Aliens of today are not the only new group of people to come into our country. In revolutionary times, Richmond County had more British aliens than any other county in our state. Several other nationalities including Scottish, Irish, Africans, Europeans and Native Americans — who, by the way, aren’t aliens — made up most of the people in the new colony.

The first settlers in our little part of the country came as early as the 1720s with many more coming as the years went by. Some came up the Pee Dee and Cape Fear rivers while others like the Quakers made their way from Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) were living in Marlboro County, South Carolina along the banks of the Pee Dee River and Gum Swamp as early as 1755. Their section of land was commonly called Piney Grove.

Isham Haley, a Piney Grove Quaker, moved into Richmond County and started a ferry service across the Pee Dee River. It was located just down from where Hitchcock Creek runs into the river.

The state line didn’t seem to bother the Quakers as they regularly moved from one state to the other, from Marlboro to Richmond and all in between.

Some of the Quaker families who lived in lower Richmond County (now Scotland County) had last names such as Beauchamp, Marine, Thomas, Peele, Mendenhall, Knight and Almond. They lived on creeks they named Bear Creek, Panther Creek and Joe’s Creek, which were located around the Green Pond or later the Gibson section of what is now Scotland County.

It seems the Quaker religion forbids and frowns on people owning and having slaves. Well, this got to be a big problem with all the farmland and plantations in the area. By the 1820s, most of the Quakers left this part of the country and moved to Indiana, except the ones who had married outside of the Society of Friends.

As with all pioneers, our ancestors faced many dangers. Why, they couldn’t just run down to the local store and buy food if their crops failed or were flooded out. Also, like today, people got sick. There were very few doctors to call on, so home remedies were the only thing they had.

There were many other dangers lurking deep in the swamps and along the river. Snake bites were a fairly common event along with swarms of mosquitoes that brought in many types of diseases.

Wild animals such as bears, wolves and panthers were a threat to the people as well as their livestock.

There’s an old story of how a local creek in the Green Pond section of Scotland County got its name. It seems a young Quaker couple settled on a small section of land that bordered on a swamp having a creek running through the center of it. The couple had made the long journey from the state of Maryland and were not familiar with the area, but they set right in to building themselves a small cabin with the help of their neighbors.

While building the cabin, some of the neighbors told the young couple if’n they ever heard a loud screeching sound like a woman screaming, it most likely would be one of the panthers that came through the area on occasion.

They were told if they encountered such a beast to start running and drop parts of their clothes as they fled because the panther would stop and tear their clothes to pieces before chasing them again.

Time went on and the cabin was built. The first year, the couple didn’t take in much farmland because they didn’t have the equipment and tools to clear the land as we have today. The next year, a suitable piece of farmland was cleared on their land across the swamp. It was hard to get to, but the land was rich and fertile and hopefully would produce good crops.

Now this is where the story really takes off. It seems one hot day, the farmer was working in his field across the swamp. The wife thought he probably could use a good drink of water. So she filled the wooden water bucket from the spring and carried the water to her husband. On the way back, not far from the foot log that crossed the creek, she heard a blood-curdling sound like a woman screaming.

Immediately she knew that it wasn’t a woman, but one of those dreaded panthers the neighbors had told her about. She dropped her bucket and started running to the foot log, but before she crossed, she thought of what the neighbor had said about dropping some of her clothes.

She threw down her big bonnet she was wearing and while crossing the log, she threw down her apron. Just as she got off the foot log, she looked back and there, tearing up her bonnet, was the biggest panther she had ever seen.

The big cat raised his head, showed his teeth and screamed again. The frightened woman made a beeline to her cabin throwing off every stitch of clothing she had on along the way.

Finally, the young woman rushed into her cabin door as naked as a jaybird, but she had outrun the big panther. As she bolted the door, she looked through the cracks just in time to see the big cat grab up one of their pigs and carry it off.

Several days passed with more close calls with the beast. Finally it was run out of the county, but not before several dogs and livestock were killed.

So, folks, that’s the legend of how Panther Creek was named. I wonder how Bear Creek (which is just down the road) got its name!

J.A. Bolton is a member of the N.C. Storytelling Guild, Anson County Writers Club, Richmond County Historical Society and the Story Spinners in Laurinburg.

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J.A. Bolton

Storyteller