Day-Long Event Will Include Grave Ceremony & Cannon Fire
WINNSBORO – On Saturday, Winnsboro will honor its American Revolutionary Patriots with a grave-marking ceremony in the morning, and in the afternoon, guests to the Fairfield County Museum will witness a re-enactment of a 1780 encampment complete with cannon fire and costumed characters from the Revolutionary War period, including Richard Winn and Lord General Cornwallis.
The day will begin at 10 a.m. deep in the woods south of Hwy 34W where The SC Society of the Sons of the American Revolution will host a grave-marking ceremony for four of Fairfield’s American Patriots buried on wooded property owned by Spencer McMaster.
The 300-year-old cemetery site is in the former ‘Winnsborough’ community west of Winnsboro. Those who attend the grave markings ceremony will travel west on Highway 34 from Winnsboro for about 1.5 miles, then turn left on Pine Top Road, a seldom traveled dirt road. Directional signs will be posted leading to the cemetery.
The graveside ceremony will honor four patriots: Irish immigrant Capt. Robert and Elizabeth Ellison, Major Henry Moore, and Samuel Weldon. Their descendants will honor the patriots by placing engraved granite markers on their graves.
Three of the Ellison’s descendants, Bill, David (Dee) and Robert (Bobby) Ellison, grew up in Winnsboro and will be in attendance. David and Robert live in Winnsboro and are the last of the Ellison family descendants living in Fairfield County. Bill lives in Lexington.
These three and other family members spent time this summer cutting fallen trees and cleaning up access to their ancestors’ burial sites. Some descendants of the Patriots will attend from as far away as Texas.
The ceremony will include a welcome, posting of colors, a dedication of the grave markers and the placing of the markers.
At 2 p.m. that same afternoon a public celebration will be held in the backyard of the Fairfield County Museum, where there will be Revolutionary War encampment scenes re-enacted by actors in period costumes. There will be a number of displays of period items. Guns and a cannon will be fired as part of the ceremony.
Those planning to attend either the morning grave-marking, the afternoon re-enactment or both are asked to RSVP to Museum Director Pelham Lyles at 803-727-5908 or fairfieldmus@truvista.net. By noon, Oct. 27.
The museum is located at 231 S. Congress Street in Winnsboro.