Description
Names in honor of Revolutionary War hero General Francis Marion. Francis Marion was born in 1732 at Gayfield plantation in St. James Parish, South Carolina to a wealthy French Huguenot family. Marion was a member of the South Carolina Provincial Congress and later became a commissioned captain in the 2nd South Carolina Regiment. In 1776 he served in the defense of Fort Sullican and Fort Moultrie in the Charleston harbor. Marion managed to escape capture by the British when Charleston fell in 1780 but was injured in the process. With Charleston under British control, Marion moved to organize a small group of men to disrupt the British forces as they moved about the area. Marion became a folk hero almost overnight unseen by traveling the low country’s swamp paths. In 1782 he put down a final British uprising and then returned to his plantation along the Santee River. Francis Marion is remembered as a great patriot in America;s was of Independence in the South Carolina low country; a memorial to him stands today at the statehouse in Columbia.
