Ninety Six

Historic town in Greenwood County, western South Carolina, 13 km/8 mi east-southeast of Greenwood; population (1990) 2,100. Its name reputedly derives from the original settlement's distance in miles from a Cherokee village in the Blue Ridge.

A frontier settlement was built on this site, which lay on an Indian trade route, in around 1730. The first Southern land battle of the Revolutionary War took place here, in November 1775. In May–June 1781, Continental forces under Nathanael Greene unsuccessfully besieged British troops, who subsequently abandoned their fortifications. The Ninety Six National Historic Site, 3 km/2 mi south of the modern town, marks the location of this engagement. The town, an agricultural market centre, was moved to its present site when the railway arrived in 1855. The (Old) Ninety Six District, named in honour of the battle, embraced part or all of six modern counties, including Laurens, Abbeville, Greenwood, and Edgefield.