Existing comment:
Gouedy Trail and Charleston Road
The Gouedy trail is a 1.5-mile nature path that takes you through the woods and into a lesser known for historically significant part of the park. This route passes the presumed location of Robert Gouedy's trading post, established in 1751, and the archaeological remains of Fort Ninety Six. It also leads you into an unmarked cemetery, where body-length depressions in the earth and rough stone markers indicate the final resting place of about 50 unnamed people perhaps from the colonial era. The old Charleston Road intersects this trail. One of the oldest Indian trails in upper South Carolina, and later a major colonial route between the town and the coast, it is sunken from are and use. Walking the Gouedy Trail allows you to see nature as the Indians and the first settlers did, and conveys a sense of what life was like here in the 1700s.
Cherokee Attacks of 1760
In 1759 and 1760 Cherokee raids threatened the settlers of Ninety Six. Much of the violence was generated by a larger conflict between France and England, known as the French and Indian War. In late 1759, Royal Governor William Henry Lyttelton arrived here with militia, occupied Gouedy's trading post, and converted it into a fort to protect local settlers. The fort was attacked twice by the Cherokee, on February 3 and March 3, 1760. In the March attack, 250 Cherokee warriors besieged the fort for 36 hours, but the garrison held strong. |