Colonel John Thomas and Jane Thomas

This corner of upcountry South Carolina was the muster ground of the Spartan Regiment, the militia that gave Spartanburg County its name. Its first commander was Colonel John Thomas, and the family's true legend belongs to his wife, Jane Black Thomas. In the summer of seventeen eighty, with the colonel held prisoner by the British at Ninety Six, Jane overheard Loyalist plans for a surprise attack on the Patriot camp at nearby Cedar Springs, where her own son was in command of the Patriots.

She rode roughly sixty miles through hostile country to deliver the warning in time. In mid-July, seventeen eighty, the forewarned Patriots turned the ambush into a victory at the Battle of Cedar Springs. That small win helped spark a revival of the Patriot cause across the South Carolina backcountry, in the dark months before Kings Mountain and Cowpens turned the war.