READ: Notable people from Stateburg, SC

SUMTER COUNTY, SC (WIS) - SC Gov. Charles Pinckney in 1807 said that the High Hills of Santee were the "Athens of America." From the Stateburg area of the High Hills, shown here are 40 reasons why. These people currently live here, used to live here, summered here, owned property here, or were buried here.  Few, if any, other areas of SC can boast this number of talented and historic individuals.  Here are the 40:

* Joel Roberts Poinsett (1779-1813);US Secretary of War; US Minister to Mexico;US Congressman; physician & botanist (introduced the Poinsettia Plant, the best selling potted plant in the US).

* Gen. Edward Lacy (1742-1838); General in SC Militia; likely helped Gen. Sumter lay out the village of Stateburg.

* Gov. Stephen Decatur Miller (1787-1838); Governor of SC; US Congressman; US Senator.

* Gov. Edward Rutledge (1749-1800); Signer of the Declaration of Independence; 7th Governor of SC after the Revolution.

* Gov. John Rutledge (1739-1800); Chief Justice of US Supreme Court; first Governor of SC after the Revolution; Signed and helped write the US Constitution.

* Judge Hugh Rutledge (1750-1811); Speaker of SC House of Representatives; Senior Judge of the Court of Equity of SC.

* Buford Stuckey Mabry (1915-2011); decorated Veteran of WWII; Sumter Superintendent of Education for over 20 years; Author; renowned raconteur.

* George Lafayette Mabry, Jr. (1917-1990); US Medal of Honor recipient; Major General, US Army.

* John Adair (1757-1840); American Revolutionary War guerrilla fighter under Gen. Sumter; Gov. of Kentucky; US Senator from Kentucky; part of a Stateburg development group.

* Judge William Debein James (1764-1830); builder/owner of Brookland; Revolutionary War Veteran fighting under Gen. Francis Marion; Author; SC Equity Court Judge.

* Col. Orlando Rees (1794-1852); Orlando, Florida is named for him; built and lived at Woodlawn; farmed tens of thousands of acres of plantations in FL, MS, and SC.

* Judge Thomas Waites (1760-1828); builder of Marden; chancellor; painter; SC Assistant Judge.

* Judge Elihu Hall Bay (1758-1834); Associate Justice of the Court of General Sessions and Common Pleas of SC; owner of Grafton.

* Gen. John Ioor (1780-1836); owner of Clermont plantation in Stateburg and High Hills in Mississippi; Officer in Battle of New Orleans; Brig. General in US Army;

* John Mayrant (1762-1836); owned The Ruins; likely first planter of cotton Sumter District; Naval Officer who served & fought for John Paul Jones during the American Revolution; Two US warships named for him.

* Rep. William Mayrant (1765-1831); owed Ararat and Mine Hill; US Congressman.

* Benjamin Waring (1741-1811); first person to operate a cotton factory in SC; served as Captain under Gen. Francis Marion; a leading figure in early Columbia; Served in SC Senate.

* Rep. Warren Ransom Davis (1793-1835); four term US Congressman.

* Gen. Patrick Henry Nelson (1824-1864); Major General in SC Militia; owned Indigo Hill and Marston; killed in 1864 at the Battle of Petersburg.

* Rev. Richard Furman (1755-1825); Revolutionary Patriot; Pres. of Triennial Convention (the nationwide Baptist association Furman University is named for him; Cornwallis put a £1,000 bounty on him.

* Bishop William Capers (1790-1855); early Bishop of the Methodist Church; Professor; Planter; Missionary; Editor.

* Gen. Thomas Sumter (1734-1831); the original Fighting Gamecock; General in SC Militia; Patriot; builder; developer; Fort Sumter is named for him as well as counties in four states (SC, FL, GA, AL); US Senator; US Congressman.

* William Ellison (1790-1861); former slave who purchased his freedom; owned over 900 acres of land; as a Ginwright, his business was listed in Dunn & Bradstreet; a member of The Church of the Holy Cross before the Civil War.

* Bishop Francis Huger Rutledge (1800-1866); first Episcopal Bishop of Florida.

* Judge John Smythe Richardson (1777-1850); Speaker of the SC House of Representatives; SC Attorney General; President of the SC Court of Appeals; President of the SC Court of Errors.

* Mary Esther Kinloch Huger (1752-1822); first joggling board in America made for her at her Stateburg home; French General Lafayette spent his first night in the US in her Georgetown home.

* Maj. William Harrison Saunders (1892-1919); first Pilot Observer of the US Army (first Reconnaissance Pilot in US History).

* Theodore D. Ravenel, Jr. (1890-1918); Killed in Action in Verdun section of France one day before World War I ended.

* Mary Virginia Saunders White (1899-1959); Preservationist.

* Gen. Francis Douglas Pinckney (1900-1974); Major General in SC Army National Guard.

* Grainger McKoy (1947-  ); Eminent Sculptor and Artist.

* Gen. "Fighting Dick" Anderson (1821-1879); commanded 1/8 of the entire Confederate Army; his tactics are studied at West Point.

* Samuel Augustus Maverick (1803-1870); last Maverick to own the "Maverick House" in Stateburg; due to his actions in Texas, we get the term maverick meaning independent or nonconformist; Maverick County in TX is named for him as is the Dallas NBA basketball Team.

* Col. Francis Kinloch Huger, MD (1773-1855);  made the attempt to free General Lafayette from exile in Austria but was captured and imprisoned for it; his image hangs at the University of Pennsylvania.

* James Sanders Guignard (1780-1856); SC State Treasurer; owned 10,000 acres of land in five counties; founder of what became Guignard Brick Co.

* John G. Guignard (1751-1822); Surveyor General for SC; Warden for the Vestry of the Claremont Church in Stateburg; moved from Stateburg in 1789 and laid out the city of Columbia.

* Dr. William Wallace Anderson, Jr. (1824-1916); Medical Director of all Confederate hospitals.

* Nathalie Marie-Louise Stephanie Beatrix de Lage de Volude Sumter (1782-1841); built first Catholic Church in Sumter District; she was the wife of Thomas Sumter, Jr., the US Ambassador to the Portuguese Court in Exile; Queen Marie Antoinette was her godmother; King Louis XVI was her godfather.

* Capt. Robert W. Andrews (1790-1884); famous walker; Author of The Life and Adventures of Capt. Robert W. Andrews.

* Francis Kinloch (1755-1826); Delegate to the Continental Congress; Minister to Russia; Author.

* Cleland Kinloch (1750-1823); built and owned Acton; laid out the famous Acton gardens.

* Col. John J. Dargan (1848-1925); Organized the first consolidated high school in SC at Thomas Sumter Memorial Academy at Acton; which had the first demonstration farm in the Nation.

* Mary Boykin Chesnut (1823-1886); Author whose published diary,  Diary from Dixie, is considered one of the greatest prose writings of her century; one annotated version won the Pulitzer Prize; Diary from Dixie was a major influence on Gone With the Wind.

* John B. Miller (1782-1851); Planter; Lawyer; Member of SC Nullification Convention; "Father of Sumterville"

* Furthermore Lewis Gainey (1919-1988); little is known of him today,  the story of his unusual first name is yet to be discovered.

* Albert Capers Guerry (1840-1898). Artist born in Stateburg.  Even though three of his presidential portraits are in the White House, much of his life was lived in obscurity.

List compiled by Carl DuBose and Pat Summerville. Reprinted with their permission. Copyright 2016 WIS. All rights reserved.