1775: SC Regiment Command, per Wells

From History of South Carolina, by Yates Snowden, Henry Gardner Cutler, published 1920, The Lewis Pub. Co., page 316:

According to Well's "Register and Almanac" for 1775 the colonels of the thirteen regiments were as follows: Of the one regiment of horse, William Moultrie; and of the infantry, Charlestown district, Charles Pinckney; Berkeley County, Richard Singleton; Granville County, Stephen Bull, of Sheldon; Craven County, Job Rothmahler; Colleton County, Joseph Glover; Orangeburg, William Thomson; Cheraws, George Gabriel Powell; Ninety-six, John Savage; Camden, Richard Richardson: Forks of Saluda, Robert Starke; Upper Saluda, Thomas Fletchall; New [Acquisition] District, Thomas Neel. Probart Howarth was colonel and governor of Fort Johnson, and Owen Roberts was captain of the artillery company with headquarters in Charlestown.

York County & The New Acquisition

From "York: A Unique South Carolina County," by Lawrence E. Wells, The Carolina Herald, Official Publication of the South Carolina Genealogical Society, Volume 3, Number 1:

In 1772, the boundary question was settled and what became York County was thrown into South Carolina. Tryon County [North Carolina] lost its courthouse and perhaps a majority of its population. South Carolina gained a well-populated piece of territory, peopled almost entirely by Scotch-Irish pioneers. Within what became York County, there were already four Presbyterian churches, and by 1800 there would be four or five more. Although Baptists, Lutherans, Anglicans, and Quakers were nearby in both Carolinas, these groups were conspicuously absent in York County.
When York County became a part of South Carolina in 1772, it found itself in a Province of rather different traditions in local government. North Carolina, like Virginia, had from early on a system of strong county courts. These county courts, consisting of several Justices of the Peace, or "Gentlemen Justices", would sit together and hold court once a quarter. The Court would record deeds, prove wills, grant letters of administration, bind out orphans, license taverns, ferries, and grist-mills, and compile records of inestimable worth to genealogists. But South Carolina in 1772, a city-state ruled from Charlestown, had only nominal counties, and York fell into the ill-defined hunk of territory called Craven County. Equally meaningless was the fact that it belonged to the Parish of St. Mark: we may be very sure that the Anglican presence in York County at that time was negligible if not nil. The only hint of an Anglican clergyman in pre-Revolutionary York County was the chaplain who accompanied Governor Tryon when he traveled through in the 1760's surveying the Indian boundary.
Under the new government of South Carolina, a resident of York County had to travel to the district capital at Camden to enter a suit at law. To record a deed, prove a will, or obtain letters of administration, he had to make the long trip to Charlestown....
Under the new regime the [York County] area gained a quaint name: The New Acquisition. Although not all of the territory "newly acquired" by South Carolina through the 1772 survey was part of York County, the importance of the well-settled region between the Broad and Catawba Rivers caused the name New Acquisition to be used for what later became York County. At the Provincial Congresses of 1775 we find representatives from the "District of the New Acquisition", and the name stuck as late as the State Constitutional Convention of 1790. The importance of New Acquisition District is evidenced by the fact that in the Provincial Congresses it was allowed fifteen representatives, while the "District between the Broad and the Catawba" embracing the territory south of New Acquisition, later divided into Chester, Fairfield, and Richland Counties, was allowed only ten.

For the purpose of drawing up South Carolina's 1776 constitution, the area now known as York County was labeled "New Acquisition District" and called "Election District 10." These fifteen men from the New Acquisition were seated: William Byers, Joseph Woods, James Carson, Robert McAfee, Ezekiel Polk, Joseph Howe, William McCulloch, John Howe, Francis Adams, Thomas Neel, Alexander Love, Samuel Watson, Francis Ross, Thomas Janes, Robert Dickey.

Col. Samuel Watson (1731-1810)

From the "Nearby History" column of historian Louise Pettus in South Carolina's York Observer:

"On the 6th of April 1765 [Samuel] Watson registered two plots of land totalling 760 acres , whereon Watson now liveth, in Mecklenburg on Rockey Allison's Creek . . ."
At this time much of present-day York County was claimed by Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Watson's house, like his Pennsylvania home, was constructed of brick. The house was located about half way between the town of York and the Catawba River on Highway 49. Whatever the date of his arrival, the Allison Creek land grant places Watson in the heart of the Bethel congregation, which was located in the northeastern area of the part of York County west of the Catawba. The Bethel congregation covered 10 miles in every direction. As a Bethel elder, Watson became an influential member of the church as well as highly respected in the community.
The Lyman Draper papers at the University of Wisconsin describe Watson as a man 5 ft, 5 in. in height, of compact build, and genial in disposition. However, like most Scotch-Irishmen of his time, he had no love for the English. When talk of rebellion became general, Watson quickly rose to the cause.
Watson was elected to the South Carolina Provinicial Congress of 1775-1776, one of 46 delegates from the back country. In February of 1776 Watson participated in the framing of South Carolinas first written constitution. The British, naturally, saw this constitution as defiance of their sovereignty. Watson volunteered his services to the South Carolina Regulars. It was not long before the S. C. troops were made a part of the Continental Army of the newly-formed Continental Congress.
By 1778 Watson was a lieut-colonel in Col. Thomas Neel's New Acquisition District Regiment of Horsemen, a part of Thomson's Regiment of Rangers. He went with Neel in what is called the Charleston Expedition in the summer of 1779. Neel was killed at Stono Ferry on June 20, 1779 and Watson took his place.
In June 1780 nearby Hill's Ironworks were burned by the British. The terrified workers fled to Watson's plantation which quickly became a center of resistance. A commissary was set up there to issue supplies to any Whigs who would carry a musket against the British.
At the Battle of Hanging Rock in lower Lancaster County, a musket ball hit Watson's sword, breaking his ribs and knocking him off his horse. The grandson wrote Draper that the family kept the prized sword with the ball half buried in its metal along with Watson's giant musket which kicked mightily.
Watson was also at the skirmish at Williamson Plantation near Brattonsville. The encounter is also called the Battle of Hucks Defeat in some of the literature. Other battles in which Watson participated were Rocky Mount, Sumter's Defeat and Biggin Church....
In his old age Samuel Watson was paralyzed. He died November 25, 1810 at the age of 79 and is buried in Bethel Cemetery in York County.

"The New Rising"

When Charleston fell to the British on 12 May 1780, the British took 5,683 Continental troops as captives. State government collapsed. Charleston was the capital of South Carolina and there was no organized resistance elsewhere in the state. In fact, most residents acquiesced and allowed Lord Cornwallis and his forces to occupy South Carolina at their leisure.
York was the first, and for some weeks the only, district to refuse to accept allegiance to the British king. The "new rising," as the resistance movement in the New Acquisition (of which York was part) was called, was led by Colonels William "Billy" Hill, Samuel Watson, and Edward Lacey, along with Capt. Andrew Neel. Within the month, they agreed to gather their followers under the direction of Thomas Sumter, a Virginia-born resident of the High Hills of the Santee.
A high percentage of the farmers of the New Acquisition were Scots-Irish Presbyterians with a long history of opposition to the English and their ecclesiastical oppression in "the old country." The British forces, quite aware of this long-standing hatred, singled out Presbyterian churches for burning, calling them "sedition shops," and also targeted the libraries of Presbyterian ministers.
The first military unit to form with the goal to regain the state met in York District. William Hill and Andrew Neel were elected as leaders. They established a camp, raised the American flag, and sent word to other potential leaders of their action.
In June and July of 1780 there was much military action in the area as Thomas Sumter rallied not only William Hill's forces but those of Edward Lacey and William Richardson Davie behind him.

(Source: Gen. Thomas Sumter in York County, by Louise Pettus, 2005)

York County Gets A Toehold

The colony of South Carolina was founded in 1670, and was divided into three counties 12 years later. Craven County, which roughly encompassed the northern half of South Carolina, included the southern half of present-day York County, while the top portion of present-day York County was considered part of North Carolina.
Before the boundary between the two Carolinas was fixed in 1772, the northern portion of York County was originally part of Bladen County, North Carolina. In 1750 it was included in the newly created Anson County, North Carolina; the first land grants and deeds for the region were issued in Anson County.
In 1762 Mecklenburg County, North Carolina was formed from western Anson County, and included present-day northern York County. Five years later the area became part of Tryon County, which comprised all of North Carolina west of the Catawba River and south of Rowan County. The area would remain a part of Tryon County until 1772, when the boundary between North and South Carolina was finally established.
After its transfer to South Carolina in 1772, much of the area was known as the New Acquisition. In 1785, York County was one of the original counties in the newly created South Carolina, and its boundaries remained unchanged until 1897, when a small portion of the northwestern corner was ceded to the newly-formed Cherokee County.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Col. Thomas Neel (1739-1779)

Thomas Neel was the second of ten children. His father was originally from the Cape Fear coastal area of North Carolina, but had moved to Mecklenberg County as one of its earliest settlers. This family would come to sacrifice more than most for their countrymen and the Patriot cause. From Carolina historian Louise Pettus:

In 1764 he [Thomas Neel] was one of a committee of four to select a site for Bethel Church and became one of its first elders. He was elected to the North Carolina General Assembly to represent Tryon County. In the Assembly he was active in rallying backcountry representatives to gather petitions for building roads and ferrys. He was appointed as a member of the board of trustees of Queen's College in Charlotte. He served as a justice of the peace and as a judge of Tryon County from 1769 to 1772.
In 1772 Neel served on the Boundary Commission that drew the North Carolina-South Carolina boundary line west of the Catawba River. Meantime, he was acquiring land in South Carolina. As soon as the boundary was settled he applied for a South Carolina land grant for 779 acres that had originally been patented in North Carolina. This land was near the Catawba River south of present-day Highway 49 near Buster Boyd Bridge.
Neel's first military experience was in North Carolina Governor Tryon's expedition against the regulators of Alamance County in 1771. Holding the rank of Captain, Neel commanded the Tryon County troops. By 1775 he was a Colonel in command of the militia of both the New Acquisition and Tryon County [therefore serving both North and South Carolina].
When South Carolina declared its independence from Great Britain in 1776, Neel was elected to the First South Carolina Provincial Congress. He spent little time with the Provincial Congress. Instead, he led the militia in what is called either the Cherokee Campaign or the Snow Campaign. The Cherokee Indians were scalping white settlers who were settling on traditional Cherokee hunting grounds. One of those scalped was the wife of Thomas Neel, Jean Spratt. Jean Spratt Neel had long coal-black hair. It is believed that the Cherokees intended to claim her scalp as that of a Catawba Indian, their traditional enemy. Thomas Neel was already in the field at the time of his wife's scalping. Struggling through waist-deep snow, Neel and his men surprised the Cherokee and destroyed many of their towns and villages.
In 1777 and 1778 Neel headed a regiment in the Florida and Georgia Campaigns that operated out of Phillip's Fort in Georgia. His last expedition was the defense of Charleston. Neel was shot through the head and killed in the battle of Stono.
Thomas Neel and Jean Spratt had three sons and four daughters. Daughter Sarah married David Johnston, a Revolutionary soldier with Capt. Jacob Barnett's horse troop. And daughter Mary married Lt. Col. James Hawthorne. Hawthorne fought in several major battles and an unknown number of skirmishes, and was twice wounded during the Revolutionary War. He served under Col. Thomas Neel in the Snow Campaign in 1775, and was Lt. Col. to Col. Neel in that fateful battle at Stono.

All three of Thomas and Jean's sons fought in the Revolution, and like their father, gave their lives for it. Son Andrew rose to the rank of Colonel and was detached by Sumter at Clems Branch as commander of the troops of York and Chester. He afterwards fell in the 1780 battle of Rocky Mount. Andrew's twin Lt. Col. Thomas Neel was killed in 1781. At age 16, youngest son Lt. John Neel was serving in Col. Joseph Hayes' Fifth Regiment when they fell victim to the (literal) butchery of Maj. William Cunningham's Loyalist militia in an ambush at Hayes' Station in 1778. He lies buried next to his father in Bethel Presbyterian Cemetery in York County, South Carolina.