Yemassee, South Carolina

The name Yemassee preserves the memory of the Yamasee, a confederacy of Native peoples who rose against English colonists in seventeen fifteen in one of the deadliest conflicts in colonial American history. The war killed roughly seven percent of South Carolina's colonial population and pushed the colony to the edge of collapse before allied Cherokee forces helped turn the tide. The Yamasee were scattered and absorbed into other nations.

The present town, straddling Beaufort and Hampton counties along the old Atlantic Coast Line, grew up around the railroad. The depot was long the last stop for Marine recruits bound for Parris Island, and Amtrak still stops in town.