Yemassee's History

The Yemassee Indians:    The Town of Yemassee is named after the Yemassee Indians, who, for thousands of years, fished the Combahee and Saltehatchie Rivers and hunted the plentiful wild game and birds.  In the early 1700's, the lands surrounding Yemassee were designated "Indian Lands" and no settlers were supposed to encroach upon them.  The Indians traded skins with the Europeans for guns, gunpowder, food and other necessities.  During the early 1700's, the Yemassee helped the Europeans defeat the Tuscarora Tribe in North Carolina.  When the Yemassee warriors returned home, they found that the Indian Agents were taking their land, engaging in unfair business and trade practices and also selling Indians into slavery.  On April 15, 1715, the Yemassee massacred the Indian Agents who were in an Indian village trying to resolve the Indian's grievances.  The Indians then murdered about 90 European settlers, including traders, and plantation families.  Skirmishes with theYemassee went on for several years, but the settlers eventually defeated them and the Yemassee Indians went to live in the Spanish town of St. Augustine, Florida, and later with the Seminoles. 

Early Settlers:  After the defeat of the Yemassee Tribe, early settlers acquired large land grants in the former Indian lands and began growing indigo, a valuable blue dye, and Carolina Gold Rice, grown in inland rice fields, both for export to England. The wealthy planter families of the Yemassee area included many prominent names of Colonial and Post-Revolutionary Charleston Society:  the Heywards, Izards, Middletons and Blakes.  Several heads of these families were signers of the Declaration of Independence.

In the late 1700's, rice planter, Nathaniel Heyward, discovered that rice could be grown on the Combahee River marshes by using the tidal flow of fresh water to flood the rice fields. The Combahee rice fields produced tremendous wealth for their owners because the English demanded great quantities of rice during the Napoleonic Wars.  Remnants of these tidal rice fields can be seen today from the Combahee River.  In Plantation times more than 80% of the local population were of African decent.  These African/Americans cleared the land, built dikes and canals, and tended to the complex process of growing rice - a process that many of them already knew from their African homeland.  Their previous knowledge of rice cultivation made them highly valued by the Planters. 

The American Revolution:  During the American Revolution, both British and American armies occupied the land surrounding Yemassee.  Specifically, the area of Sheldon, southeast of Yemassee, was used as a camp by each of the opposing armies, depending on which side controlled the countryside.  

May, 1779 saw a lot of activity.  On May 1st, there was a skirmish on Tullifinny Hill, near the Tullifinny River, south of Yemassee as the Americans tried to hold back the British forces.  On May 5^th, British Troops marched along the King's Highway (present day Highway 17) from Pocotaligo to Charles Town, passing just east of the town of Yemassee and crossing the Combahee River into Colleton County where they camped for two days.  On May 6^th another group of British troops crossed the Combahee River at the present-day Harriet Tubman Bridge on Highway 17.  Also in May of 1779, local Tory settlers loyal to Britain burned Old Sheldon Church that Captain William Bull, a local Patriot and plantation owner, had built in 1754.  

On March 18, 1780, British Commander Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton surprised about 80 American Militia at Saltcatcher's Bridge, on the Salkehatchie River, upstream of the Combahee River, and defeated them in battle.  In April 1781, the British built Fort Balfour near the site of the former Yemassee Indian town of Pocotaligo.  On May 12, 1780, after the fall of Charleston to the British following a siege of 42 days, all centrally organized American resistance to the British in South Carolina ceased, leaving attacks on the British up to local guerilla warriors.

Enter the Swamp Fox, Francis Marion, famous for his guerilla tactics that he used so successfully to disrupt British supply lines before disappearing with his men into the swamps, which he knew so intimately, and which so confounded the British.  Marion operated mainly north of the Edisto River.  South of the Edisto, the Yemassee area had its own "Swamp Fox", Colonel William Harden.  Colonel Harden and Marion coordinated their attacks on the British.  It was Colonel Harden who was responsible for the surrender of Fort Balfour. Harden and his troops surprised and captured the Fort's commanding officers, who were drinking at a local tavern in mid-day.  After negotiation, the remaining British troops in the Fort surrendered, and Harden ordered the Fort torched.  Later Francis Marion and General Harden defeated the local British Troops who had ordered all Plantations surrounding Yemassee to bring their rice harvest to the Combahee Ferry where the British had established an outpost.  The British planned to ship the rice to Charleston to feed their troops.

The Civil War: 1861-1865:  Many of the wealthy rice planters in the Yemasssee area signed the Declaration of Succession from the Union.  With the Confederate capture of Fort Sumter in April 1861, the Civil War began in earnest.   Shortly after the war started, Union forces captured Beaufort and the surrounding Sea Islands.  The Confederates were therefore understandably concerned about security of the rice plantations that provided needed food, the railroad lines for moving troops, and the telegraph lines for communication among their forces. 

Confederate General Robert E. Lee, an engineer by training, designed a line of fortifications in the area between the Stono, Edisto and Combahee rivers.  These fortifications were built to protect both the Charleston and Savannah Railroad's main line running through the towns of Pocotaligo and Yemassee, and the numerous rice plantations against a Union invasion from Beaufort.  General Lee laid out a series of half-moon shaped earth forts called "Gregorie's Line", extending from the Combahee River toward Pocotaligo.  Numerous local properties still have these forts and other earth works on them that the Confederates threw up later in an attempt to stop Sherman's March through the area.  General Robert E. Lee's famous horse Traveller, which carried him through Appomattox, was shipped to Lee via the railroad while he had his headquarters at Coosawhatchie during Christmas in 1861.

Between October 21 -23, 1862, the Union forces stationed near Beaufort mounted an attack at nearby Pocotaligo in an attempt to cut the railroad line between Savannah and Charleston, a vital supply route for the Confederates.  The Union committed 4,500 troops to the engagement.  After several battles around Frampton (near Highway 17 and Interstate 95) the Union troops withdrew as they were low on ammunition and could not cross the Pocotaligo River because the Confederates had destroyed the bridge and were in a well reinforced position on the opposite bank.

On the night of June 3, 1863, Harriet Tubman, a former slave and a leader of the "Underground Railroad" that helped slaves escape to freedom, lead a flotilla of Federal boats from Beaufort up the Combahee River to the site of the present-day Harriet Tubman Bridge on Highway 17.  More than 750 slaves got safely into Union Gunboats that were manned by 150 black soldiers.  These black troops also made other raids up the Combahee River to Yemassee to intercept Confederate telegraph communications.

In February 1864, General Sherman's Union troops crossed the Combahee River near its junction with the Salkehatchie River after leaving Savannah where they had spent Christmas and New Year.  Union forces burned all the plantation buildings in the Yemassee area .  On January 14, 1865, Old Sheldon Church, which had since been rebuilt after being burned during the Revolutionary War, was burned again by tthe troops of General Oliver O. Howard, who commanded Sherman's right-wing coming out of Beaufort.   They also desecrated the Bull Family graves and stabled their horses in the Church.  The Church was never since rebuilt and today remains known as the "Old Sheldon Church Ruins." 

Nearby McPhersonville also saw a lot of activity.  Stoney Creek Independent Presbyterian Chapel of Prince William Parish, built in 1743, was used as a hospital during the Civil War.  Blood stains remain on the floor.  It also served as the church for the wedding scene in the movie, "Forrest Gump."  Prince William's Episcopal Church did not survive the Civil War.  First built in 1832, it served as the summer place of worship for the "Old Sheldon Church" congregation.  The Confederates used it as a smallpox clinic.  Sherman's army destroyed it in 1865.  The church was rebuilt in 1898 and still stands today..

Post Civil War History:   After the Civil War ended in Confederate defeat in 1865, many formerly wealthy Southern families were destitute and could not pay the property taxes imposed by the Federal Government.  They were thus forced to sell their plantations, which wealthy Northerners bought.  These new owners used the large land tracts of land for hunting and growing timber.  During these years, Yemassee grew as a railroad hub.

Railroad Hub:  A thriving commercial center through the mid 20th Century, Yemassee's businesses supported the citizens of the town and the surrounding plantation community.  Its railroad station and Marine Corp Barracks served generations of U.S. Marines heading to and from the nearby Parris Island military base.  Between 1915 and 1965, the Marine Corps utilized the Yemassee railroad depot as the gateway to the Parris Island Recruit Training Depot.  Over nearly half a century, more than 500,000 recruits passed through the train station at Yemassee.   Half of those came through during World War II.  In 1942, the Marine Corps leased from the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, a facility to house incoming recruits.  This barracks still stands today.  For all these Marines, Yemassee will always be remembered as the "place where it all began."  Annually, a group of Yemassee Recruit continue to host the Yemassee Train Depot Reunion each fall.

Life magazine in its May 4, 1942 issue printed an article on wartime railroading, featuring Yemassee Junction.  The Atlantic Coast Line (ACL) ran north-south through Yemassee.  The ACL was crossed by the Charleston & Western Carolina (C&WC).  In a single 24-hour period on April 11, 1942, 26 passenger trains with 302 cars and 29 freight trains with 2,081 cars passed through Yemassee. 

20th Century Plantations:   In 1938, C. Leigh Stevens, an industrial efficiency expert, acquired Auldbrass Plantation on River Road.  He commissioned the renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design the Auldbrass Plantation complex.  This magnificent site and buildings are currently privately owned, but are occasionally open to the public for tours benefiting local organizations. 

During World War II, the Doubleday family, who ran Doubleday Book Publishing Company, owned Parker's Ferry Plantation on River Road.  They built a writing studio on their plantation for British author Somerset Maugham so he could write in safety, away from the London Blitz.  It is here that he wrote his famous novel, "The Razor's Edge" which was published in 1943.

Today, the many large tracts of former plantation lands are privately owned.  There are over fifteen plantations with a Yemassee address.  Many of their homes date back to the late 19th century when the area was reconstructing after the devastation of the Civil War.  Many of the tracts sit in conservation easements, protecting thousands of acres of natural lands. 

Shrimp Baiting:  Yemassee was a key figure in the evolution of shrimp baiting.  Shrimp baiting uses a cast net, bait and long poles.  The long poles are used to mark a specific location and then bait is thrown in the water near the pole.  After several minutes, the cast net is thrown as close to the bait as possible and the shrimp are caught in the net.

In the mid 1980's a group of Florida shrimpers arrived in Yemassee.  They used a secret ingredient to catch their shrimp, and their nets always reappeared full of the succulent little delicacies.  A Yemassee man, James Polk, learned that the secret ingredient was dog food.  A few of the Yemassee men took the dog food idea.  They asked if dog food with its 30% protein could catch shrimp, what about something higher in protein.  They found Menhaden Fish meal which had 60% protein.  The fish meal was mixed with clay or mud to anchor it and formed into a patty to keep from rolling.  Cane poles were used to mark the place where the bait had been thrown out. 

The Yemassee shrimpers began catching thousands of pounds of a shrimp a week, rivaling amounts caught by Commercial Trawlers.  Hundreds of cane poles were sited along the creeks and rivers.  The General Assembly decided it was time to outlaw the baiting of shrimp all together.  A group of Yemassee residents, Jack Moore, Kevin P. Egan, Sr., Harold Harmon, Colin Moore, John B. "Ollie" O'Brian, Stanley Moore and Simon Jinks, together with many other recreational shrimpers, organized the South Carolina Recreational Shrimpers Association, now known as Recreational Shrimpers of South Carolina.  This group went to Columbia to fight to keep shrimp baiting.  Recreational shrimp baiting stayed.  Since then, regulations have evolved from limits on catch per person to licensing people limits on catch per boat.

Each year in September, the Town of Yemassee hosts the Yemassee Shrimp Festival,.  The Festival celebrates Yemassee's place in history in keeping recreational shrimp baiting alive.