Digging Up Deep Run Roots

In January 2024, a ground radar survey marked a major milestone in the nine-year restoration of Old Six Mile Cemetery (OSMC). Faith Presbyterian Church of Indian Land, SC—generously sponsored this important work, demonstrating what it truly means to protect our shared past.

Charleston Underground Archaeological Services LLC, conducted a multi-day ground-penetrating radar survey across the cemetery’s legal boundaries. Their work revealed discoveries that filled long-standing gaps in the historical record and answered questions that had lingered for years.

Like many historic cemeteries, Old Six Mile holds stories that time nearly erased. Weather, neglect, and changing landscapes caused many grave markers to disappear, leaving generations unaccounted for. Prior to the survey, only 28 marked graves were known. The radar survey identified 102 graves (as shown in the sketch) within just over a quarter of an acre—powerful evidence of how much history can lie just beneath the surface.

One especially meaningful discovery helped complete an earlier mystery. A single stone fragment found years ago was identified in 2025 as the missing bottom half of Elizabeth Winget’s headstone. After 195 years, the two pieces were reunited and returned to their original place—restoring both a marker and a memory. (See the separate OSMC post for the full restoration story.)

Each grave identified by radar was carefully marked with a metal spike and brass numbered tag, then documented on a detailed map. These markers ensure that if future records or family connections emerge, individuals can be respectfully identified and remembered.

Old Six Mile Cemetery is a reminder that preservation doesn’t happen by chance—it happens when people care enough to take action. Finding lost graves is about more than numbers; it’s about dignity, remembrance, and honoring those who came before us. This is the true spirit of making a difference in our community—protecting history so it is not lost again.

Old Six Mile page: https://www.facebook.com/share/188GftyCzW/?mibextid=wwXIfr

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1736723077263999&id=100027789710443

Why I’m not a Baptist. Or rather, how I ended up raised as a Methodist.

My 4th great grandfather, Littleton Crankfield, born March 15, 1775 was one of the founders of 25 Mile Creek Baptist church, what would become Sandy Level Baptist Church in present day Blythewood, South Carolina. His daddy Hezekiah Lewis Crankfield, immigrated from England with a land grant from King George and ended up dying in North Carolina before he could make it to South Carolina. Littleton, his mother Permilla Randolph Crankfield and her new husband Lewis Perry (yes another Lewis) continued on and made it to South Carolina in time to be registered on the first Fairfield County census in 1790. Littleton received the land grant in his mother‘s dowry and he would claim it. I own some of this property now. It has not left our family.

Littleton would marry Lucy Wilson, the girl next door, from the neighboring farm. I believe the Wilson family still owns it. They would raise nine children and run a farm together until their deaths in 1846 and 1847.

Back then some people think the area was referred to as Doko based on a Indian reference. But I’m not sure there was any real name for the Crankfield’s and Wilson’s farms. The area was considered the “backwoods.” What it was was about 20 miles south of Winnsboro, connected by an ox cart traveled path. This was rough living.

Winnsboro was the hub of the business transactions in the area. They have the clock from France and the courthouse designed by Robert Mills, reminiscent of a time when the economy was booming based on the sale of cotton and the enslaved people used to process it. They were a big deal economically speaking. Fairfield county had one of the most lucrative economies in the state in its heyday.

The Blythewood area used to be in Fairfield county. It was annexed into Richland County in 1913. The Fairfield County courthouse is a treasure trove of South Carolina historical documents. They are still there in the original fancy cursive script written in quill and ink.

In and amongst those documents filed by family members and attorneys is the story of how Littleton got in a fight with the Baptist Church because of the way he chose to handle settling the estate of his father-in-law, James Wilson. James (1752-1836) was my 4 time great grandmother Lucy’s daddy. Littleton was the primary executor of the estate.

It seems James liked the ladies. There was drama surrounding his will and estate not only with the church but by his fourth wife and widow, Sarah. She herself had made the rounds and was on her fourth or fifth marriage as well. There had been some documented discussion regarding whether one of her husbands was actually dead before she married her next.

And when she died, she was in her 80s and her husband, Jacob Blizzard, was a young man of 18. Yes, you read that correctly. No, it’s not a typo. EIGHTEEN. The Wilson estate had something to say about a bed that she had and they wanted that back, but I believe her widower was able to keep it.

Anyway, it’s said that James Wilson was a piece of the template or the character that Simon LeGree from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe was based on, essentially a womanizing, manipulative rapscalion. I can believe it. I haven’t seen this in writing and I cannot verify it. But it totally sounds like my family.

How in the world would Harriet B. Stowe know about your fifth great grandfather Wilson, Ann Marie? Cmon….

Because the Crankfields owned and ran a drover station. The wagon road came through Winnsboro to Blythewood. And the drovers that used these roads between Ohio and Kentucky and direct routes to Charleston stayed at the stations. I’ve heard talk of a brothel nearby, but I haven’t seen anything in writing.

The youngest Crankfield daughter, Elizabeth, married one of those drovers by the name of George Bush. George stayed frequently enough to fall in love with the baby daughter, and was friends with the Crankfields and the Wilsons. They were closely knit. He married Eliza, took her to Kentucky, and she never returned. Except maybe once. She might’ve come home with her first and oldest child to visit .

In 1852, hard times hit and the eldest Crankfield son Allen and his wife Jemima go bankrupt. Their estate was ordered up for sale by the sheriff of Fairfield County. A flyer was printed advertising the sale. It listed the ages and genders of the enslaved people being sold from the estate. Perhaps George Bush brought advertisements back to Ohio. We may never know how Ms. Stowe came to see the sale flyer, but we do know in the “Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin” she identifies this advertisement as a source document.

Life sure is funny like that.

Back to my point…

The Baptist church wasn’t happy about how the estate was divided because they felt like they should be getting more money from the Wilson estate for whatever reason. I don’t know all the ins and outs yet. But Littleton would not be convicted and felt the church was overstepping its boundaries. He quit going to church, I believe. There weren’t any other options really, unless you switched denominations.

At some point after that, Zion (pronounced “Zine” in the local vernacular) United Methodist Church which was founded in the late 1700’s to early 1800’s became our family’s home church. Littleton, Lucy and their children that didn’t move away were buried in the family cemetery back in the woods. Everyone after that is buried at Zion. 

There was even a little bit of drama about that. Somebody supposedly is buried in the family cemetery back in the woods by his first wife Mary Anne Crankfield. But his second wife is buried at Zion and her family feels certain that she would not have stood for him to be buried by his first wife back in the woods. I’m inclined to believe them. But nonetheless, the man has two headstones, one in the Crankfield Lawhorn family cemetery and one in Zion UMC cemetery.

And that’s the story of how I came to be raised a Methodist and not a Baptist.

(Photo of Zion United Methodist Church, taken approximately 1914, by my great aunt Bessie Alma Allen Abney.)