City Directories and History: A lovely old home near Gross Hill associated with the Nance and McKittrick families.
“To the north of Bush River came the family of Nances late in the 1700’s. Major Frederick Nance, it is thought, was the first of the family to come to this area from Amelia County, Virginia. He held numerous offices in Newberry County and in the state of South Carolina. In 1808, Nance was Lieutenant-Governor and in 1816 he was appointed the Elector of President for the Congressional District consisting of Newberry, Fairfield and Laurens counties. It is said he voted for James Monroe for president. Major Nance was the great-great-grandfather of Mary Nance Owings, wife of T. C. Owings, of West Main Street, Laurens. A son of Major Frederick Nance, a second Frederick, was married to Margaret Williams, granddaughter of Colonel James Williams of Revolutionary War fame.
The third Frederick Nance built the old Nance home in 1847 below Cross Hill near Piedmont Church and about two miles from the cemetery of the family of Colonel James Williams. Mrs. Leland Bolt of Portland, Oregon, tells us that in the cemetery are the graves of Frederick Nance and his wife Margaret Williams Nance.
This house is said to have been one of the finest in the country. A wrought iron fence enclosed the spacious grounds planted in many imported shrubs and trees. The fence, molded in England, held the Nance heraldic emblem on every other post and a palmetto tree on the remaining ones. A part of this fence is now used to enclose the yard of the Woodrow Wilson Memorial in Columbia, South Carolina.”
Information from: The Laurens County Sketchbook, Author – J.S. Bolick, 1973
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