The History of Ridgeway and Winnsboro

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Luckily for us, the histories of Ridgeway and Winnsboro are a bit less murky than the Woodwards’ history. Let’s start with Ridgeway.

If you’ve ever traveled through Ridgeway, SC, you’re probably aware of the train tracks that run directly through the town, sort of splitting everything in two. Notice the smoothly curving tracks enter at the top left and exit at the bottom right.

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In fact, that’s the same railroad I mentioned earlier — the one that’s opposite the cemetery on Highway 34. And this railroad has a long history with the town.

Official records indicate that settlers may have lived here since the late 1700s, but the area didn’t rise to prominence until the mid-1800s. For more information on history prior to that, see this webpage. What gave Ridgeway some attention were two things: the arrival of telegraph lines and the arrival of the railroad.

Telegraph lines were especially important at the time thanks to the Civil War that was in progress. Confederate generals often used Ridgeway as a stopping point, and communicated intel and happenings with military leaders.

As for the trains, the owners of a railway company wanted to build a set of tracks going through South Carolina. There were two options: either go through the pre-established Camden, SC, or run the line along a higher-elevation ridge that split the area in two. Ultimately, the company decided to take the “ridge way". And that’s actually where the town’s name comes from!

Now, unfortunately, as you may be able to tell, all of this fascinating history comes after the deaths of many of the people in the Woodward Cemetery. So I could go on talking more about the history of the town up to present day, but it wouldn’t be very useful for our research on the cemetery itself. So let’s move on now to Winnsboro.

Winnsboro’s story begins a bit earlier than Ridgeway’s, when a Virginian man named Richard Winn moved to the area. He purchased such a large amount of land that the town would later be named after him.

Soon after that, the Woodwards would establish their residence near Winnsboro. During the Revolutionary War, members of both the Winn and the Woodward families served.

As mentioned in the Family History section, Thomas Woodward didn’t spend much of his life outside of conflict, and he was ultimately killed by his enemies. But one of the main things he’s known for is his participation in the Mt. Zion Institute. For more information on the early history of the organization, take a look at the Family History section. Now, I want to go over the rest of the history of the school he helped to found.

When we left off, it was 1991, and the elementary school had been closed forever. At that time, the property was handed off to the Mt. Zion Society, who ultimately didn’t do anything with the site. In 2006, the Society, being unable to hold on to the land, turned it over to…the City of Winnsboro! It seems like owning this place is just some kind of curse. The city determined that preserving the structures was too much of a liability, and decided to tear them all down. And then, guess what happens…a new group, the Friends of Mt. Zion, shows up in 2008 and gets the title to the property. And that’s basically it. Since then, not much has happened, and the school sits in decay. To see some images of the school from 2015, visit this site.

So we can say that despite his long record of activities, Thomas Woodward and his family weren’t particularly active in local happenings. In part, that’s because they spent so much time at war or in conflict, but we should also remember that “local happenings” weren’t really a thing at the time. Both of these towns were in their beginnings when the Woodwards lived in the area, so we have to judge them based on their own merits. Which…we also don’t have much record of. What are we supposed to do here?