07/11/2026
The Woman Who Kept the Ferry
There is a quiet community on the banks of the Saluda River in western Newberry County called Chappells.
Most people drive through without a second thought.
But in 1781 the Saluda River crossing at Chappells — then known as Chappell's Ferry — sat at the heart of some of the most turbulent events of the entire South Carolina Revolution.
The story begins in 1755, when the Treaty of Saluda Old Town ceded former Cherokee land across the northwestern corner of present-day South Carolina.
Thomas Chappell wasted no time. He arrived in 1756, settled on the north bank of the Saluda River, and established a ferry crossing that quickly became one of the most important transportation links in the entire backcountry.
Whoever controlled the Saluda River crossing at Chappell's Ferry controlled the movement of people, goods, and armies through the heart of the South Carolina backcountry.
When the Revolution came the Chappell family was right in the middle of it.
John Chappell — Thomas's son, who had taken over operation of the ferry and the store — had only one brother. In November 1781, during Bloody Bill Cunningham's savage rampage, the brother was murdered. The brother-whose name is lost to history --was one of the scores of victims of the Bloody Scout.
With one son now dead at Cunningham's hands — and John himself away fighting or defending the vital crossing — his mother took over operation of the ferry herself, personally acting as ferryman on the Saluda River during the darkest year of the Revolutionary War in South Carolina.
A woman alone on the banks of the Saluda River, in the most violent period of the entire backcountry civil war — keeping the crossing open, running the ferry, maintaining the vital link that connected the communities of the upcountry through years of partisan warfare.
Her name has not survived in the records. But her story has — preserved in John Abney Chapman's 1892 Annals of Newberry, one of the most thorough historical accounts of the county ever written.
And the Saluda River itself played its own role in the Revolution's final chapters.
On January 18, 1781 — just one day after the stunning Patriot victory at Cowpens — Newberry militia struck again, capturing Tarleton's baggage train at Love's Ford, a crossing on the Broad River in the northern part of present-day Newberry County.
A few months later, on May 22, 1781, General Nathanael Greene's army crossed the Saluda at Island Ford — just miles from Chappell's Ferry — on their march to begin the longest siege of the entire Revolution at Ninety Six.
And in 1782, Bloody Bill Cunningham himself — fleeing pursuing Patriots who had finally cornered him — plunged his horse into the Saluda River and swam to safety on the other bank.
The same river. The same crossing. The same backcountry community.
And through all of it — the raids, the armies, the partisan warfare, the murder of her son — one unnamed woman kept the ferry running on the Saluda River at Chappells, Newberry County, South Carolina.
She deserves to be remembered.
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The American Revolution Trivia Book: In Our Own Backyard
Paperback $9.99 — amazon.com/dp/B0GXH2HC9Y
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