Andrew Pickens (1739-1817), for whom Pickens County and its county seat were named, was a general in the American Revolution, a state legislator, and a U.S. Congressman. The Pickens family arrived in the Carolina backcountry in the mid-18th century. He married Rebecca Calhoun in 1765 and became a trader on a Cherokee path near Abbeville. He and his family survived the Cherokee War and then were drawn into the war for independence from Great Britain. After the war, finding Abbeville too crowded, he moved north to the area of the Pendleton District that would later be divided into Oconee and Pickens Counties in 1868. He died at his home near Tamassee, South Carolina, in 1817. The Hagood-Mauldin House, an antebellum home, was moved to new Pickens and serves as the Irma Morris Museum of Fine Arts. The Pleasant-Alexander House, another antebellum structure and the most significant house in the town, was moved to High Falls Park, where it was reconstructed; an aerial view of the house and church was taken in 1966 before the house was moved and the land was flooded by Lake Keowee.