While digging the hotel foundation workmen discovered a rich gold bearing vein ...

Linked in Memory

A statue of the most famous American, George Washington, stands near the Square's center. It keeps a vigil at the tomb of an unknown soldier who died during the War for Independence. Revolution linked them in life. This shrine joins ...

Sumter's Court Houses

(Front text)

By Act of 1798, Commissioners were named "To ascertain and fix upon the most central place for the erection of a court house in the District of Sumter", and meanwhile "to fix upon a proper place for the ...

Sorrow and Joy

Until the 19th century this was often a sorrowful place. Many people knew it as a potters field, a "publick burying place for all strangers," for soldiers, sailors, convicts, and the "destitute whose remains are walked over." A lonely Acadian ...

Goose Creek / City of Goose Creek

(Front text)

Goose Creek

This area has been called Goose Creek since the late 17th century. For almost 200 years after the Lords Proprietors granted large tracts to English, French Huguenot, and other planters, their plantations dominated the landscape. After the ...