On July 25, 1780, local Patriots captured a convoy of British boats here while it was traveling from Cheraw to Georgetown. Wooden logs made to resemble cannon were mounted on the bluff, and when the boats appeared, Captain Tristram Thomas demanded unconditional surrender. At that signal, the Loyalist escort joined the Patriots and helped make prisoners of the British troops. The River Road existed before the Revolution and served as a principal trading route from the upper Pee Dee basin and North Carolina Piedmont to Georgetown and Charleston on the coast. Following the course of the Great Pee Dee River, it was traveled extensively by Patriot forces during the Revolution, and early plantations lay along it.