Ninety Six National Historic Site / Greenwood County

Ninety Six was a backcountry South Carolina town of unusual historical and archaeological significance whose name came from traders in the late 1700s who mistakenly believed it lay that many miles from the Cherokee village of Keowee. By the mid-1700s European colonists had found it a favorable place to settle despite increasing conflict with local Indians, and in 1760 Cherokees twice attacked Fort Ninety Six, which had been built for settlers' protection. Located at the crossroads of twelve roads and paths, the village reached its peak in the 1770s with a growing population, twelve houses, taverns, shops, and a newly constructed courthouse and jail. It became a major site in the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution: the first land battle south of New England was fought there in 1775, the British fortified the strategically important frontier town in 1780, and from May 22-June 18, 1781, Major General Nathanael Greene and one thousand patriot troops conducted the Revolutionary War's longest siege against five hundred fifty British loyalists defending Ninety Six. The earthen Star Fort, built with slave labor under British engineers in 1780 to eighteenth-century standards, was the strongest part of the British defenses, withstood the twenty-eight-day siege, and remains one of the best preserved British fortifications of the Revolutionary War. Because of its importance to the nation's founding, the site became part of the National Park Service in 1976.

Ninety Six, South Carolina · United States