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In 1768, Richard Pearis came to the area around the Reedy River, which was Cherokee land at that time. With his Cherokee wife Pearis had a son named George. There was a law at this time stating that a Cherokee couldn't give land to anyone but another Indian. Richard Pearis got around this by having the Cherokees give George the land. George then gave most of the land to his father, keeping some of it for himself. Richard Pearis established a trading post and GristMill on this land before it was taken away from him by the state of South Carolina at the end of the American Revolution. Reedy River was the beginning of Greenville and has been called "Cradle of Greenville." During the summer, dams above and below the falls were used as swimming pools and in the winter as ice-skating rinks. Along the river there were bathhouses where for twenty-five cents you were provided with soap and a towel to bathe in the crystal clear water. Ministers from local churches often preformed baptisms in the river. |
