Gaffney in Cherokee County, South Carolina — The American South (South Atlantic)
Michael Gaffney
Michael Gaffney
Founder
City of Gaffney
Memorial Wall Erected 1976
by City of Gaffney
Leonard Hope, Mayor
Ben L. Clary, City Administrator
Ray Clary, Frank Guyton, Fred Kirby
John Q. Little, Vernon Sanders,
J. Chad Sarratt
Councilmen
Cherokee Historic Preservation Society
Marker by Ruth and Hickson Jones
Erected 1976 by City of Gaffney.
Topics. This historical marker is listed in this topic list: Settlements & Settlers. A significant historical year for this entry is 1775.
Location. 35° 4.482′ N, 81° 39.067′ W. Marker is in Gaffney, South Carolina, in Cherokee County. Marker is at the intersection of North Logan Street and West Floyd Baker Boulevard (South Carolina Highway 11), on the right when traveling north on North Logan Street. Touch for map. Marker is in this post office area: Gaffney SC 29340, United States of America. Touch for directions.
Other nearby markers. At least 10 other markers are within walking distance of this marker. Gaffney (about 500 feet away, measured in a direct line); a different marker also named Gaffney (about 600 feet away); 09.11.2001 (approx. 0.2 miles away); Michael Gaffney Home (approx. 0.2 miles away); Cherokee County Veterans Monument (approx. 0.2 miles away); Col. James Williams (approx. 0.2 miles away); Carnegie Library (approx. 0.2 miles away); Cherokee County WW I Rememberence (approx. 0.2 miles away); Cherokee County Confederate Monument (approx. 0.2 miles away); Capri Theater (approx. 0.2 miles away). Touch for a list and map of all markers in Gaffney.
Also see . . . Gaffney, South Carolina. Gaffney is a city located in the Upstate of South Carolina. (Submitted on October 23, 2009, by Brian Scott of Anderson, South Carolina.)
Additional commentary.
1. Michael Gaffney Day
The city of Gaffney celebrates her founder on the fourth Saturday of September. The celebretation takes place at the Gaffney cabin from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.
— Submitted October 23, 2009, by Brian Scott of Anderson, South Carolina.
2. Gaffney
Gaffney, seat of Cherokee County, is a textile manufacturing town and marketing center for farmers. On "Sales Monday" the town resembles an Eastern bazaar; people gather from the surrounding countryside to trade eggs, butter, and livestock for brogans, coffee, and snuff. Held the first Monday in each month, the occasion was known for years as "swap day," "trade day," or "bone yard day." Like poor Jack in the old fairy story, some farmers bring a cow to the market and go home with things less useful than a handful of beans.
Previously called Gaffney's Old Field, the town was named for an Irishman, Michael Gaffney, who settled here in 1804. Hardly had the first little frame shacks been grouped together around the crossroads, than promoters took over Limestone Springs, which they ballyhooed as the South's Saratoga. It was the heyday of mineral therapeutic treatment and plantation owners in the Low Country, plagued every summer by malaria, which they called "country fever" and believed was caused by "miasmas," flocked here to drink the water. A $75,000 hotel was built in 1835, and the town assumed the characteristics of a gay resort. Wealthy patients paid through the nose for the sumptuousness to which they were accustomed at home; the corks of champagne bottles popped at night and race tracks were crowded in the afternoon. the town also became noted for its tilting tournaments, cockfights, and gander pullings, the last a cruel sport in which a plucked and greased gander was suspended mid-air and exposed to competing horsemen who tried to snatch off its head while riding past at a hard gallop. (Source: South Carolina: A Guide to the Palmetto State by the Federal Writers' Project (1949) pg 349.)
— Submitted October 23, 2009, by Brian Scott of Anderson, South Carolina.
3. Michael Gaffney's Description of the Up Country
The country for about one hundred and fifty miles from Charleston is extremely low and unhealthy. The people looked yellow, poor, and sickly. Some of them lived the most miserably I ever saw any poor people life. We arrived at our new home in six days. I expected to see a fine country but was surprised to find it poor, sandy, rocky and hilly. The people are poor. Their dress generally is a hunting shirt and trousers of coarse cotton yarn...The women of this country life the poorest lives of any people in the world. It is directly opposite to Charleston; there they must do everything from cooking to plowing and after that they have no more life in them than indian squaws. (Source: From Michael Gaffney's Diary, quoted in Dixie's Forgotten People: The South's Poor Whites by Wayne Flynt (2004) pgs 6-7.)
— Submitted October 23, 2009, by Brian Scott of Anderson, South Carolina.
Credits. This page was last revised on February 22, 2021. It was originally submitted on October 23, 2009, by Brian Scott of Anderson, South Carolina. This page has been viewed 1,866 times since then and 14 times this year. Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. submitted on October 23, 2009, by Brian Scott of Anderson, South Carolina.