The Keowee River is created by the confluence of the
Toxaway River and the
Whitewater River in northern
Oconee County, South Carolina
Oconee County is the westernmost County (United States), county in the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 78,607. Its county seat is Walhalla, South Carolina, Walhalla and its lar ...
. The confluence is today submerged beneath the waters of
Lake Jocassee, a reservoir created by Lake Jocassee Dam.
The Keowee River flows out of Lake Jocassee Dam and into
Lake Keowee, a reservoir created by Keowee Dam and Little River Dam. The Keowee River flows out of Keowee Dam to join Twelvemile Creek near
Clemson, South Carolina
Clemson () is a city in Pickens County, South Carolina, Pickens and Anderson County, South Carolina, Anderson counties in the U.S. state of South Carolina. Clemson is adjacent to Clemson University, - The blue-shaded pattern denotes university pr ...
, forming the beginning of the
Seneca River, a tributary of the
Savannah River
The Savannah River is a major river in the Southeastern United States, forming most of the border between the states of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and South Carolina. The river flows from the Appalachian Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, ...
. The Keowee River is long.
[U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data]
The National Map
, accessed April 26, 2011
The boundary between the Seneca River and the Keowee River has changed over time. In the
Revolutionary War period and early eighteenth century, the upper part of the Seneca River was often called the Keowee River, as it was part of the
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...
homeland. They also had a town named
Keowee.
In current times, the section of the Keowee River between the Keowee Dam and its confluence with Twelvemile Creek is called the Seneca River on many maps, including the official county highway map.
Since this area is flooded by
Lake Hartwell, formed by damming the Seneca and
Tugaloo rivers, it is natural to refer to this section as the Seneca instead of its proper name.
By the early eighteenth century the Cherokee occupied several towns along the upper Keowee River, which were referred to as the Lower Towns. These had long been occupied by indigenous peoples, and each of the larger towns had an earthwork
platform mounds built by ancestral people of the
South Appalachian Mississippian culture era. The Cherokee typically constructed
townhouse
A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of Terraced house, terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type o ...
s, which were their form of public architecture, on top of such mounds if available.
was the principal town of the Lower Towns. Other Cherokee towns on the Keowee River included Etastoe (also spelled Estatoe),
and
Sugartown (''Kulsetsiyi'').
External links
*
References
Rivers of South Carolina
Rivers of Oconee County, South Carolina
Rivers of the Cherokee Nation (1794–1907)
Tributaries of the Savannah River
South Carolina placenames of Native American origin
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