Twin Lakes Wed June 8 2016

Wednesday morning we drove into Pendleton to get a newspaper and some more bottled water.  We headed west into Clemson in error, but as we did, I noticed an old stone building on the left.  After we u-turned,  I asked Bob to stop to check out the structure.  It turned out to be the the Old Stone Church and cemetery that has a very long and fascinating history, as do many of the sites in this area. The land was donated by John Miller to the Hopewell Presbyterian Church after their wooden church had burned down.  Miller had been given the land as a result of the Treaty of Hopewell between the Confederate Congress of the US and the Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians in 1785.  The agreement was signed at The Treaty Oak on Old Cherry Road, near where the SC Department of Natural Resource office is currently located.  The church was built by John Rusk between 1797 and 1802 and was made of stone to double as a fortification from Indian attacks.  The cemetery predates the church, with the oldest interment being of a Cherokee Indian, Osenappa, in 1794.  Little is known about him, except legend states that he befriended Dr Thomas Reese, pastor of the Hopewell congregation,  and his family during their early settlement, and saved them from an Indian uprising.  Osenappa lived with the Reeses for awhile and was so respected that one of Reese's son named one of his sons after Osenappa.  Andrew Pickens and Robert Anderson, both officers in the Revolutionary War, and for whom two counties here are named, are buried there, along with 13 other Revolutionary War and 45 Civil War soldiers, and many others.  The church was badly damaged by an earthquake in 1900, but restored in the 1960s.

 

Weddings and other special events are now held at the old church

 

Inside the cemetery looking toward the church

A monument commemorates the Confederate dead

 

The box next to Bob normally has maps of the gravesites, but it was empty.  Perhaps knowing the history of the cemetery as we now do, we might return and pay respects to some buried there.

On a lighter note, in the afternoon, I went to the lake beach at the campground while Bob waxed his truck.

After an hour or so in the lake, it's time to hide in the shade