Nathaniel Austin
The Greenville News, Greenville, SC Monday, October 26, 197?
AUSTIN, 10 SONS FOUGHT AS PATRIOTS
By Aurelia Austin
Captain Nathaniel Austin Sr., Revolutionary War Patriot, return to Gilder after 170 years, he would be surprised to find that the swank subdivision Camelot now occupies a large part of his original plantation.
See Logan, in his history of South Carolina
Captain Austin built two homes at Gilder.
History of the upper country of South Carolina : from the earliest periods to the close of the War of Independence / by John H. Logan ; Vol. 1 and 2, (1859) which I think may be the book referred to in the article. I see that it was reprinrted in 1960.
The noted historian, Colonel S. S. Crittenden, in his history, Greenville Century Book (1903) wrote: "Owing to its exposed situation and being still Indian territory, there were few settlements in this County previous to the Revolutionary War. Among the very first settlers was doubtless Nathaniel Austin (the great-grandfather of Hon. J. Thomas Austin) who immigrated from London to Virginia and then to South Carolina in 1761. He settled fifteen miles east of Greenville near Enoree River and Gilder's Creek. He held appointments as High Constable under George II until the troubles with England began. He then joined the patriot army, and with ten sons, did active service at different times during the war."
Captain Nathaniel Austin did not hold the office of Constable for upper South Carolina as what is now Greenville and the territory around it at that time belonged to the Cherokee Nation. He held this postion before leaving Virginia in 1761, where he had resided for ten years in or near Austinville, Virginia, according to family tradition. Another tradition is that he came to South Carolina as an emissary to the Indians.
Nathaniel Sr. became Captain of Infantry in General Andrew Pickens' Brigade, South Carolina Militia. The eight Indents in the Archives of South Carolina Historical Commission at Columbia authenticate his participation in the siege of Charleston, Augusta, Kettle Creek (Washington Georgia), Musgrove Mills, Cowpens (north of Gilder) and other battles in South and North Carolina.