That journal and additional research by Mr. Ferry Gettys of Rock Hill proved that the Tryon Courthouse
was at the home of Charles and Susannah McLean at the head of Bullocks Creek in the years 1769,
1770 and 1771.
TRYON (N.C.) COURTHOUSE IN YORK COUNTY
City Directories and History: Back in 1772 present-day York County was mostly in South Carolina but a considerable portion, 11 miles deep, was a part of Tryon County, North Carolina. Not only was the area in North Carolina, York County was the site of the Tryon County, North Carolina courthouse. Originally, there was only the province of Carolina. Then in 1729 the two colonies were separated and the crown ordered a boundary line to be surveyed. The first attempt stopped in 1734 before it reached the 35th parallel line as instructed. After the French and Indian Wars ended in 1763, another attempt was made to draw the boundary line. The Catawba Indian reservation would be entirely in South Carolina. The surveyors were too far south and stopped at a spot which now is at the right angle line separating Lancaster County, South Carolina and Union County, North Carolina.
In 1772 they tried again. Using the old Salisbury to Camden road, the survey party headed north and crossed Sugar Creek at the northern coma* of the Catawba Indian lands. Gen. William Moultrie, who headed the South Carolina surveyors, noted in his journal that the land was good, “…the people very thickly settled close to the Indian Line, some of their houses almost upon it They have an advantage that they have a fine range for their cattle, which in all probability will continue many years until the Catawbas are extinct or bought out.” At latitude 35 – 8, Moultrie reported that the two survey teams, representing both colonies, set their compasses together and began their westward course. When the survey was completed and accepted in London, South Carolina had gained west of the Catawba river the 11 miles that she had lost in 1763 on the east side of the Catawba river. Henceforth, the northern part of York County would be called the “New Acquisition.”
Tryon County, North Carolina had only been in existence for three years. Its courthouse and jail happened to have been located in the New Acquisition. But exactly where? Old court records seldom give details. It was a time when land was plentiful and surveyors might mark comers with notations such as “dead chesnut” or “rock in stream.” Mapmakers might place a site 20, even 50, miles from its actual location. Mouzon’s map did not show the courthouse. In 1961 the York County Historical Commission decided to place a marker on the Tryon Courthouse site. A local historian, W. J. Davis of Clover, was keenly interested in the matter, and was asked by the commission to chair the site search. Davis said that he was shown the spot 35-40 years before and was not at all sure that he could relocate it Uncle Jake Falls, an ex-slave had shown him the site in 1914. After much effort, Davis and the party located the spot three-fourths of a mile south of Henry’s Knob. As it later turned out, they had not found the courthouse but instead had located die old jail site which was located on William Henry’s land.
The true location of the courthouse has been proven through a discovery made by Elmer Oris Parker while he was an assistant in the Old Military Records Division of the National Archives. He found an old journal kept by private Arthur Faires while a part of the Cherokee expedition in the summer of 1776. The crucial line was – “We marched from Cap’t Clintons to William Halls at the Court House and Campt”. From that journal and with additional research done by Ferry Gettys of Rock Hill, it has definitely been proven that the Tryon Courthouse was located at the home of Charles and Susannah McLean at the head of Bullocks Creek in the years 1769, 1770, and 1771.
In May 1982 the Tryon Courthouse marker was moved two miles further south on S.C. 161. (The above article by Louise Pettus was originally printed in The York Observer, a supplement of the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, May 30, 1986.)
EXCERPTS FROM AN ARTICLE BY FERRY H. GETTYS – A FRIEND OF YORK COUNTY HISTORY
I believe the Bullocks Creek location is the correct site of the Old Tryon Courthouse, because of the following evidence:
On June 13, 1766 Charles McLean bought from William Simonston 270 acres on the head of Bullocks Creek (Meck. Deed Bk I, p. 248). This tract joined the one he had recently sold on Allison Creek to John Fondren, and it was here that Charles and Susannah McLean lived and had the Court held in their home for the first three years of the Tryon County’s existence, 1769-71…. On June 11, 1774 William Hall bought this 270 acre tract from Charles McLean. (Charleston Deed Bk. L-4, p. 158).
As noted above by Pettus and credited to Mr. Gettys, during the Cherokee Expedition, private Arthur Faries stated on July 8, 1776 “he camped at William Hall’s at the Court House.”
Note: Due to the excellent work of Elmer O. Parker, with Ferry Getty’s research, he was able to draw the exact location of the McLean property, located at what today is the corner of Crossland Road and the Kings Mount Highway. Approved by the York County Historical Commission and the S.C. Dept. of Archives, this is where the correct location of the old Tryon Courthouse once stood.
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