Wedding & Event Venue Near Winnsboro, SC.

WINNSBORO – On Saturday, Oct. 28, a 300-year-old cemetery deep in the countryside west of town and the Fairfield County Museum will be the scenes of a daylong celebration of Winnsboro’s Patriots of the American Revolution. There will be a morning event in the formerly named Winnsborough community just west of Hwy. 34, lunch at the Fairfield County Museum, and an afternoon re-enactment of scenes from the American Revolution, complete with cannon fire, in the backyard of the museum.

The day will begin at 10 a.m. deep in the cool, lush Winnsboro woods south of Hwy 34W where The SC Society of the Sons of the American Revolution will host a grave-marking ceremony for Fairfield’s American Patriots buried on property owned by Spencer McMaster.

The graveside ceremony will honor four patriots: Irish immigrant Capt. Robert and Elizabeth Ellison, Major Henry Moore, and Samuel Weldon. Their descendants will honor the patriots by placing engraved granite markers on their graves.

Three of the Ellison’s descendants, Bill, David (Dee) and Robert (Bobby) Ellison, grew up in Winnsboro and will be in attendance. David and Robert live in Winnsboro and are the last of the Ellison family descendants living in Fairfield County. Bill lives in Lexington.

These three and other family members spent time this summer cutting fallen trees and cleaning up access to their ancestors’ burial sites about 1.5 miles west of Winnsboro. Some descendants will attend from as far away as Texas.

The ceremony will include a welcome, posting of colors, a dedication of the grave markers with several direct descendants of the patriots placing the granite markers at each of their graves to honor them.

The cemetery is located on Pine Top Road off Highway 34, about 1.5 miles west of Winnsboro. Directional signs will be posted leading to the cemetery.

Following the ceremony, a luncheon will be held at 11:30 a.m. at the Fairfield County Museum which is located at 231 S. Congress Street in Winnsboro. Those planning to attend the luncheon are asked to RSVP to Museum Director Pelham Lyles at 803-727-5908 or fairfieldmus@truvista.net.

At 2 p.m. that same afternoon a public celebration will be held in the backyard of the museum, where there will be Revolutionary War encampment scenes re-enacted by actors in period costumes. Both General Richard Winn and Lord General Cornwallis will be represented by re-enactment actors. There will be a number of displays of period items. Guns and a cannon will be fired as part of the ceremony.

The Fairfield County church was started by nine enslaved men in 1823. Now, church members are honoring the legacy and its impact on their community.

WINNSBORO, S.C. — Recognition of 200 years of Shady Grove Independent Church had people coming to Winnsboro from all over on Sunday. The church began in 1823, started by nine enslaved men. Now, the church is honoring their legacy.

“We’ve got something special going on at Shady Grove,” Revered Ray T. Pierce sang from the pulpit.

Rev. Pierce led his morning message with passion on the 200th anniversary.

“This is what we call a family reunion because we have people from all other churches, all walks of life,” Pierce explains.

People like Shady Grove member Deloris Bouldware came for the service, with many visiting from other churches – even other states – to mark the occasion.

“It’s beyond words I’m so excited and it’s so emotional when I think about it,” Bouldware shares. “We see so many people that we hadn’t seen in a long time and it is a blessing when we come together and it’s not a sad occasion.”

Reminiscing on old memories, like when Lindsay Hopkins attended school at the church in 1940

“It’s my home,” Hopkins explains. “It’s my home church.”

A home for many that nine enslaved men built at a time when they were not allowed to worship in groups without white people present.

“The darkness of their circumstances, their desire for spiritual freedom burned brightly, was in their hearts,” Deacon Robert Sawyer shared with the church. “The United States was a nation grappling with the profound contradiction of liberty and slavery in the south. Slavery was deeply entrenched and black people bore the brunt of unimaginable suffering and degradation.”

Sawyer, the church’s historian, came from Maryland to share about the church’s origins based on his research.

“The significance of this event not only exemplifies the plight of Black people during that era, but also showcases the spirit and perseverance of these courageous founders,” Sawyer delivered to the congregation. “As we reflect on their journey, we are reminded of the enduring legacy of this church, which has expanded over two centuries and continues to inspire generations to come.”

With the newest generation led by the Rev. Pierce, they stay true to the church’s original mission of keeping the faith through prayer, worship and fellowship.

“We have endured our endurance staying focused in spite of what we’ve gone through and the adjustments,” Pierce says. “We change on the fly but we don’t fly away. We stay with what our goals and our dreams are in spite of what happens to us. We only want to be equal to everybody else.”

It’s a congregation that serves the Winnsboro community, from children to the elderly and beyond.

“I’d like for everyone to know that Shady Grove is the kind of place where you can find success on all levels,” Rev. Pierce said about the church’s outreach efforts.

The Fairfield County Council passed a resolution recognizing the 200th anniversary last week. South Carolina House Rep. Annie McDaniel attended the service on Sunday and declared July 30 Shady Grove Independent Church Day.

WINNSBORO, S.C. — Residents in the Town of Winnsboro will soon be paying more for trash pickup.

“People are mad," said Winnsboro resident Nicole O'Brien. "They’re upset.”

O'Brien is one of many residents not excited about a coming surcharge on their bills for trash pick up. It all comes as officials say Fairfield County has implemented a solid waste disposal fee on the Town of Winnsboro.

“That charge, which is costing the town over $200,000 a year, is something we, unfortunately, are now going to have to pass on to our residents,” said Town Manager Jason Taylor.

Taylor says residents currently pay $15 dollars a month for trash pick up for yard debris or waste. Now an extra $5 dollars a month will bring the bills to $20 a month.

“We’ve tried to resolve the situation with the county. It's been unsuccessful," Taylor said. "We're at the point where we have to because we’re losing a considerable amount of money on this service. It's a very good service we provide to our citizens, but again we either have to add that fee or discontinue the service.”

He says the town never had to pay to use the county dump.

“It covers the cost of the waste we collect and then dispose of at the landfill. We had a previous arrangement where the town and the county put together an agreement where the town was exempt from these fees, and so we had been operating under that arrangement for many many years, and then under the previous county council and chair, the county decided to implement this fee on the town. The town objected at the time. We thought that we may be able to work it out, but we couldn’t so the town filed suit.”

The town filed a lawsuit against the county regarding this issue back on March 30th, 2022. So far, there is no official date for when it will go to court.

News19 reached out to the county for a response to this report. Deputy County Administrator Synithia Williams sent an email saying:

"The county doesn’t have a comment at this time on the solid waste issue due to the ongoing litigation."

Taylor says if they do come to a resolution with the county, any and all charges would be dropped and the town would refund residents if the county is willing to refund all of the money.

One hundred years after the witch trial in Salem, a woman in South Carolina was accused of being a witch.

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WINNSBORO, S.C. — Many of us have heard of the Salem witch trials in 1692. Not as many know that, 100 years later, another happened about 920 miles south of Massachusetts in Winnsboro, South Carolina. This is the so-called discovery and trial of the First Witch of Winnsboro.

Winnsboro was established as a town in Fairfield County in 1799. According to the Fairfield County Museum Director, Pelham Lyles, before becoming a town, it was a frontier settlement. Today, the area is known for a few things, but a witch is not at the top of the list.

“Granite, Fairfield County is known for the longest continual running town clock,” she said.

Lyles said in the 1790s, being different could mean you were a witch.

“And during that period of time, if you happened to be a little bit different from the farmer down the road, you might be suspected of having caused his cow to die,” Lyles said.

According to the Fairfield County Museum Archives, one woman in 1792 was tried for this exact reason.

“A woman named Mary Ingelman was accused of causing people’s cows to die or natural disasters that they need to pin something on somebody,” Lyles said.

The Fairfield County Witch Persecution of 1792 Everyone has heard of the Salem, Massachusetts witch mania of 1692 which...

Posted by Fairfield County Historical Museum on Wednesday, October 18, 2017

As a result of the accusations, Winnsboro residents decided to hold a mock trial. At the time, historians said there wasn’t concrete evidence submitted; instead, the court used what is now known as hearsay.

“Just cause so-and-so said, that was enough,” Lyles said of the evidence used against Ingelman.

But the elderly woman Mary Ingelman wasn’t the only one put on trial. She, along with others, were persecuted.

“They brought in two other individuals who also they wanted to accuse of being witches and decided they were witches and they pushed their feet to the fire of these people and burned the soles of their feet off,” Pelham Lyles said.

While the accusations were never proven, and the trial was determined to be illegal, historians said a trial like this marks a community.

“I think that marks a community in a way, well of course Salem Massachusetts with all of the money they make off of it of the Salem Witch Trials,” Gary Pender said.

According to a submission to the September 2012 Fairfield Genealogical Society Newsletter by Will Kale, Mary might have been a German Christian who came to America for religious freedom.

The town will be using money from the state legislature to revitalize

Credit: Walker Lawson

WINNSBORO, S.C. — In a bid to breathe new life into its downtown area, the town of Winnsboro has set its sights on the historic Thespian Hall and Tavern.

As part of their revitalization efforts, the town recently acquired the building formerly known as Thespian Hall and The Tavern, signaling the commencement of a broader plan to rejuvenate the heart of Winnsboro.

"You know It was a meeting place, they had events there," says Nancy Gerber, Winnsboro resident reminiscing on the old building.

Adding, "It was very elegant in a way, very rustic in a way,".

The Thespian Hall and Tavern, dating back to the 1800s, served as a companion building to the iconic Clock Tower.

Town Manager Jason Taylor highlights the building's historical significance. "It was for traveling theatre groups, and that's what would come through here, so the people in the area in the 1830s would come here to experience this building as a gathering place,".

The building's narrative took a somber turn when it operated as a restaurant called The Tavern before succumbing to a fire in 2011, leaving it in disrepair.

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"It's just an eye sore, so bad, that trees are growing through the roof," adds Gerber.

"This is in the heart of Winnsboro; so we want to start at the center of town, the pulse, the heart and spread from that and take a multi-prong approach of other properties and just move on and develop the entire area," Mayor John McMeekin says.

With funding secured from state legislation, the town is now embarking on the task of restoring the historic building.

"Again, Acquiring the building was the first step, the second is a thorough structural, architectural assessment of the building, to see what could be salvaged, what could be rebuilt, or if it's a situation where we need to take it down to the ground and rebuild the shell, a replica," says Taylor.

The vision for the future of the building is still in the early stages.

"Everyone wants a restaurant to go back there, but we do have to use the building in a way that's sustainable; one of the things we've done is we're working with the Municipal of S.C. and we received a grant from them in addition to the money we had received for the restoration, we received a grant from them to again do a market study, to see what would be successful here what could go here?," Taylor adds.

In addition to the Thespian Hall and Tavern, the town is exploring opportunities to revitalize other dilapidated buildings downtown.