City of Gaffney Visitor's Center

     

 

One of Michael Gaffney's descendants, Dean Ross, while attending Clemson University - discovered the Tiger Rag in an Atlanta music store, rearranged it, and established it as the school's longstanding fight song.

 

The battles of Kings Mountain and Cowpens were major turning points in the War for Independence and led to the British army's retreating to Virginia and subsequently surrendering at Yorktown. The 1780 Battle of Kings Mountain demolished a significant portion of Lord Cornwallis' army and prevented the British from advancing into North Carolina.

 

Limestone College was established in 1845 on the site of the Limestone Springs, a natural mineral springs which was thought to have healing powers and attracted drew visitors from around the world.

 

A stone from the nearby Limestone Quarry, bearing the coat of arms of the state of South Carolina, is incorporated as the official South Carolina stone in the Washington Monument. 

 

Limestone College was established in 1845 by Dr. Thomas Curtis and his son, Dr. William Curtis, distinguished scholars born and educated in England. Limestone was the first woman’s college in South Carolina and one of the first in the United States. In the late 1960s Limestone became fully coeducational.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cherokee County naturally is associated with the Native Americans who inhabited the area before the arrival of the settlers in the mid-1700s.  However, the Scots-Irish – most notably Michael Gaffney of Granard, Ireland, had a major impact on the development of the eponymous city.
Gaffney passed his 21st birthday on the high seas headed for America.  Dean Ross, a descendant of Gaffney and an unofficial but revered local historian said his famous relative likely fled his homeland because he was on the wrong side of the fight between his people and the British.  Most probably, the Gaffneys of Granard in Longford were victims of the twin burdens of rent and tithe. Amid the life of English rule, rumors of massacres, and explosive and troubled times, young Gaffney set sail on the “Snow Palace” on July 31, 1797, for a new life in a new world.
After a stay on what later became New York’s Wall Street a close call with Yellow Fever in Charleston, he looked toward the Upstate.  Charleston which had developed into one of the nation’s trade centers by the turn of the 19th Century. Exports shipped from the port city were valued at six million dollars, and settlers from the Piedmont area of the state were supplying many of the goods with wagons from the Upcountry hauling heavy items to Charleston and returning with imported items. This encouraged merchants like Gaffney to establish trading posts in the Upstate.
Gaffney chose as the site of his new enterprise a spot alongside an Indian trail leading from Virginia to Georgia.  This trail which passed near King’s Mountain was made a public highway after the Revolutionary War and became a much traveled wagon road.  There was another thoroughfare known as the Mills Gap Road, which had been partly opened up before the Revolutionary War, that extended from beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee to Charleston.  By the beginning of the 19th Century, this road was much traveled.  It was at the crossing of the two roads that Gaffney built his tavern and store.
Gaffney took Mary Smith as his bride on July 21, 1803.  They married near Smith’s Ford on the Broad River and built a log home about eighty feet to the west of the present railroad. In comparison to the cabins built by others in the Upcountry, the structure erected by Gaffney was substantial.  It was strong enough to stand the test of time and nature’s violence.
The logs were hearty indeed, as 24 of them survived poor and varied storage conditions over the years.  Some of them were eventually used in another replica that was built at the Gaffney family gravesite adjacent to downtown in the 1960’s.  However, persistent complaints from neighbors and acts of vandalism led to the cabin’s bulldozing in 1966.  Still, 24 of the original logs survived further storage before finally being rescued from a landfill by local resident Anthony Hopper.  Those logs are now part of the replica which is true to the size of the original cabin.  Gaffney added on to the sides and created an upper floor on his cabin as his nine children came along, but today’s version accurately depicts the house shortly after construction.
Several accounts exist which relate that Gaffney’s tavern did a brisk business.  Often his sleeping facilities were filled to over-flowing and men were quartered in the attic of his living quarters. The site of the store and tavern was known for a number of years as Gaffney’s Cross Roads, later as Gaffney’s Old Field and still later as Gaffney’s.  Here Gaffney lived a good life for many years engaged in operating the tavern, selling goods, and farming.  Ross called his ancestor  “a definite leader,’ noting that S.C. Governor Pinckney commissioned him to form a militia during the War of 1812.  Gaffney had a substantial library at the time of his death, and although little is known of his religion, a writer with the initials T.C. – thought to be Limestone College founder and minister Thomas Curtis – said he had never seen anyone of stronger faith than Gaffney.
The remains of Michael Gaffney lie in the family cemetery which is located at the intersection of Logan Street and Floyd Baker Boulevard.  His tombstone bears the following inscription: “Michael Gaffney, born in the town of Granard, Longford, Ireland, September 29, 1775, died September 6, 1854.  He was a man of unusually strong mind.   Strength of appetite and passion were its natural features.   After a life of many trials considerable worldly success and long continued struggles with the sins and evils of the world around, he died a well established member of the Providence Baptist Church of this neighborhood and with the triumph of faith on his lips.”

*Some historical information provided by The Journal of Michael Gaffney with an historical introduction and notes by Dr. Ronald G. Killion (deceased) and Dr. Bobby G. Moss

The Cherokee County Veterans’ Museum is sponsored by the American Legion Post 109. Officially dedicated on July 12, 1992, the museum houses over 500 artifacts and pieces of memorabilia depicting the various eras in an American military history from the period of the Revolutionary War to the period of Desert Storm to this date.