Georgia Road and Augusta Road cross here in southwestern Greenville County and both trails were in use prior to the Revolutionary War in 1776.  These historic roads were initially trading paths of the Cherokee and early settlers.  The Georgia Road was the Lower Cherokee Trader’s Path which was later called the Upper Road or Piedmont Road stretching from Milledgeville, GA, through Abbeville to Pelzer, across Greenville County and north to the King’s Mountain area, then on to Philadelphia and Washington.  It was a major military road during the Revolution.  The Augusta Road was called the drover’s road from the time Pearis settled in downtown Greenville on the Reedy River through the nineteenth century until about 1914.  Drover’s herded tens of thousands of mules, swine, cattle, and fowl from Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina to the closest navigable port at Augusta, GA.  During the Revolution, it also became a backcountry military route.

The Lower Cherokee Trading Path or Upper Road (Georgia Road)

Designated by several names over time, this colonial road was a trading path before the Revolution, but became a military transport road during the war, and afterwards, it was an extension of the great migration route (Great Wagon Road/Great Valley Road).  Nations Ford Road, a never paved section of the Great Wagon Road near Rock Hill, SC, is on the National Register of Historic Sites.

The Road to Augusta/Drover’s Road

This trading road (1765 to 1914) moved livestock from Kentucky to Augusta, GA.  It also was a main stagecoach route from the low country to the Mountain Town, now known as Greenville.  During the Revolution, it was used by both sides to move soldiers to backcountry battles.  Parts of this road are already on the National Register of Historic Sites with three sections near Moonville, SC.

The Crossroads of Georgia and Augusta Roads

At this intersection Seaborn’s Tavern was noted in the 1820s (Robert Mills Atlas of Greenville County in 1825).  There were taverns all along these two major trading paths after the Revolution and the opening up of the old Cherokee Nation in South Carolina. They served as inns for travelers and drovers as well as taverns for locals and often stores where goods were sold and bartered.  Seaborn purchased the property which had been a 1785 land grant to John Pyle, a Revolutionary War Soldier, for fifty pounds sterling in 1796.  The tavern may have been on the corner of the two roads prior to Seaborn’s ownership since no plat after the original grant has been found and the deeds do not mention a structure.  Described as being on the headwaters of Pyles Creek in the grant plat, the following deeds called it Baker’s Creek, but no owner of these 300 acres before George Seaborn was named Baker.  So, the reason for the creek’s name is currently not known.  

Another tavern, four miles west on Old Georgia Road, was noted on the Mills Atlas, as well.  This structure still stands near Wilson’s Ferry over the Saluda River which is now Pelzer.  Looking like a backcountry farmhouse, it was built by another early settler and Revolutionary War descendent, Charles Garrison.  

The importance of these two roads during the American Revolution can not be estimated.  The many backcountry forts and battles that took place were facilitated by these early roads, and if this intersection could talk, what stories it could tell.

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