Grave of General Tristam Thomas

Front: In Saw Mill Church cemetery is the grave of Tristram Thomas, major of militia during the Revolution. At Hunt's Bluff, ten miles south, a band of Patriots under his command seized a British flotilla in 1780. He served as legislator, as first Brigadier General of the Cheraw Militia, and as commissioner for locating the county seat. Reverse: In 1785 Philip Pledger donated to the Cheraw Hill Baptist Church a tract of land here adjoining his saw mill. Pledger's Saw Mill Church was eventually constituted in 1820 as a separate church. The original congregation relocated in 1832 as Bennettsville Church. Sawmill Church today is a member of the S. C. Baptist Educational and Missionary Convention.