Cheraw

Town in Chesterfield County, northeastern South Carolina, USA, in the Sandhills, on the Pee Dee River, 58 km/36 mi north-northwest of Florence and 13 km/8 mi south of the North Carolina border; population (2000) 5,500. In an agricultural region, Cheraw trades and processes cotton; textiles and building materials are manufactured.

Settled by Welsh in the 1750s in an area inhabited by the Cheraw tribe, it has many historic buildings, including Old St David's Episcopal Church (c.1770). An important port at the head of navigation on the Pee Dee, it was a supply depot during the Civil War until captured (1865) by Sherman. Jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie was born here in 1917.