Union
County was named for the old Union Church, erected in
1765 near the present day town of Union. The early
settlers in the area were mainly Scotch-Irish from
Virginia and Pennsylvania who began immigrating to the
South Carolina upcountry in the 1750s.
Before white settlers came to what is now Union County,
the area was part of the vast territory claimed by the
Cherokee Indians as hunting grounds. There is some
evidence the Cherokee may have inhabited parts of Union
County, as some early land grants in the county are
described as containing Indian cabins.
The first white settlers came to Union from Virginia in
1749 and settled on the Pacolet and Tyger rivers and at
Fairforest Creek. In the next few years, other families
came from Virginia and Pennsylvania and settled around
Brown's Creek and Cane Creek.
According to local historian Jeannette M. Christopher,
the years between 1763 and the beginning of the
Revolutionary War saw the greatest migration into Union
County. People built log cabins, cleared the fertile
river and creek bottoms and planted tobacco, flax, corn,
wheat and other grains and grazed their animals.
The city and county of Union got their names from the
old Union Church that stood not far from Monarch Mill.
For a long time the town of Union was known as
Unionville, with the name later being shortened. The
church was a place for people of the Methodist, Baptist
and Presbyterian faiths to worship.
During the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Musgrove
Mill took place on the Enoree River on August 18, 1780
at the junction of what is now Union, Spartanburg and
Laurens counties. Other battle sites in Union County
include Fishdam Ford and Blackstock Battlefield.
A district court was formed by the General Assembly in
the late 1700's in the upper part of the county in a new
town named Pinckneyville. Located near the junction of
the Broad and Pacolet rivers, Pinckneyville was to be
the "Charleston of the Upstate"and its streets
were named after streets in that city.
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