Congaree National Park is named after the Congaree people who once lived in the region. Not much is known about them because of warfare and disease brought on by European settlers. The Congaree were not the first to have lived within the boundaries of what is now a national park. Archaeological evidence indicates people living in and traveling through the area for at least 10,000 years.
During the mid-1500s, the Spanish explored the region, bringing with them hogs for food and diseases that decimated the Indigenous inhabitants. English settlers began colonizing the “Congarees” in the late 1600s and the promise of rich farmland on the floodplain between the Congaree and Wateree rivers lured more settlers in the mid-1700s. These settlers constructed plantations, roads, and ferries with the intention of planting such cash crops as rice and indigo.
Plantations needed workers in the field and so used slaves for that backbreaking labor. Known as “maroons,” these enslaved peoples escaped the oppressive plantations to find freedom, living rough lives hidden within the heavily-wooded Congaree area, often for years. They endured the hardship and danger of the swamps while concealing themselves from slave owners and hunters hired by those owners.
After the Civil War, rapid industrialization required resources with which to build and expand the nation. These resources came in the form of the champion trees for which the park is now known.
Newspaper editor Harry Hampton waged a one-man campaign to save the forest landscape for future generations, Congaree National Park / NPS file
According to park staff:
Francis Beidler of Chicago purchased 15,000 acres of the Congaree floodplain to harvest the stands of immense old-growth cypress trees. Over almost 20 years, loggers cut many of these massive trees, floating them downstream to his lumber mill to become shingles, pilings, or house siding. However, getting these trees out was difficult and costly, and by 1917, logging operations had ceased, offering this landscape a reprieve. But the danger that more giants might fall to the axe was far from over.
Though no longer logging the land, the Beidlers held onto it with the hopes that one day they could again log it. In the meantime, they leased sections of land out to local hunt clubs to use for recreation. A member of one of those hunt clubs, local newspaper editor Harry Hampton spent his time exploring the Congaree floodplain. He came to the realization that this was a unique place, the last of its kind and size, and worthy of saving. Through his newspaper columns he advocated for the preservation of the Congaree so that future generations could enjoy it as he did. He talked to whoever would listen and worked tirelessly to help save the forest he loved from disappearing forever.
Hampton was unsuccessful in his one-man campaign to see the Congaree preserved, and logging threatened to resume in the late 1960s. In the 1970s, however, men and women who had listened to Hampton and explored this swampy forestland for themselves took up the torch, convinced the landowners to sell the land, and urged Congress to establish Congaree Swamp National Monument in 1976. In 2003, the national monument was designated Congaree National Park, thus bringing to fruition Harry Hampton’s dream to see this remarkable landscape preserved for future generations.
Those of you visiting Congaree can explore the park’s history while hiking Bates Ferry Trail, which follows a historic road dating to when South Carolina was a British colony. Through wayside exhibits, you will learn of Spanish explorers to Congaree, American Revolution activity during the late 1700s, and a Civil War skirmish in 1865 involving Union and Confederate forces as General William Tecumseh Sherman marched his soldiers across South Carolina during the war’s final months.
