Berkeley County
http://www.bcoc.com/
http://www.sccounties.org/counties/berkeley.htm

Berkeley County was named for two of the Lords Proprietors of Carolina, Lord
John Berkeley (d. 1678) and Sir William Berkeley (d. 1677). The county was
orginally named in 1682, and at one time it included the parishes of St. John
Berkeley, St. James Goose Creek, St. James Santee, St. Stephen, and St. Thomas
and St. Denis. In 1769 this area became part of Charleston District, and it did
not become a separate county again until 1882. The county seat was Mount
Pleasant from 1882 until 1895, when it was moved to Moncks Corner. This area was
settled in the late seventeenth century by English and French Huguenot planters
and their African slaves. Many of the old rice plantations are now covered by
the waters of Lake Moultrie, which was built in the 1940s as part of the
Santee-Cooper hydroelectric project. Two famous Revolutionary War generals were
residents of the area: William Moultrie (1730-1805) and Francis Marion
(1732-1795), known as the Swamp Fox. Henry Laurens (1724-1792), president of the
Continental Congress, resided at Mepkin Plantation, which many years later was
purchased by publisher Henry Luce (1898-1967). Luce and his wife, writer and
diplomat Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987), are buried at Mepkin, which is now a
Trappist monastery.

Compiled by South Carolina State Library 1996. 
http://www.state.sc.us/scsl/berk.html

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