Robert Anderson

1741-1813

If you are like me you often wonder why a place has a certain name. The city of Anderson SC and the county by the same name were both named for Robert Anderson. In 1906, the Civic Association of Anderson County designed and built the Anderson Memorial Fountain, which is visible on the grounds of the Anderson County Museum.

He was born in Virginia in 1741 to John and Jean Anderson, both of whom were born in Ulster, Ireland. He was the fifth child of a Scot-Irish family who owned a prosperous farm in Augusta County, Virginia. As a young man, he move to South Carolina to work as a surveyor.

In 1765 Robert Anderson married Anne Thompson and moved to the Ninety Six District of South Carolina. Robert and Ann had five children, Robert Jr., Anne, Elizabeth, Mary and Lydia. After twenty-five years of marriage Anne died and Robert married twice more, first to Lydia Maverick, a widow from Pendleton, South Carolina and following her death to the Jane Harris Reece, widow of Dr. Thomas Reece.

At the outbreak of the American Revolution, Anderson joined the volunteer Patriot Army and was at one time a sergeant of the Fifth South Carolina Regiment. Anderson soon joined his life long friend Andrew Pickens and was present at the Battle of Kettle Creek, Georgia. The vastly outnumbered Patriot militia defeated a British force commanded by Colonel Boyd and stopped the British from recruiting more Tories Anderson served in several different capacities but eventually he became a colonel in the Upper Ninety Six regiment, which he commanded until March 30, 1783.

Robert Anderson was at the battles of Musgrove’s Mill, Kings Mountain, Cowpens and Eutaw Springs. After Cowpens, Anderson joined Light Horse Harry Lee to capture Augusta. Anderson’s regiment was at the front during one of the bloodiest battles of the southern campaign, the battle at Eutaw Springs.

After the Revolutionary War, he fought with Andrew Pickens against the Cherokees. A treaty signed in 1777 ceded most of the Cherokee lands in the present Anderson, Oconee, and Pickens counties.

For his service in the Revolutionary Was, General Anderson received 460 acres of bounty land in the Pendleton District. He would settle across the Seneca River from his friend General Andrew Pickens. By the time of his death, his estate would be a total of 2100 acres. Both Anderson and Pickens were on a commission to select a site for a courthouse in the Pendleton District.

Robert Anderson eventually became a general in the state militia and saw action in several Indian campaigns. The Cherokee Indians gave him the nickname of “old Thunder Gusty” due to his temper and courage. He served in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1791 to 1794 and from 1801 to 1802 from the Pendleton District. In 1800, he was elector for Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. Anderson spent his senior years in the Pendleton District as a gentleman farmer. Anderson died in January 1813 at his home. He was survived by five children. He is interned at The Old Stone Church where he was an elder.

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