The General's Road

Front: The General’s Road was an important thoroughfare for Backcountry S.C. residents and travelers during the 19th century. The roughly 70-mile route mostly followed the future course of S.C. Hwy. 28. References to the road date as early as the 1780s. Its name refers to Gen. Andrew Pickens (1739-1817), a Patriot militia leader during the American Revolutionary War. Reverse: The road connected Pickens’s Tamassee plantation in present-day Oconee County with the town of Abbeville. Pickens settled near the site of Abbeville in the 1760s and had a fortified blockhouse built prior to the war. The road also passed through the towns of Pendleton and Anderson. Traffic declined after the arrival of the railroad but local references to the road continued into the 1900s.