District is a former judicial district in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

South Carolina South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...

. It existed as a district from July 29, 1769 to December 31, 1799. The court house and jail for Ninety-Six District were in Ninety Six.

Colonial period

In the colonial period, the land around the coast was divided into parishes corresponding to the parishes of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

. There were also several counties that had judicial and electoral functions. As people settled the backcountry, judicial districts and additional counties were organized. This structure continued and grew after the Revolutionary War. In 1798, all counties were re-identified as "elective districts" to be effective on January 1, 1800. In 1868, the districts were converted back to counties. The South Carolina Department of Archives and History has maps that show the boundaries of counties, districts, and parishes starting in 1682. Ninety-Six District was created on July 29, 1769, as the most western of the seven original districts within the

Province of South Carolina The Province of South Carolina, originally known as Clarendon Province, was a province of the Kingdom of Great Britain that existed in North America from 1712 to 1776. It was one of the five Southern colonies and one of the Thirteen Colonies i ...

. Its boundaries included the current

Abbeville Abbeville (; ; ) is a commune in the Somme department and in Hauts-de-France region in northern France. It is the of one of the arrondissements of Somme. Located on the river Somme, it was the capital of Ponthieu. Geography Location A ...

, McCormick, Edgefield, Saluda,

Greenwood Green wood is unseasoned wood. Greenwood or Green wood may also refer to: People * Greenwood (surname) Settlements Australia * Greenwood, Queensland, a locality in the Toowoomba Region * Greenwood, Western Australia, a suburb of Perth ...

, Laurens, Union, and

Spartanburg Spartanburg is a city in and the county seat of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States. The city had a population of 38,732 as of the 2020 census, making it the 11th-most populous city in the state. The Office of Management and Budg ...

counties; much of

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

and

Newberry Newberry is a surname, a variant of Newbury. Notable people with the surname include: * Booker Newberry III (1956–2023), American singer and keyboardist * Brennan Newberry (born, 1990), American professional stock car racing driver * Brian Ne ...

counties; and small parts of Aiken and Greenville counties. The lands further west and on the other side of the Appalachian Mountains were still

homelands, which the British Crown had tried to protect from colonial encroachment by the

Royal Proclamation of 1763 The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by British King George III on 7 October 1763. It followed the Treaty of Paris (1763), which formally ended the Seven Years' War and transferred French territory in North America to Great Britain. The ...

. They continued to allow traders or travelers in the area. The westward expansion of the borders of the

Province of North Carolina The Province of North Carolina, originally known as the Albemarle Settlements, was a proprietary colony and later royal colony of Great Britain that existed in North America from 1712 to 1776.(p. 80) It was one of the five Southern col ...

and the

Colony of Virginia The Colony of Virginia was a British Empire, British colonial settlement in North America from 1606 to 1776. The first effort to create an English settlement in the area was chartered in 1584 and established in 1585; the resulting Roanoke Colo ...

(then including present-day Kentucky) were confirmed by the 1770

Treaty of Lochaber The Treaty of Lochaber was signed in South Carolina on 18 October 1770 by British representative John Stuart and the Cherokee people, fixing the boundary for the western limit of the colonial frontier settlements of Virginia and North Carolina. ...

with the Cherokee. Some 1000 Cherokee were hosted by Alexander Cameron at Lochabar Plantation in the Ninety-Six District. Due to poor surveying,

Tryon County, North Carolina Tryon County is a former county which was located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It was formed in 1768 from the part of Mecklenburg County west of the Catawba River, although the legislative act that created it did not become effective unti ...

infringed on much of its northern boundaries through the 1770s.

Divisions

As a result of the 1785 Act, districts in South Carolina were further subdivided into counties. These counties were responsible for maintaining court houses, as part of the larger judicial districts from which they were formed. The Ninety-Six District was given the counties of

, Edgefield, Laurens,

, and Union. On February 19, 1791, the Ninety-Six District lost the land in the current Union,

counties and the portion of

county within the district in the formation of Pinckney District.

Disestablishment

On January 1, 1800, Ninety-Six District was abolished and replaced by the

, Edgefield, Greenville, Laurens, and

Districts.DenBoer, Gordon, and Thorne, Kathryn Ford, ''South Carolina Atlas of Historical County Boundaries'', Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1997, p. 168, .

Notable inhabitants

* James Augustus Black, (1793–1848),

United States Congressman The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of the ...

from South Carolina. * Bloody Bill Cunningham, (Major William Cunningham) (1756 –1787), was an officer in the Loyalist Militia who conducted a bloody campaign in Ninety-Six District in the fall of 1781.

Present day

The Old 96 District Tourism Commission was formed to promote tourism in five of the counties that were formed from the original district - Abbeville, Edgefield, Greenwood, Laurens, and McCormick.

References

External links