Orangeburgh District

Orangeburghplats.com

Land Research

Orangeburgh District, South Carolina

Land Mapping Project

Background

I have been collecting survey plats for land in Orangeburgh District since 1999. I work primarily with colonial and state plats but also use material from any other sources I can locate. My first area of focus was the land between the North and South Forks of the Edisto River but I've now expanded my work to include all of Orangeburgh District as it existed between about 1804 and 1868.

Frequently Asked Questions

1) What were the boundaries of Orangeburgh District?

2) How did the boundaries of Orangeburgh District change over time?

3) What areas of Orangeburgh District am I mapping?

4) What land records are available for this area?

1) What were the boundaries of Orangeburgh District? In 1768 the colonial government established Orangeburgh District as a judicial district with a courthouse in Orangeburgh. It was a huge area stretching from the Savannah River on the southwest to the Santee River on the northeast. On the southeast it adjoined Charleston and Beaufort Districts whose borders were approximately 50 miles inland from the coast. The northwestern boundary reached Silver Bluff on the Savannah River to the mouth of Rocky Creek on the Saluda River and on over to the Broad River. Orangeburgh District included the townships of Amelia, Orangeburgh, Saxe Gotha and part of New Windsor Township as well as a great deal of land that was not in any designated township.

2) How did the boundaries of Orangeburgh District change over time? In 1803 Barnwell District was created from the lower part of Orangeburgh District. This was accomplished by making the South Edisto River, rather than the Savannah River, the new southwestern boundary of Orangeburgh District. In 1804 Lexington District was created out of a large portion of the northwestern section of Orangeburgh District. This still left a huge area of land that included all of what is now the modern county of Orangeburg, most of modern Calhoun County and some of Aiken County. There were a few more minor modifications to the boundaries of Orangeburgh District in 1832. In 1868 the district designations were done away with and counties were formed.

3) What areas of Orangeburgh District am I mapping? I began this project by trying to map all of the land grants between the North and South Forks of the Edisto River from where the two forks of the river come together all the way back up as far as Perry and Wagener in modern day Aiken County. This area was all in Orangeburgh District through 1868. It has often been referred to as the Forks section and I use that term to refer to the mapping of that area. When I received an offer of help for obtaining plats for the area north of the North (Fork of the) Edisto, I began mapping that section. This area was historically referred to as above Orangeburgh Township. As I worked with some of the plats that were actually in Orangeburgh Township, I realized that they needed to be mapped as a reference point for any other work in the area. Since publishing my initial study of the township (see Publications Available), I have been doing some work in the area below Orangeburgh Township in addition to continuing my work in the other areas including Amelia Township.

4) What land records are available for this area? The colonial government of South Carolina claimed all of the land in this area before it was settled. The land was given out as grants to encourage settlement in the area and occasionally for services rendered to the government. Almost all of the plats for these colonial grants survive and are available at the state archives in Columbia. The state continued making grants after the Revolution and these plats are also available at the archives. Some of the state grants were for land that was still vacant but many of them seem to be for land that had been previously granted, although this is not usually indicated on the plat. Once an individual received a grant of land, any further records of land transactions were supposed to be recorded at the courthouse. Until about 1780 this meant the courthouse in Charleston. After that time it was the courthouse in Orangeburgh. Charleston courthouse records are available at the archives in Columbia but almost all of the courthouse records for Orangeburgh were lost in the Civil War. Some deeds for pre- Civil War transactions were rerecorded after the war. There are also scatterings of antebellum deeds in various manuscript collections. What all of this means is that the earliest land records for the area are available, as are the land records after 1865, but there is a huge gap in the middle. One of my goals for this project is to try to recreate some of that missing information.