The following article is by my friend, Bill Dollarhide, taken from his book, South Carolina Censuses & Substitute Name Lists, 1670-2008.
Prologue: The Carolinas have their roots from the era just after the English Civil War, when eight noblemen loyal to King Charles II were granted a large area of North America as payment for their support of the restoration of the Crown in England. English history during the colonial period is a necessary part of understanding American history. And, this timeline of historical events attempts to highlight the changes in political jurisdictions – it may prove useful for someone asking where records may be found toady. Charleston? Columbia? or London?
1497-1498. Italian explorer Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot), sailing under the commission of Henry VII of England, landed in 1497 on the island of Terra Nova, now called Newfoundland. In 1498, Cabot’s second trip to North America may have included visits along the coast of present North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. However, the historian who made this discovery, Dr. Alwyn Ruddock, died in 2005 after instructions to destroy all of her notes relating to Cabot’s voyages. Since 2009, the Cabot Project is an international and collaborative project to investigate the Bristol discovery voyages, and to reaffirm the revelations made by Dr. Ruddock.
1521-1526. Spaniard Francisco Gordillo was the first documented European to land on the shore of present South Carolina. He was followed in 1526 by another Spaniard, Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon, who founded the first European settlement on land now in the United States. The settlement was named San Miguel de Gualdape, had 600 settlers, but was abandoned after three month
1558. Elizabeth I became Queen of England. The early explorations of North America took place during her 45-year reign, the Elizabethan Era, or “Golden Age.” When Elizabeth I was crowned, England was nearly bankrupt, but during her reign, the English Empire expanded and thrived, and English culture flourished in Literature, Theatre, Music, and Architecture.
1584. Virginia. Sir Walter Raleigh claimed and named Virginia for the Virgin Queen, an area from present Chesapeake Bay to Florida, and everything “sea to sea” below a northwestern line to the North Pole.
1584-1590. Roanoke Colony. In 1584, Queen Elizabeth I granted to Sir Walter Raleigh a charter for the colonization of the entire area of North America. In 1585, the first group of settlers led by Sir Richard Grenville, established a colony at the north end of Roanoke Island (present Dare County, North Carolina). When new Governor White returned to Roanoke Island in August 1590, there was no trace of the colonists.
1603. England. James I became King of England, the first monarch to rule both England and Scotland. (He was James VI of Scotland since 1566). During his reign the first permanent English colonies were established in Virginia and New England. James I was also an advocate for the transportation of thousands of clan people living along the Scottish-English border to Ulster Province / Northern Ireland.
1606. Two joint stock companies were founded in 1606, both with royal charters issued by King James I for the purpose of establishing colonies in North America. The Virginia Company of London was given a land grant between Latitude 34° (Cape Fear) and Latitude 41° (Long Island Sound). The Virginia Company of Plymouth was founded with a similar land grant between Latitude 38° (Potomac River) and Latitude 45° (St. John River), which included a shared area with the London Company between Latitude 38° and Latitude 41°.
1607. April 26. Virginia. Three ships under the command of Capt. Christopher Newport sought shelter in Chesapeake Bay. The forced landing led to the founding of Jamestown on the James River, the first permanent English settlement, consisting of 104 men and boys. The Jamestown colony was led by Capt. John Smith and his cousin, Bartholomew Gosnold. A year later, about 100 new settlers arrived, finding only 38 survivors from the first group. In 1610, recently appointed governor of Virginia, Thomas West (Lord De La Warr) arrived at Jamestown to find only 60 settlers alive.
1623. Carolana. A royal charter for a colony named Carolana was granted by King James I to Sir Robert Heath. Due to the political climate in England, the charter would never be used. The name Carolana came from “Carolus,” Latin for Charles.
1625. England. Charles I became King of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Soon after taking office, Charles began to note a large number of non-conformists among his subjects. Along with his Archbishop, William Laud, the King began a campaign to purge his church of the largest group of non-conformists, the so-called Puritans, a militant Calvinist religious group attempting to purify the Church of England.
1629-1640. As a result of the Charles I campaign to purge non-conformists from the Church of England, large groups of people were disenfranchised. Charles I disbanded Parliament and ruled England alone for eleven years. The Puritans referred to this era as “the eleven years of tyranny.” It was during these eleven years that some 21,000 Puritan immigrants established the Massachusetts Bay Colony of North America.
1641. Virginia. Sir William Berkeley was appointed governor by Charles I. He served from 1642 to 1652 and again from 1660 to 1677. His brother Lord John Berkeley, was the first Proprietor of the East New Jersey colony, and both brothers were Lords Proprietors of the Province of Carolina. William Berkeley transformed the Virginia colony by emulating the culture of southwest England’s plantation system.
1642. English Civil War. When Parliament was restored in 1640, it quickly became dominated by the same Puritans who King Charles I had removed from the Church of England. Beginning in 1642, Royalist supporters were forced to fight the armies of the Puritan Parliament in the English Civil War. The English Colonies took sides: the Virginia colony favored the Royalist/Cavalier side, while the New England colonies were in support of the Parliamentarian/Puritan side. The Province of Maryland had earlier allowed all religious persuasions to settle in Maryland. During the English Civil War, Maryland granted free land as refuge to any Puritans from Virginia to settle there.
1645-1651. England. After his defeat and capture in 1645, Charles I refused to accept his captors’ demands for a constitutional monarchy, and briefly escaped captivity in 1647. While recaptured, his teenage son, Prince Charles, was able to marshal Scottish forces for the king. However, by 1648, Oliver Cromwell had consolidated the English opposition. King Charles I was tried, convicted, and beheaded for high treason in January 1649. The Civil War continued until 1651, when Oliver Cromwell, a Puritan, became Lord Protectorate, ruling the Commonwealth of England for the next seven years.
1650. Virginia (present North Carolina). The first settlements near Albemarle Sound were established by pioneers from tidewater Virginia. A small group of Quakers were included and began a larger migration of Quakers from Virginia into the Albemarle Sound region.
1658-1660. England. After Oliver Cromwell died in 1658, his son, Richard, was too weak politically to remain in power. In 1660, a new Parliament offered a restored English throne to the exiled Scottish King, son of Charles I, who accepted to become King Charles II.
1663. Carolina. Charles II granted eight noblemen a charter to Carolina, from Latitude 31° (present FL/GA line) to Latitude 35° (present GA/TN line). This was a repayment for their loyalty and support during the period following the Cromwell era . The eight noblemen were the members of Parliament who led the campaign to restore the English Crown. The eight became known as the Lords Proprietors. In 1665, the charter was extended north to the present NC/VA line to include the Albemarle Sound settlements,
1669-1670. Carolina (present South Caroline). In late 1669, three shiploads of colonists sailed from London, headed for Carolina. At Barbados, the ships were struck by a hurricane. The Albemarle was destroyed and the Port Royal and Carolina were badly damaged. In March 1670, the Carolina arrived at Sewee Bay, and temporarily anchored at the north end of Bull’s Island. In April, Charles Towne was founded as the capital of the Province of Carolina.
1682. Carolina. The first four counties of the Province of Carolina were created, named after Lords Proprietors Berkeley, Colleton, Craven, and Granville.
1707. England and Scotland merged into the United Kingdom of Great Britain. The English Colonies now became the British Colonies.
1712. North and South Carolina. The territory of the Province of Carolina since 1665 ran from about Latitude 31° to the present NC/VA line (36°30’), including the area of present Georgia. In 1712, the Lords Proprietors divided Carolina into North Carolina and South Carolina (proprietary provinces) on nearly the same division line as today, but the line was not surveyed for several more years. Each province had its own colonial governor, under the authority of the eight Lords Proprietors.
1717. The arrival of the first Scots-Irish immigrants to the British Colonies was via Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Alexandria, Norfolk, New Bern, and Charles Towne. The so-called Scots-Irish (or Ulster Scots) were former border clan people who had lived near the Scottish-English border for centuries. A good number of them had moved into areas of Northern Ireland in the early 1600s, and a mass migration to most of the British colonies of America began in 1717. By 1775, the Scots-Irish would outnumber all other British groups (Puritans, Cavaliers, or Quakers), by about 4 to 1.
1721. The Province of South Carolina became a Royal British Colony in 1721 (no longer a proprietary colony). The king appointed Sir Francis Nicholson as the Royal Governor.
1733. Province of Georgia Established. In 1733, a new royal charter for the Colony of Georgia was taken from the area of South Carolina, created from lands south of the Savannah River. Even with its remaining western claims, more than half of South Carolina’s area was lost to the Georgia colony.
1783-1786. South Carolina. Charles Towne was renamed Charleston in 1783. In 1786, the capital was moved from Charleston to Columbia.
1788. Mar 23. South Carolina became the 8th state in the Union, with the state capital at Columbia.
South Carolina in 1790. The map above shows in black, the districts, counties, and parishes used by the 1790 federal marshals/census takers. The 46 current counties of South Carolina are shown in white. The 1790 federal census employed the seven districts then existing, shown as bold lines on the map. Within the districts were differing census subdivisions, shown as lighter black lines: 1) Camden, Cheraws, and Ninety Six Districts used their county subdivisions. 2) Charleston and Georgetown Districts employed their parish bounds. Their counties of 1790 never functioned and are not shown on the map. 3) Beaufort District was not enumerated by subdivisions in 1790. Its counties of 1790 never functioned and are not shown on the map. 4) Orangeburg District had four active counties, but the census ignored them. Orangeburg for this one census was divided into North and South, shown as a dotted line on the map. This division was the road in the forks of the Edisto River from Edgefield County to the town of Orangeburg and then down the North Edisto and Edisto rivers to the Charleston District line. Map source: Page 297, Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses, 1790-1920.
South Carolina’s 1790 Census Problems
With a census day of August 2 (the first Monday in August 1790), the first census law gave each state nine months to complete the door-to-door census enumeration. If an assistant federal marshal (the census taker) showed up at a cabin on the 1st day of May 1791, he was supposed to record the number of persons living there as of the census day of 2 Aug 1790. Children born after the census day were not to be included, but any persons alive on the census day, even those who may have since died, were to be included in the count. As a head of household census, only the name of the head was recorded. If the head of house was alive on the census day, but died after the census day, his name would still be recorded. The census day was used to stop time and count the people alive on that day. But unique to South Carolina, time stood still for nine months, then another nine months.
South Carolina was the only state that could not complete its 1790 enumeration in nine months. The U.S. Marshal complained that he was having great difficulty finding people to take the job because of the resistance to the census being taken. A Charleston jury met to decide the fate of six persons who had “refused to render an account of persons in their households as required by the census act.” A South Carolina census taker was brought on trial for neglect of duty. He did not complete the census in his district. These and other problems led to South Carolina being granted an extension, and the census returns were dated 5 February 1792, a full eighteen months after the census day.
South Carolina Censuses
SC State Censuses. Several state censuses were taken in South Carolina, but very few of the census manuscripts exist today. The few surviving state census schedules are all located today at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History in Columbia. Surviving state census schedules include:
1829: Fairfield and Laurens districts only.
1839: Beaufort, Chesterfield, Kershaw, and Lexington Districts only
1869: South Carolina counties filmed: Abbeville to York. (SC Archives film list does indicate if there are missing counties)
1875: Complete name lists exist for Clarendon, Newberry, and Marlboro counties. There are partial listings for Abbeville, Beaufort, Fairfield, Lancaster, and Sumter counties.
There were no state censuses taken after 1875.
SC Federal Censuses. The 1790 federal census taken in South Carolina was enumerated by districts, counties within districts, parishes within districts, and a couple of extra jurisdictions invented by the census takers. (See the 1790 map above for details). By 1800, a few districts still had subordinate counties, but by 1810, all South Carolina districts functioned the same as a single county unit as in other states. In 1869, all South Carolina districts were converted into counties. The 1870 and later federal censuses were all enumerated using a county as the basic jurisdictional unit.
Census Losses. South Carolina’s federal censuses are complete for all districts/counties except the 1800 is missing Richland District, and the entire SC 1890 was lost (like all states) in an 1921 fire in the Commerce Building in Washington, DC.
Further Reading:
South Carolina Censuses & Substitute Name Lists, 1670-2008 (Printed Book), Softbound, 79 pages,
Item FR0289.
South Carolina Censuses & Substitute Name Lists, 1670-2008 (PDF eBook), 79 pages, Item FR0290.
Online South Carolina Censuses & Substitutes: A Genealogists’ Insta-GuideTM, Laminated, 4 pages,
3-hole punched, Item FR 0359.
Online South Carolina Censuses & Substitutes: A Genealogists’ Insta-GuideTM (PDF eBook), 4 pages,
Item FR 0360.