Catawba Indian Memorial

Tradition holds that the Catawbas immigrated to this portion of South Carolina from Canada about 1600, numbering some 12,000. Although a war-like nation, they were ever friends of the white settlers, aiding and fighting with the Americans in the Revolution and with the Confederates in the Civil War. Wars with the Cherokees, Shawnees, and other nations, together with smallpox, greatly depleted their numbers. In 1764, the province of South Carolina allotted them 15 miles square in York and Lancaster Districts. About 1840, a new treaty was made in which the state bought all their land and afterward laid them off 700 acres on the west bank of the Eswa Tavora, or Catawba River, 6 miles south of Fort Mill, where the remnant, about 75, lived while receiving a small annuity from the state. The account also names some Catawbas who served in the Confederate Army, including Jeff Ayers, John Scott, Alex Timins, Bill Sanders, John Harris, Wm Canty, Billy George, Gilbert George, Jim Harris, Robt. Marsh, Bob Crawford, Nelson George, Peter Harris Jr., John Brown, John Sanders, Epp Harris, and Bob Head, and some noted Catawbas, including King Hagler, Gen. New-River, Gen. Ayers, Gen. Jim Kegg, Col. David Harris, Major John Joe, Cap. Billy George, Lieut. Phillip Kegg, Sallie New-River, Pollie Ayers, and Peter Harris. Peter Harris, made an orphan by the smallpox scourge, was raised by Kanahwa, received a pension for service in the Revolution of 1776, died at the Saratt Homestead at 70 years of age, and at his own request was buried in the family graveyard. It also records that Sam'l Elliott White and John McKee Spratt erected this memorial in 1900, with Spratt a descendant of Thos. "Kanahwa" Spratt and White a descendant of Wm. Elliott, a kinsman of Kanahwa, two of the first settlers in this portion of the Indian Land in 1755-60.

Fort Mill, South Carolina · United States