What's in A name?

5/5/2021

What's in a name? Sometimes it can be confusing. The Savannah River is also historically known as the Westobou and the Isundiga. Beneath the waters of Lake Hartwell the Savannah River is formed by the joining of the Tugaloo and Seneca Rivers.
Another example of confusing naming, we have Tobler's Creek, which joins the Savannah River in Burke County. It is named for Colonial South Carolina trader, and rum-runner, William Tobler. Yet it is also known as Jobley's Creek. That corruption in the name began quite early, sometime after the Revolutionary War.

Another interesting place named along the course of the river is Pallachocolas, or Palachucola, or Palachocolas, or Palachacola, or Palachuckaly, or Parachucla, or Parachuchio, or Stoke's Bluff Landing.

The two oldest versions of the name are Pallachocolas and Palachuckaly. Stoke's Bluff is the modern name for the riverside portion of this area. Another modern version is Palachucola, which is used for a South Carolina Wildlife Management Area.

This is a site along the Savannah River between Clyo, GA, and Garnett, SC.

In colonial times it began as a Native American settlement, then became a trading post, and then a fort/outpost for a Ranger force of South Carolina. A trading path started from that site on the Carolina side of the Savannah River. It was known as the Pallachocolas Old Trading Path. The path went westwards and crossed the nearby Ogeechee River in Jenkins County, GA. Georgia's General James Oglethorpe established a ferry between Pallachocolas and nearby Tuckasee King Landing on the other side of the river. This ferry site was abandoned in favor of the nearby "Two Sisters" ferry site.

Stoke's Bluff features a public landing with a boat ramp allowing access to the river. It's reached by turning off SC State Route 119 and following Stokes Bluff Road to the landing.

From the river and ranging further north along SC 119 (closer to Garnett) is the Palachucola Wildlife Management Area, which surrounds Stoke's Bluff on three sides.

This can be thought of as the modern version of the original Pallachocolas, now adjacent to the Savannah River Nature Trail and James W. Webb Wildlife Center. Nearby the Webb Center is the Hamilton Ridge Wildlife Management Area, which runs northwestwards along the SC bank of the Savannah River. These three South Carolina reserves combined form 10,481 hectares of public lands, with plenty of public access.

Pallachocolas is a historically interesting place, being partially made up of the 1731 "Oglethorpe Barony" created by General Oglethorpe. This appears to have been something akin to a medieval landholding in Colonial South Carolina, along the course of the Savannah River. This was just before Oglethorpe becoming the first Governor of the Georgia Colony in 1733. While Georgia forbade slavery, General Oglethorpe operated his South Carolina "Barony" (really just a plantation) with slave labor.

On the early border between South Carolina and Georgia, the site of Pallachocolas was one of the few landmarks found along the course of the Savannah River.

Accompanying this blog entry are two maps from 1735 and 1752, and a modern map interpreting how the area appeared during the first half of the 18th century. The modern map places "Palachacola" on the bluff above Tuckasee King Landing in Georgia, rather than in South Carolina. Yet the Palachocola Fort is in SC alongside General Oglethorpe's 'Barony.' The importance of the Pallachocolas area declined as the local ferry crossing of the river moved to the site of Two Sisters Ferry, which featured high ground to either side of the river. Higher ground allowed the roads approaching the river to remain more passable between the two colonies, and later the states, throughout the seasons. The competing ferry brought about the fading of the importance of Pallachocolas.

Here's a link to a Lowcountry account of modern Palachucola.

Locallife - Hilton Head Island & Bluffton
Secret spot off the beaten path: Palachucola
https://www.locallifesc.com/secret-spot-off-the-beaten-path-palachucola/

Email Dale: [email protected]

8 Comments

Bill Bibeault

1/29/2023 06:09:18 am

I am studying the Savannah River and like to talk to you about her.
Bill

carole

2/5/2023 04:46:26 pm

excellent compilation Dale and thank you as always.

2/21/2023 05:12:23 am

Carole
Are you a student of the Savannah River??
I am trying to find others that study the Savannah River.
Love the steamboats of old.
I have almost 1000's point on the river in my dater base.
Like to hear from you or anyone that is interested in the Savannah River.
Bill
Athens Ga.

Lillian Benson link

7/11/2023 05:46:50 pm

Check out my website and book. I am also writing a new book and interested in some of the old landings in Burke County in particular but also the S.C. side of the river. Anyone know anything about Rattlesnake Camp, near the Steel Creek Landing site?

Lillian Benson

Gary Wain

9/26/2023 03:26:59 pm

Hi,

any information you could share would be invaluable. We are preparing a trip in the next 2 weeks that has been in the planning stages for 6 months.

I am leaving from Burkes County ad traveling downriver.

A sailboat (masts decked) and swing keel, 9.9 Honda 4 stroke with an additional 17 foot aluminum boat with 35 hp. Thanks

Mark Burtman

10/2/2024 06:24:17 pm

I am currently writing a book about surgeon and vampire in 1790s Savannah, Georgia. After the Savannah fire of 1796, which consumes his business, I need to describe the best way to cross the Savannah River in order to resupply in Charleston, South Carolina, and I'm sure you realize that vampires do not flowing fresh water. So thank you for saving my vampires 238 years ago.

Drew Fisher link

8/9/2025 05:48:29 pm

Dale! thank you for all that you've been doing for the beloved and historic Savannah River. Over the past week, I've really enjoyed reading the information you provide here.

I just wanted to submit a finding of my own that you may want to check out for yourself. Apparently the "Oglethorpe Barony" that you note lying on the north shores of the Westobou/Isundiga River was a plot of land gifted to James Edward Oglethorpe's eldest brother, LEWIS OGLETHORPE (who was born 15 years before James), by the son of King Charles II, James Edward Stuart, often called "The Old Pretender." It is even rumored that Oglethorpe's mother, Eleanor Wall, gave birth to a bastard child of King Charles I while she was a maid-in-waiting (laundress) to the King's wife, Queen Anne (Hyde), before, of course, she met and married Theophilus.
Anyway, Oglethorpe's parents, both being in the retinues of the Catholic King and living as neighbors of the King in Whitehall (which is probably how Theophilus and Eleanor met), were staunch Jacobites, which is probably why the eldest son of Theophilus, Lewis, was gifted such property in the New World (despite the fact that then depoosed, King-in-Exlie, living in France and Burgundy, had no right to be gifting properties anywhere to anyone since he was no longer king! Empty promises!) Still, with the death of King Charles II in 1685 (eleven years before James Edward Oglethorpe was born), and that of James II in 1701 and his faithful servant, Theophilus Oglethorpe, in 1702, the head of the Oglethorpe family fell to Lewis--who, along with his mother and sisters, had moved to France to live in exile with their favored king, James II.
James Edward Oglethorpe, as we know, the late comer to the Oglethorpe family, was raised and educated in a Protestant England under the reigns of Queen Anne and King George I. Raised away from the umbrage of his Catholic mother and sisters, James was no doubt to make a man of himself despite all of the aspersions and expectations attached to him due to his Jacobite family history. Was the so-called Carolina "barony" that James II bestowed upon Lewis Oglethorpe, son of his most loyal servant, Theophilus, ever occupied, developed, and/or recognized by any legal government, American or European? I have yet to find out. Did it's promise and/or existence have any bearing on James Edward Oglethorpe's settlement on Yamacraw Bluff (Palachicola), looking out upon his brother's (and family's) quixotic "barony"? Again I do not know. Every account I've come across with respect to the man's principles and life story seem to align with those in the original Georgia Charter and Oglethorpe Plan--including those AGAINST absentee land ownership, AGAINST slavery, slaveholding, and indentured servitude, FOR religious freedom (except for a curious bias AGAINST Roman Catholicism), AGAINST the trade and use of RUM, and a complete obstruction to the presence of lawyers!!! It was with his perceived need to make repeated trips back and forth to England in order to try to continue to raise funds/investors, and colonists for his project that the men he left behind to administer his colony and its Charter showed their human frailties and weaknesses: succumbing to the use of slaves, the importation of rum and other spirits, grifting monies for ownership, trade, and other "illegal" favors--all of which Oglethorpe had to work like the dickens to correct and/or ameliorate every time he returned. No wonder the dude abdicated from his leadership/governorship and Charter by 1242: he must have been worn out! Plus, his beloved Yamacraw "brother," Tomochichi had died in his absence in 1739--which everyone admits--even his life-long friends and age-old companions, James Boswell and Samuel Johnson, made this out to be a terrible blow to Oglethorpe's enthusiasms and ambitions.
Anyway, sorry to be so long-winded. My point is: the so-called Oglethorpe barony was never anything James Edward considered his own much less a real thing. He probably knew of its mirage-like existence. Its lore may even have cultivated some seed for his Georgia colony idea, but I am certain that he never occupied or developed it as his own much less held slaves or grew rum-making sugar cane on it. I'm sure more could be found to prove another (Carolinian)'s ownership and development at or even before the Georgia Charter was even announced much less Savannah named and engineered, the river new-named.

Sincerely,
Drew Fisher

Drew Fisher

8/9/2025 09:02:44 pm

Amendment: It turns out that I may have been mistaken in a few of my assertions above. 1) the Oglethorpe song that was "gifted" the "imaginary" barony my have been Theophilus, Jr., the second born of Eleanor and Theophilus, Sr., who is recorded to have been given a barony title by 2) James "III": the would be king trying to reclaim the English crown after his father, The Old Pretender' death. Lewis died rather young in battle on European soil, leaving his slightly-younger brother, Theophilus, Jr. as the family's heir and head. Theophilus, Jr. lived his life in exile in France with James II (and his mother and sisters), a devoted friend, companion, and loyalist to James Francis Edward Stuart (James III)'s quixotic and ultimately futile cause. The imaginary "barony" must have included the parsel of land opposite Palachicola. How and why it was ever recorded onto a map (the one you posted) is a mystery to me. Again, all of this happened long before James Edward Oglethorpe, the youngest of the Oglethorpe children, ever came to manhood much less his money, titles, land holdings, military service, and amazing Parliamentary career.

What's in A name?

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Dale Reddick

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