Clay Pits for Brick & Pottery

Clay Pits for Brick and Pottery. . , The building of the very first canal, off Big Pine Tree Creek in 1752-1753, to divert water to the first inland mills in South Carolina exposed the fact that the land that Joseph Kershaw would buy in 1758, and today is owned by Historic Camden, sits on deposits of quality clay which we know that Kershaw actively mined in 1776 to build the gunpowder magazine., On the Plat to the left, you can see the Gunpowder Magazine to the north of the mill road. It also shows the location of the first two inland mills built by Robert Milhous and later sold to Joseph Kershaw., Camden sits on top of a band of high quality clays that is roughly twenty-five miles wide shown as a dark green band on geo logic map to the right. This band was formed where the high ground of the coastal plain meets the fall line of the southeastern foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. , ,br> As you walk along the nature trail you can see what remains of borrow clay pits that were mined starting in second half of the 18th century through the early 20th century.