Newberry County Courthouse, Around 1900 | History Of SC Slide Collection

Newberry County Courthouse, around 1900. The county was originally formed in 1785, and peopled (as was nearby Lexington County) by Swiss and German Lutherans who settled in the rich farmlands between the Broad and Saluda Rivers. The English corruption of the Germans' word for their own language, Deutsch, is the origin of the name Dutch Fork for that area. The courthouse was built in 1850, and remodeled in 1880 to add the portico visible in this photograph. An ardent southern nationalist, Osborne Wells added the bas-relief in the pediment, symbolizing "the spirit of the state during Reconstruction" - an uprooted palmetto tree is held in the talons of the United States eagle.

Courtesy of the Howard G. Woody Postcard Collection.