South Carolina County Creation Dates and Parent Counties

From the beginnings of the Proprietors to present, the levels of government changed.

Proprietors Counties - 1682
In 1682, after the first hard years of settlement, the Proprietors ordered three counties laid out. Berkeley County, centering around Charleston, extended from the Stono River on the south to Seewee Creek (present-day Awendaw Creek) where it emptied into Bulls Bay on the north. Craven County lay north of Berkeley, and below Berkeley, Colleton extended to the Combahee River. Later, a fourth county, Granville, was laid out between the Combahee and the Savannah rivers.

Source

 * http://www.state.sc.us/scdah/guide/propco.htm

Parish
Throughout the colonial period, the small population and its limited legal needs kept most government, records keeping, and judicial activity confined to the municipal limits of Charleston. Parishes of the established Anglican Church served as election districts, and courts with jurisdiction over the entire colony sat in Charleston.

Source

 * http://www.state.sc.us/scdah/guide/parishes.htm

District 1769 -1784
Georgetown extended from the North Carolina line to the Santee. Charleston lay between the Santee and the Combahee. Beaufort sat between the Combahee and the Savannah. Northwest of Georgetown was the Cheraws District, bounded on the west by Lynches River; west of the Cheraws was the large district of Camden, bounded on the west by the river system of the Santee, Congaree, and Broad; south and west of Camden, two more large districts extended to the Savannah River--Orangeburg to the south, and Ninety-Six to the north.

Source

 * http://www.state.sc.us/scdah/guide/1769.htm

Act of 1785
The 1785 act gave the Cheraws District the counties of Chesterfield, Marlboro, and Darlington; it divided Camden District into York, Chester, Fairfield, Lancaster, Richland, Claremont, and Clarendon counties. It gave Ninety-Six District the counties of Spartanburg, Union, Laurens, Newberry, Abbeville, and Edgefield. And it divided Orangeburg District into Orange, Lewisburg, Lexington, and Winton (an early version of Barnwell) counties.

Source

 * http://www.state.sc.us/scdah/guide/1785.htm

Districts and Counties, 1786-1790
In 1786, part of the unorganized Indian land, which had been taken from the Cherokee Indians during the American Revolution and lay northwest of Ninety-Six District, became Greenville County; in 1789, the remainder of the Indian land became Pendleton County. A few counties had been set out in the three Low Country districts of Georgetown, Charleston, and Beaufort, but there, where the old parish system was well established, the counties failed to take root.

Source

 * http://www.state.sc.us/scdah/guide/1786.htm