Introduction 

Williston is located in Barnwell County on the Southern Railroad and on U.S. Highway 78. It is easily accessible from Aiken, South Carolina; Augusta, Georgia, and the state capitol at Columbia. It is less than a two hour’s drive from the site where the very first settlers arrived at Charles Towne (now called Charleston) just three hundred years ago.

It is regrettable that the history of Williston has not been fully recorded, but death and the intervening years have made compiling this history difficult.

The incidents that are related here are used solely for the pleasure of the reader and in the hope that their retelling may stir memories of the past.

It has been said that history should not be written until one hundred years have elapsed, but facts and circumstances should be preserved so that history may be presented accurately.

This locale was probably an Indian village three hundred years ago. Possibly, Hernando de Sota passed through here on his trek from Savannah to the Mississippi River, long before 1670. In February, 1865, General Sherman ordered Union troops, under the command of Brevet Major-General J. Kilpatrick and General Slocum from Blackville through Williston. Their mission was to destroy the railroad tracks along he way.

Much of the history of Williston has been destroyed by fire on four separate occasions. The whole truth we reserve to God alone and to those resting in their graves. We hope that this simple narrative will be a token of gratitude to those resting in hallowed ground who toiled, struggled, fought, and fathered generations in order to make the year 1970 one to celebrate. We are thankful that we live under a president, instead of a king; a governor rather than a Lord Proprietor; and with the Palmetto and Old Glory as symbols rather than the hammer and sickle of Communism.