Keowee Town

Keowee Town, which means “mulberry grove place,” was the largest and most important of the Cherokee “Lower Towns” in what is now S.C. It was 1 mi. E on the Keowee River, and was already considered a significant Cherokee town when the British took a census of the Lower Towns in 1721. Keowee was also a major town on the main trading path between the British and the Cherokees.

Most Cherokees left Keowee by 1752 amid conflict with the Creeks but asked the British to build Fort Prince George across the river in 1753-54. Keowee was abandoned in 1760, during the Cherokee War, but later resettled. In 1776, during the Revolution, Maj. Andrew Williamson’s S.C. militia burned it and other Lower Towns. The town and fort sites were covered by Lake Keowee in 1971.