Tag: Cheraw
Cheraw ( /tʃəˈrɔː/ chə-RAW, local /ʃəˈrɔː/ shə-RAW) is a town on the Pee Dee River in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 5,524 at the 2000 census and center of an urban cluster with a total population of 9,069. It has been nicknamed “The Prettiest Town in Dixie.” The harbor tug USS Cheraw was named in the town’s honor.
At the time of European encounter, the original inhabitants of the area were the Cheraw and Pee Dee American Indian tribes. The Cheraw lived near the river hill, near present-day Cheraw, but by the 1730s they had been devastated by disease. Survivors joined the Catawba Confederacy for safety and left their name in history. Only a few scattered Cheraw families remained by the time of the American Revolution. A few European settlers entered their territory in the 1730s, forced upriver when the Welsh came to claim the Welsh Baptist lands granted by the English government in the area around Society Hill. Many of the early settlers around…
