Brief History of Lexington County South Carolina

Brief History of Lexington County South Carolina

Lexington County was formed in 1804 from the old Orangeburg District. The county name was in honor of the Revolutionary War battle of the same name. (Lexington, Mass.) Granby was the original county seat (just south of where Cayce is now located.) After problems with flooding the county seat was moved in 1820 to present day Lexington.

The town of Lexington is a “descendant” of sorts of the township of Saxe-Gotha which was laid out encompassing most of present day Lexington County. The idea with laying out the Royal Townships was to encourage settlement of the “back country”. The Colonial government of King George II established 11 of these Royal Townships in South Carolina. Of course, one reason as stated was the encouragement of settlement of the back country, but the main motive was to create more of a buffer between the low country plantations and powerful indian tribes to the west.

Two very important indian trails went through what has become Lexington County, Cherokee Path and Occaneechi Path. US Highway 1 roughly follows Occaneechi Path and US 378 approximates the trail of Cherokee Path.

1 mile to the east of Lexington was the location of the Battle of Tarrar Springs in the Revolutionary War (November 16, 1781).

The town suffered tremendous loss of buildings in 1865 under the occupation of forces under the command of Gen. Sherman (Lexington was under control of the army guarding the Western Flank of Shermans troops.) Most businesses and homes, the county jail and courthouse and St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church were all burned.

Lexington County houses the Lexington County Museum which illustrates life around the turn of the 18th century. There are 15 buildings on the property including the Lexington Post Office (first building constructed in Lexington, SC.) The John Fox farmhouse is included in the collection as well. In addition to the buildings there are many items in the collection that would have been common to day to day life in the ante-bellum era.