TRAVELERS REST, S.C. — Greenville-based historian Richard D. Sawyer gave an address on “10,000 Years of Greenville County (S.C.) History” during which he showed an atlatl spear and his collection of arrowheads during an Aug. 15 meeting of the Travelers Rest Historical Society at Travelers Rest City Hall.

More than 60 people attended Sawyer’s hour-long address that was followed by a 15-minute question-and-answer session.Sawyer was introduced by Robert Boggs. the TRHS’ director, who began by noting that “the liberal arts are really under assault — especially history, religion” and other social sciences.”

What’s more, Boggs, who retired after 22 years as a history professor from North Greenville University (where he taught for 22 years), said of the current education system, “They want you to know how to do a spread-sheet” or some other technical skills, rather than to obtain a liberal arts education...

“When I retired in 2020, I had 76 students who were majors in my field of history...Now, there are 20-plus students there (at NGU) in history...”

Regarding those studying history and other liberal arts fields, Boggs quipped, “They used to call them ‘gentlemen scholars,’ but I am hesitant to use that term.” (Boggs’ assertion drew some chuckles from the audience.)

As for the evening’s guest speaker, Boggs introduced Sawyer as a member of the South Carolina Archaeological Society, the Greenville Historical Society and the Greenville History Commission.”

He (Sawyer) retired from Greenville Technical College, “where he was an instructor in ‘publishing’ — it has a longer title than that, but I don’t understand it,” Boggs quipped, “so I’m just going to say ‘publishing....” 

“He (Sawyer) also was very instrumental, as I understand it, in the largest event that the TR Historical Society ever put forth, which was ‘The Spirit of ‘45,’ which was about World War II.... He did a lot of interviews with veterans... He very much mattered in that.”

(In addition, Sawyer serves on the board of the TR Historical Society. is a local history author who has collected Greenville memorabilia since the 1980s in order to record the history of Greenville County. Also, Sawyer is the author of four books, including “Greetings from Greenville, SC: The Golden Age of Post Cards, 1900-1930.”)

Sawyer began his address by noting that “what we’re going to cover tonight is from the first people to arrive in Greenville County up until the formation of Greenville County.

“We’re going to start with achaeological time frames. There are five (applicable) archaeological time periods” as follows:

• Paleo-Indian period, 50,000 B.C.-8,000 B.C.

• Archaic Period, 8,000 B.C.-1,000 B.C.

• Woodland Period, 1,000 B.C.-1,000 A.D.

• Mississippian Period, 1,000 A.D.-1600 A.D. 

• Historic Period, from 1600 A.D.-present.

Regarding the Paleo-Indian Period, Sawyer said, “It is believed that man crossed the Berring Straits onto the North American continent between 50,000 B.C. and 38,000 B.C. — during the last Ice Age. Because so much water was locked up in the ice, the levels of the oceans dropped by 300 feet, exposing a land bridge between Asia and (Alaska, in what is now) the United States. No manmade artifacts ever have been found for this time period.

“At the Great Lakes, the ice was one-mile thick... One-mile thick... Think about that!

“Charleston, South Carolina, as we know, is along the coast (now). During this period, it was 75 to 125 miles inland because of the water drop.”

Further, Sawyer said, “It was during the late Paleo period (12,000 B.C. to 8,000 BC)  that the first manmade artifacts were found on the North American continent, the oldest artifact found was the Clovis Point. (“Clovis Points are sharp, roughly triangular tools that have flutes (grooves) that allow them to be more easily attached to spears and other weapons,” according to the website www.Study.com.)

Also, “during the Paleo Period, paleo points are very rare in South Carolina,” Sawyer said.

 (“The finely worked spear points that you see from this time period are made from different kinds of stone and generally referred to as ‘Paleo points,” the website www.MCI.org noted.)

“How can we ‘date’ a stone?” Sawyer asked, rhetorically. “When an archaeologist ‘dates’ a site, he also takes surrounding material. If you find projective points…. please report it to the (TR) Historical Society, or to one of the area archaeological society. The archaeologist (who might respond) does not want your points... He wants to know your site” where the artifact was found.

The historian added, “The Upstate during the archaic period had weather similar to Southern Canada” ot today — much cooler than this era’s hot summers and mild winters.

Sawyer then spoke of one of oldest artifacts found in Greenville County, dating to 8,000 B.C., noting, ‘This (atlatl) was around for about 7,000 years. It’s been called the ‘atomic bomb of the Paleo-Indian period.” Sawyer noted that an atlatl is “a combination of a spear and an arrow.”

He pointed out the Clovis Point on the atlatl, adding that “only two have been found in Greenville County.”

Sawyer then noted that “someone” recently showed him a whole box of Clovis Points, which he later gave to Sawyer.

“When I took it to Columba, they said it was one of the most perfect Clovis Points found in Greenville County. I was told it was worth $25,000. I decided to donate it to Furman University. It’s about three and a half inches long.” 

Continuing, Sawyer said, “during the Woodland Period, that is when the bow-and-arrow was reintroduced” in the Greenville County area. Also, he noted, “that is when we saw the planting of crops in agriculture...

“During the Mississippean Period — that’s when we found the mound-builders... I can tell you there’s one mound still in Greenville County,” Sawyer said, adding that he would not identify where it is located out of fear that it will be destroyed.

“On May 25, 1540, the first Europeans made contact with the Cherokee Nation in Murphy, North Carolina...”

Sawyer then asked, “How many people in here have Indian ancestry?

Around five people at the program raised their hands.

“How many people in here have O-type blood?” Sawyer then asked with a grin.

Eight or more of the program attendees raised their hands.

“My goodness, if you have O-type blood, you have 90 percent chance of Indian ancestry -— or Japanese,” Sawyer said, as some in the audience chuckled.

Next, he noted, “The Cherokee did not call themselves ‘the Cherokee’… Their land was called the ‘ottawany’... that in Cherokee means “the land of the blue hills.”

At one time, the Cherokee claimed land in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennesse and Alabama, he said. 

Sawyer added that there are “several different theories on where the Cherokee came from. One author believes the Cherokee came from the Amazon basin. Another author thinks they came from the Caribbean. There are many theories...”

After a pause, he queried, rhetorically, “Which theory do the archeologists favor?” 

When he has asked acheaologists that question, Sawyer said he always gets “the same answer from every one of them — ‘None of them’... They believe the Cherokee may have been Paleo-Indians and just evolved into what we know as the Cherokee Nation. This question will probably never be answered. We do know that the first people came into Greenville County in 8,000 B.C.,” based on artifacts found.

Then, Sawyer noted that, “In 1580, the Catawba arrived in the area... In what is called the bloodiest battle ever fought on South Carolina soil, the Cherokee and Catawba fought.” Eventually, he said, they agreed on a peace treaty.

As for the plight of the Cherokee, he noted the following:

• By 1674, population of the Cherokee Nation was about 50,000.

• By 1690, traders began to infiltrate.

• By 1729, a smallpox epidemic hit the Cherokee.

• In 1730, a treaty with the British government guaranteed, at least in theory, that the Cherokee coud keep their land.

• In 1738, another smallpox hit the Cherokee.

• In 1739, the legislature in Charles Town (now Charleston) stated that Indians could not sell their lands to non-Indians and forbid settlers from settling within the Cherokee Nation.

• In 1750, the Cherokee population dropped to 20,000 people — mainly because of the smallpox pandemic.

Sawyer added that, eventually, “the Cherokee were swindled out of most of their (South Carolina) land, except for some Upstate counties.”

Next, the historian spoke about Upstate pioneer Richard Pearis (1725-1794), who was a loyalist officer (meaning he sided with and fought for the British) during the Revolutionary War.

Pearis began trading in the Upstate in the mid-1750s and eventually fathered a son, George, by a Cherokee woman, Sawyer said. “During the French and Indian War, both the French and British tried to ally with the Cherokee to fight on their side,” Sawyer said.Because of the influence of Richard Pearis, the Cherokee went to the British side.”

A group, that included Richard Pearis, some Cherokee warriors and British soldiers “just walked into Fort Duquesne (the site of present-day Pittsburgh, Penn.) after its fall” in 1758, Sawyer said. Pearis later was named Indian agent for colonial Maryland.

“After the French and Indian War, Richard Pearis is on the move, still trading with the Cherokees, but he’s moving southward,” the historian noted. “In 1768, Richard Pearis moved to what is known as “the ‘great plains’ of South Carolina,” but now we know it as the Reedy Falls area — in what is (now) downtown Greenville.”

“Can he do this?” Sawyer asked, rhetorically. “Can he move down there?

He then noted that, earlier, in 1773, Pearis bought “the land on which he eventually settled on from the Cherokee Nation. Can he buy the land?

“No!” the historian said. Indeed, eventually “Richard Pearis was taken prisoner” and was transported “down to the circuit court in (the town of) Ninety Six, “where he was found guilty” of holding Indian land and surrendered his deed, Sawyer said.

“However, Richard Parris does not give up the lands — and goes back to where he was at...” The following month, “he secured another deed from Cherokee leaders granting his son George more than 12 square miles of land—most of which George then conveniently transferred to his father,” the historian noted.

Sometime after 1770, Pearis, his family, and their 12 slaves began to clear 100 acres in what is now modern Greenville, where they planted grain and orchards on a plantation Pearis called “Great Plains.” (Eventually, “Pearis built ‘a substantial  House’ and a store, as well as a grist and sawmill,” according to Wikipedia).

Sawyer added, “George Parris then is sent to England and, when he comes back, he is declared a British subject.” With that distinction, he sells the land to his father (Richard).”

“Can he do that?” Sawyer asked. “Yes! It was from a British subject to a British subject... It was the first land fraud in City of Greenville history!” the historian declared, prompting some chuckles from the crowd.

(As for Pearis, Wikipedia noted, “In 1775, Pearis sought an appointment as a patriot commissioner to the Indians, and after the post was given to another, Pearis became a Tory captain. On Dec. 12, 1775, patriot Col. Richard Richardson captured Pearis and eight other Tory leaders. Pearis was kept in irons at Charleston (them called ‘Charles Town’) for nine months, after which he made his way to British West Florida.Pearis’s house and plantation buildings were burned by Pearis’s backcountry opponents in July 1776.

(“Pearis continued to serve with Loyalist forces during the American Revolution during what amounted to a civil war along the frontier. After the fall of Augusta, Ga., to the patriots in June 1781, Pearis was captured, and General Andrew Pickens saved Pearis’s life ‘by putting him in a boat and sending him down river, away from the angry soldiers who would have killed him.’ Pearis’s land was confiscated by the state of South Carolina, and Pearis spent his remaining years as a planter in the Bahamas.He was more than amply compensated by the British government for South Carolina lands that, arguably, he had never legally owned.”)

In his address, Sawyer said that “in the Greenville County Library, there is the Ross Journal... that gives every detail of the attacks. It’s very interesting reading...

“On May 20, 1777, the Cherokee met delegates at (the town of) Due West (S.C.), and they signed a treaty in which the Cherokee lost all of their lands in South Carolina — except for a small mountaintop in Oconee County,” Sawyer said.

Then, returning to the topic of Richard Pearis, Sawyer noted that, in 1783, Pearis filed “a claim for his lost lands in South Carolina. In 1784, the newly acquired land is listed for sale. On May 21, 1784, a man named Thomas Brandon… bought the land. The commissioner of the land sale was... Thomas Brandon (of Union),” too.

“So,” the historian declared, “he (Brandon) sold the land to himself. That was land fraud number two!” in Greenville County history, Sawyer said, triggering further laughter from the program attendees.

“On May 22, 1786, a new county was formed from these newly acquired lands — and this county was called Greeneville (County) — we had an extra “e”... 

“The legislature did not say why they spelled it Greeneville — G-R-E-E-N-E-V-I-L-L-E. Again, we had an extra ‘e’ in there. Because of the extra “e” in there, it is thought that it was named for Gen. Nathaniel Greene, (Gen. George) Washington’s Southern commander during the American revolution...

“And that takes us up to the formation of Greenville County, where local officials later changed its spelling to “G-R-E-E-N-V-I-L-L-E... I would like to say one thing about the ‘e’s’ in Greenville — we keep losing them!

“Paris Mountain (State Park)? Richard Pearis? It (the mountain) is certainly named after him, but it’s spelled P-E-A-R-I-S...

“Where are all our ‘e’s’ going?” Sawyer asked, as the crowd erupted into sustained laughter. “I have a theory.... The Town of Chesnee is named after the Chesney family -—  C-H-E-S-N-E-Y. Now how do we spell Chesnee today? C-H-E-S-N-E-E. They snuck over here and got one of our ‘e’s’... We want our ‘e’s’ back!” Sawyer quipped, in concluding his address to enthused applause.