Among those who were classed as the early settlers of the Upper or Northwestern portion of South Carolina, was Colonel Elijah Clark, who, afterwards became noted as a revolutionary soldier and an officer of distinction. Ramsey records the fact that he settled on Pacolet. Being the first settler he might be truly styled, the "Daniel Boone" of the present progressive County of Spartanburg. In the course of six years, he was joined by eight or ten families from Pennsylvania, doubtless Scotch-Irish, who settled on the three forks (north, middle and south) of Tyger River. These constituted the whole white population in the territory of the present County of Spartanburg, prior to 1755. Settlements in other localities took place about the same time.
The settlements on the Long Cane, in Abbeville County, were made by Patrick Calhoun and other families. Previous to the Revolution, Richard Paris, an English Indian trader, boldly advanced into what was then the Cherokee Indian Nation and settled at or near the present city of Greenville. Paris Mountain was named in honor of him. Tradition, which the writer has also investigated, shows that a settlement was made, of excellent material, in the present northeastern (dark corner) portion of Greenville County, near Hog-back Mountain, before the acquisition of that section by the treaty of Colonel Williamson in 1776.
