The Town

The town of Ninety-Six, see name controversy below, was established in 1730 by Jewish families from London, who had bought two hundred thousand acres there. It is said the founder's name was founder Robert Goudey, unknown whether he was Welsh, English, Scottish, or German. When the Ninety-Six District was established in 1769, in became its capital. They were loyal to King George III, and withstood the first land battle of the Revolution outside the north on November 19-21, 1775, which did not waver their loyalty.

The Cherokee were loyal to the British as well in the area and had harrassed the patriotic movement throughout these years. The town itself, now destroyed except for some remnants and an outline the park has established, had five hundred and fifty residents at the time of the battle. They left afterwards, moving to Nova Scotia.

Photo above: Wayside along trail depicting the town of Ninety-Six prior to the battle, 2022, America's Best History. Info source: National Park Service; America's Best History; Wikipedia Commons.

The Battle of Ninety-Six

As stated above, the town was a loyalist stronghold and Greene was put in command of the southern theater to take it to the loyalists and create doubt in the British regulars minds that attacking from the south would be easy. His men approached the earthern star fort from the end of the long field away from the town. They started to build trenches under Greene's chief engineer, Colonel Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a Polish officer. It was haphazard in design, drawing closer and closer to the fort as the twenty-eight days stretched.

They would shell the fort with cannon fire and duel with the loyalists from the trenches, then once close enough, from a rifle stantion built by the patriots in the middle of the field that could fire directly inside. However, Greene made one serious mistake. As the town would also build trenches to the fort from their position behind it in order to resupply it, Greene built more and more trenches closer to the fort, some in front of the rifle loft. A mine tunnel was also being constructed. However, the tunnel never came into action, because Greene's trenches, too close to the enemy, suddenly became infiltrated by the loyalists, who rushed through them to force a retreat.

Photo above: Major General Nathaniel Greene, 1792, John Trumball. Courtesy Wikipedia Commons.

Why Named Ninety-Six?

It is said in the lore of the area that the village was called Ninety-Six because traders incorrectly thought that it was ninety-six miles between the nearest Cherokee settlement of Keowee. Actually is was seventy-eight miles. There was some credence given to the fact that there were ninety-six creeks between Lexington to there or that there were ninety-six chains in an English parish. Nobody really knows which, if any, are accurate.

Photo above: Cutout of man and his horse, a resident of the Ninety-Six area, along the one mile interpretive trail, 2022. America's Best History.

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