John Saunders (d aft 1734) of Marion Co., SC

Marty and Karla Grant

[Home] [What’s New?] [Books for Sale] [Christian] [Genealogy] [Search] [Support] [About] [Contact]

[Saunders Home] - [Table of Contents] - John Saunders

Jump to Children’s section | Jump to Family Group Sheet

John Saunders *might* be my seventh Great Grandfather, but his connection to my ancestor isn’t proven.

John Saunders (or Sanders) was born before ca 1713, assuming he was at least 21 in 1734 when he patented land.

A deed dated 4 Mar 1805 refers to land then owned by John Bass that was originally surveyed for John Sanders in 1734. (Marion Co., SC Deed Book D., p. 252.)

The above deed puts John in our area of interest in 1734. What is now Marion and Dillon Counties was part of Craven Co., SC in the 1730s and remained so until 1769 when Craven was abolished. Georgetown District was formed that year and encompassed our area of interest. In 1798 Marion District was formed from Georgetown. I believe John Saunders was long dead by then though.

In The History of the Old Cheraws by Bishop Alexander Gregg, 1867, the author mentions the Saunders/Sanders in conjunction with the Sandy Bluff settlement and gives some interesting history.

pp. 70-74 (some sections omitted here)

The other settlement referred to was made at a point on the east bank of the river, called Sandy Bluff, two and a half miles above Mars Bluff. A few traces of it are yet to be seen at several points, immediately on the high bank of the river. The families of Crawford, Saunders, Murfee, Crosby, Keighly, Berry and shortly after the Gibson’s, made up this community. Sandy Bluff extended up the river about three miles. With the fertile uplands on the opposite side, and supplied, too, with numerous springs of good water, this locality was in many respects admirably adapted to the wants of the infant colony.

...

They were from England and Ireland, and having landed at Charles-town, found their way to George-town, and thence up the river, attracted by the bounties which the Government had offered. ...

...

Of the settlers at Sandy Bluff, the Murfees, Saunders, Gibsons and Crawfords accumulated the largest properties, and became most prominent.

...

... John, George and William Saunders appear to have been the first of that name. In a list of grants in the Surveyor-General’s office (as to which notice was given to the parties to apply for and take out their plots), appear the names of George Saunders for 300 acres, May 24^th, 1735; and John Saunders for 200 acres, May 12, 1736. They came from England. John Saunders had two sons, George and Thomas. George* was the father of Nathanael Saunders, who became a man of some note, and was the father of the late Moses and Jordan Saunders, of Darlington. The sons of Thomas Saunders removed at an early period to Tennessee.

[Footnote] * George Saunders came to an untimely end, in connection with which a singular incident is related. He was engaged on a Sunday in cutting down a bee tree, a cypress, in the swamp on the opposite side of the river. As the cypress fell, the limb of an ash was broken off, and being thrown with violence on the head of Saunders, killed him instantly. An ash afterwards came up at the head of his grave and grew to a large tree, being regarded by the people as a standing monument of the judgment sent upon him for the violation of the Lord's day, which led to his end.

It is but a few years since that the last vestige of this famous ash was to be seen. Near the spot are faint traces of the burial ground of the Sandy Bluff settlement.

W. W. Sellers, in A History of Marion County, South Carolina, 1901, quoted much of the above in his section on the Saunders family, and added this:

p. 157-158

The descendants of this Saunders family have all played out. Between fifty and sixty years ago, Tobias Saunders and Smithey Saunders, brother and sister (neither one ever married), lived on the road leading from Berry's Cross Roads to Marion, near the end of Pigeon Bay, just below where the Florence Railroad crosses said bay; they were descendants of old John Saunders, to whom much land had been granted ; the little hut of a house in which they lived stood on land granted to their ancestor ; they were invalids, and lived by begging and by the charity of the neighbors. The writer used to see them at his father-in-law’s many times begging, and the old man would give them a shoulder of meat and half bushel of meal, as much as they could carry. The sister was the stronger of the two ; they were imbecile, and especially the brother, and harmless ; they ultimately died there. Such are the sad changes in families.;

I don’t know who John Saunders married, nor when he or his wife died.

Children

Bishop Gregg listed George and Thomas as sons of old John. I suspect my ancestor Kesiah Saunders (wife of James Crawford) is also their child since the Crawfords were also part of the Sandy Bluff settlement.

There is a younger John Sanders (1755/65), who with wife Elizabeth, had a large family and much land. They are the parents of Tobias and Smithy Sanders who Sellers mentioned above. This John is probably much too young to be a son of the older John, but is either a grandson or great grandson.

1. George Saunders (bef 1718-aft 1751) m Hannah Gibson.

2. Thomas Saunders

3. Kesiah Saunders (bef 1723-aft 1753) m James Crawford.

4. John Sanders (1755/65-c1821) m Elizabeth —. Not a son of old John, but perhaps a grandson.

For Family Group Sheet and other notes see my database pages for John Saunders.

Revised: January 29, 2026

[Home] [What’s New?] [Books for Sale] [Christian] [Genealogy] [Search] [Support] [About] [Contact]