The Wherry Plantation – Lewis Turnout Community of Chester, S.C.

“A beautiful historic Chester County home nearly lost to fire and vandalism.”

2512 Saluda Road

R&R HISTORY LINK: The Colonial Saluda Road – Trail

City Directories and History:  One of Chester’s outstanding pieces of antebellum architecture is the Wherry Home, which has been carefully restored and preserve not far from it’s original location on the old Saluda Road leading from Chester to the Nation Ford crossing on the Catawba River just east of Rock Hill.

“About 1768, Hugh Cooper and Robert Gill migrated to present Chester county, and settled on the South Fork of Fishing Creek. Hugh bought a 300 acre grant on both sides of the old “Saluda Road” (now Hwy. 72) from Samuel Porter, and later willed it to his daughter Elizabeth Ferguson, upon whose death it descended to her two daughters Sarah and Mary and their husbands Samuel Wherry and Lewis Hinkle, the latter selling their half to the former in 1811.”

(Information in part from: Chester County Heritage Book, Vol. I, Edt. by Collins – Knox, Published by the Chester Co Hist. Society – Jostens Printing, 1982)

Courtesy of the Swofford Collection – 2017

Following the death of long-term owner and resident, Claudia Wherry, the home was heavily damaged by fire prior to being relocated. Sources state the original log portion, the rear kitchen area, was built of logs in the early 19th century but it was well before this period in which the Wherry family made this their home on this parcel. As so many farmers did during the period, as prosperity arrived, they constructed a substantial dwelling as an attachment to the older house. Several dates have been given as to when the two story house was built.  The renowned historian William B. White, Jr. conveyed the following information, that he received from Mr. Wherry himself, “The house where he lived was built of logs (rear portion of his house)  in the year 1806 by his great-grandfather Samuel Wherry, whose wife was Sarah Ferguson. The front portion of the house was built in 1854  by James’s grandfather, James Ferguson Wherry, whose two wives were Mary Terissa Wallace (daughter of Jonathan and Elizabeth S. Dunlap Wallace) and Esther Neely (daughter of William and Eliza Gaston Neely). There were children by both wives. The Wherry place was large, made up of several different large tracts of land, some of which had been in the family since the Wherrys first came down from Pennsylvania to what is now Chester County about  the year 1764.

The original tract of 764 acres was settled by the original Samuel Wherry and wife Dorcas Coulter. This homesite was about one mile SW of the Wherry house near Lewis Turnout. You will be interested to know that the tract of land adjoining the original 1764  Wherry place, was settled and owned by Christopher Strait, who settled there about 1771-73. Two of the Straits married two of the Wherrys.

Witness to History: It has been reported, that from the naval storehouse in Charlotte, N.C., Mrs. Jefferson Davis’s escort procured large quantities of coffee, sugar, bacon, and flour, we started in the cars with the treasure and arrived at Chester, S. C. This was, I think, about the 12th of April. We here packed the money and papers in wagons and formed a train. (If this statement is accurate, it would have been here that the party would have left the train from Charlotte and begun their wagon trip across S.C. This is plausible in that the train trestle over the Catawba River at Nations Ford crossing was still intact at that time, not destroyed by Stoneman’s Confederate troops until later in the month.)  The statements goes on to say….  “We started the same day for Newberry, S. C. Mrs. Davis and family were provided by General Preston with an ambulance. Several ladies in our party–wives of officers–were in army wagons; the rest of the command were on foot…..”   Wm. H. Parker, Author – https://southernsentinel.wordpress.com/the-lost-confederate-treasure/

***If this is accurate data, which R&R can not verify at this time, Mrs. Davis’s troop train would have passed directly behind the Wherry’s plantation before arriving in Chester.

The Wherry home was moved to a new location in circa 1998 and has been beautifully restored and preserved. The original home sat facing the Saluda Road near the York and Chester County line. At the time of Mrs. Claudia Wherry’s death, the house remained in excellent condition and many of the log outbuilding could be found around the farm. Those not as large as many farms, the Wherry house was a fine example of the two story Greek Revival style so popular throughout the area prior to the Civil War. The South Carolina and Charlotte Railroad cut the Wherry property in half but opened a new world of economic and travel opportunities for the family. Note that in 1850 both Samuel and his son James Wherry’s family were living together on the property.

At the time of Mrs. Claudia Wherry’s estate sale in the late 1980’s, I was not only one of her country neighbors but also a friend. Standing in the yard with hundreds of individuals from the Carolinas all anxious to see what treasures might appear from her home, I became the owner for a short-time of what has been called the earliest youth chair from the region. The price paid was handsome, not exorbitant, but to a museum employee it was a fortune. The audience thought I had lost my mind and word quickly got to my wife, who was working at the Chester Hospital, that I had spent a months income on a youth chair. Little did anyone know besides me and a few others that the chair was worth six or eight times the amount I had paid for it and the chair was not to be mine personally but was to become a part of Historic Brattonsville’s

The historic Wherry youth chair. One of the oldest known chairs of the type in the Carolinas. Courtesy of the CHC of YC Photo #HB88_119

growing decorative arts collection. Within twenty-four hours of acquiring the chair, one North Carolina private collector offered to pay eight times the auction price, that is sight unseen. The chair remains in the permanent collection of the York County Cultural and Heritage Commission and is now kept in secure storage.

***The Google Map address is not accurate – the home sat across the street from the marked location, and has long been moved and restored a few miles from the location on Saluda Road.

Informative link: Mills Map of Chester County SC

THE WHERRY FAMILY IN YORK COUNTY by William B. White, Jr.

The historic Wherry Store at Lewis Turnout, ca. 1890s. Atwood Wherry – Owner and Post Master seated left. Courtesy of the Swofford Collection, 2017

(In 1958 Dr. John C. Bailey and William B. White, Jr. wrote The Sesquicentennial History of Hopewell Presbyterian Church, York County, S. C. (1808-1958). In the appendix to the book, pages 35-47, they included a genealogical sketch of the Wherry family. At that time they omitted two of the children of William and Elizabeth (Anderson) Wherry: Samuel and Matilda. Mr. White has added Samuel and Matilda and also has corrected and enlarged the original by additional information supplied to him by Mrs. Melinda Heyn of White House, TN. Mrs. Heyn’s assistance is greatly appreciated.)
William Wherry was born in what is now Chester County, S. C., on August 16, 1771, the son of Samuel and Dorcas (Coulter) Wherry. He died in York District, S. C., on March 8, 1850 and is buried in the cemetery at the site of the old Hopewell Presbyterian Church (1845), on the Nation Ford Road to Columbia. He was married to Elizabeth Anderson, who was born July 17,1768, and died February 2,1856. She was the daughter of Captain John Anderson and Jane (Neely) Anderson, both of whom are buried in the cemetery of the Bethesda Presbyterian Church, York County, S. C. Issue of William Wherry and his wife, Elizabeth Anderson:
A. Samuel Wherry – Born 1795-1799 in York County, S. C. Died 1830-1836 in Hickman County, Tennessee, to which place he had removed about 1824-1830. Married first to to ___________, who died about 1816-1822. They had only one child:
1. Samuel N. Wherry. Born 1815-1816 in York District (now County), S. C. Died 1837-1840 probably in Chester District (now County), S. C. Married Mary Ashcraft, who was born about 1816 and died in 1836, probably following the birth of her only child:
a. John Ashcraft Wherry. Born 1836. He married first to _________________• Issue:
(1) Samuel Wherry. He was an only child of this marriage. He ultimately removed to Holmes County, Mississippi.
John Ashcraft Wherry married second Nancy M. ______ • Issue:
(2) William A. Wherry. Living in Holmes Co., Mississippi, in 1884.
(3) Thomas J. Wherry. Living in Holmes Co., Mississippi, in 1884.
(4) Joel A. Wherry. Living in Holmes Co., Mississippi, in 1884.
Samuel Wherry married second Elizabeth Shirley (or Shurley). daughter of the Revolutionary War veteran Thaddeus Shirley (Shurley) of York District, S.C. This family lived near the old Nation Ford, on the Catawba River. Elizabeth Shirley was born in South Carolina in either 1800 or 1801. She died probably in Tennessee, date unknown at this writing. Samuel and Elizabeth (Shirley) Wherry were married in South Carolina about 1823-1824. Issue:
2. Erwin Wherry. Born in 1825.
3. James Wherry. Born 1826.
4. William C. Wherry. Born 1828-1830. Died after 1884, in which year he was living in Hickman County, Tennessee.1
5. Cornelius Wherry.
6. John Wherry.
1A recent letter states that this William C. Wherry was born in Hickman County, Tennessee, on November 22, 1828, and died in the same place on November 22, 1906. He was married ca. 1851 to Mary G. Twilla.
B. Jane Wherry. Born 1798. Died 1881. Married Andrew Shillinglaw.
C. Matilda Wherry. Born March 22, 1800. Died March 19, 1877. Married on August 7, 1828, to Samuel Gray Westbrook. Born March 6, 1797. Died on June 2, 1878, aged eighty-one years. Both are buried probably in Neely’s Creek Churchyard, but their gravestones have been lost Issue:
1. William Henry Westbrook. Born July 21, 1829. Died Feb 5, 1848. Buried at Neely’s Creek Churchyard.
2. John Wherry Westbrook. Born July 9, 1833. Died December 4, 1912. Married on December 9, 1858, to Helen Anne Westbrook. Born March 27, 1840. Died on December 13, 1891.
3. Alexander Westbrook. Born and died in 1838. Buried at Neely’s Creek Cemetery.
4. James Alexander Westbrook (known widely as “Squire Westbrook”). Born on November 25, 1842. Died on January 26, 1922. He was a veteran of the War Between the States, having served in the Confederate States Army. Married first to Eliza Jane Westbrook. Married second to Mary Jane Adams. Born on January 10, 1854. Died on June 25, 1952.
D. Elizabeth (“Betsy”) Wherry. Born on November 26, 1804. Died on December 18, 1882. Buried in the old Hopewell Presbyterian Cemetery, near Lesslie, S.C. She was never married.
E. William Coulter Wherry. Born on October 10, 1806. Died on June 19, 1854. Married to Margaret Drucilla Workman. Born October 13, 1814. Died on September 6, 1893. Both are buried in Hopewell Cemetery. She was the daughter of James S. Workman and Deborah (McConnell) Workman, of the Fishing Creek section of York District, S.C.
F. Andrew Wherry. Born in 1808. Died on April 19, 1879. Married to Anne H. Boyd.
G. Thomas Wherry. Born in 1811. Died ? Married Martha L. Workman, daughter of James S. and Deborah (McConnell) Workman. This family removed to the West about the year 1870, selling their lands in the Neely’s Creek section to A. J. Walker.  Information courtesy of the YCGHS Magazine, December 1993

Wherry house in 2017 – R&R Photo

Interior sections of the Moffatt House – Rear staircase section.

Interior sections of the Moffatt House – Rear of Wherry Home

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R&R HISTORY LINK: the 1854 Colton Map of Chester Co., S.C.

R&R HISTORY LINK: the old Gill House nearby history…

R&R HISTORY LINK: the old Moffatt House was moved to this location…

Please enjoy this structure and all those listed in Roots and Recall. But remember each is private property. So view them from a distance or from a public area such as the sidewalk or public road.

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GREAT PHILADELPHIA ROAD INTO THE CAROLINAS:

The Saluda Road into and through Chester County is considered a part of the historic wagon road which stretched on to Newberry and then Augusta.

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