Cheraw, South Carolina Cheraw, South Carolina Location of Cheraw, South Carolina Location of Cheraw, South Carolina Historic Town Hall in downtown Cheraw Cheraw (/t r / ch -raw, small-town / r / sh -raw) is a town on the Pee Dee River in Chesterfield and Marlboro counties, South Carolina, United States.
The harbor tug USS Cheraw was titled in the town's honor.
When the first Europeans appeared in the region it was inhabited by the Cheraw and Pee Dee American Indian tribes.
The Cheraw lived near the waterfall hill, near present-day Cheraw, but by the 1730s they had been devastated by new infectious disease inadvertently carried by the European traders.
Only a several scattered Cheraw families remained by the time of the American Revolution.
In the 1760s, Joseph and Eli Kershaw were granted the part of Cheraw that is now the downtown historic district.
The Kershaws originally called the town "Chatham", but citizens never accepted this name, closing to call it "Cheraw" or "Cheraw Hill".
David's Parish, the last Anglican Church assembled in South Carolina under King George III, was established to help serve the civic and theological needs of the Cheraw area.
There was much unrest in the region during this time because Cheraw fell into part of the British strategic line of defense, where garrisons were assembled to control revolutionaries and to encourage loyalists.
Other suburbs in this line of defense encompassed Camden, South Carolina, and Augusta, Georgia.
Cheraw also became a strategic point for the Americans.
David's Church was used as a hospital for British troops that directed under Lord Cornwallis's command and as quarters for the South Carolina militia.
In December 1780, just athwart from Cheraw, American commander General Nathanael Greene set up a "camp of repose" to rest and train his men.
Cheraw was incorporated as a town in 1820.
The chief crops from the Cheraw region were corn, cotton, tobacco, rice and indigo.
Cheraw had the biggest cotton market between Georgetown, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina.
Because of the cotton trade, the town boasted the biggest bank in South Carolina outside of Charleston before the Civil War.
Leading up to the Civil War, Cheraw people played a major part in South Carolina's secession from the Union.
From the beginning of the war, Cheraw was known as a place of refuge and a storehouse for valuables.
One Union soldier said that they found Cheraw to be "a pleasant town and an old one with the Southern aristocratic bearing." The Civil War caused great economic hardship in Cheraw, as it did in the entire South.
Cheraw State Park and Sandhills State Forest were both established in the 1930s.
David's Episcopal Church and Cemetery, the Cheraw Historic District and Robert Smalls School are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Cheraw is positioned in easterly Chesterfield County at the fall line of the Pee Dee River.
According to the United States Enumeration Bureau, the town has a total region of 5.4 square miles (14.1 km2), of which 5.4 square miles (14.0 km2) is territory and 0.04 square miles (0.1 km2), or 0.64%, is water. Route 1 passes through the center of the town, dominant northeast 21 miles (34 km) to Rockingham, North Carolina, and southwest 55 miles (89 km) to Camden.
Route 52 joins US 1 in the center of Cheraw but leads northwest 22 miles (35 km) to Wadesboro, North Carolina, and south 41 miles (66 km) to Florence.
South Carolina Highway 9 also passes through the center of Cheraw, dominant southeast 15 miles (24 km) to Bennettsville and west 12 miles (19 km) to Chesterfield, the county seat.
Cheraw was the center of an urban cluster with a total populace of 9,069 as stated to the 2000 census.
In 2015, Cheraw and the encircling areas of Chesterfield County had a populace of 14,944 with a median income of $41,170 as stated to the U.S.
National Register of Historic Places listings in Chesterfield County, South Carolina a b "Geographic Identifiers: 2010 Enumeration Summary File 1 (G001): Cheraw town, South Carolina".
Confederate War Sites: Cheraw, South Carolina, Cheraw Visitors Bureau, 2000.
David's Church, Cheraw Visitors Bureau, 2000.
A Guide to the Cheraw Historic District, Cheraw Visitors Bureau, 2006.
Cheraw and the American Revolution, Cheraw Visitors Bureau, 2003.
Town of Cheraw official website Municipalities and communities of Chesterfield County, South Carolina, United States Municipalities and communities of Marlboro County, South Carolina, United States
Categories:
Towns in Chesterfield County, South Carolina - Towns in South Carolina
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