History of Charleston

English settlers arrived in South Carolina as early as 1670 and established a town at Albemarle Point on the west bank of the Ashley River. It was named Charles Towne after King Charles II of England and was built a few miles away between the Ashley and Cooper Rivers. Although a confluence of European settlers went there, it was the French Hugenots who established the prosperous rice and cotton plantations of the 18th and 19th centuries. Some of the earliest settlers were Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, General Andrew Pickens, Colonel Robert Anderson, Captain Robert Maxwell, Lewis Newhouse, William Moultrie, Jacob Drayton and others. The following Charleston Co. SC Records have been added to South Carolina Pioneers as follows- The 1732 Assessments of St. Paul's Parish on Edisto Island; 1767 applications of Charleston resiidents who applied for land grants in Florida filed in the Scottish Record Office; Index to Charleston Wills 1757-1771; plat and deed of James Cunningham Caliote and Hugh Brown (1774); last will and testaments of Edward Dannelly and John Greenland; Jeremiah King, Jr., David Youngblood and Peter Youngblood.