Among the earliest settlers on the Saluda side of Edgefield, was a Scotch family, or perhaps there were several families, who settled in the year 1756 about four miles south of where Chappell’s Ferry now is, and near where afterwards was organized and built by them the Baptist Church of Chestnut Hill. This church, by the way, was named Chestnut Hill because it was built on a hillside near where grew many chestnut trees, some very large. This growth was found nowhere else in the neighborhood.
This settlement was called Scotland, and is still known and recognized by that name by some of the older citizens, though the descendants of the Culbreaths, the original settlers, are no longer there. Joseph Culbreath was born in Scotland, near Plymouth, in 1747, and was brought over to Edgefield by his father, Edward Culbreath, who settled there in 1756. Edward Culbreath, the father, lived only one year after coming to this country, dying in 1757. He left four sons surviving him, Joseph, John, Daniel, and Edward. These all lived to be over seventy years of age. Luke Culbreath, the grandson of Joseph (his father was John whom I remember well), was eighty-four years of age in May, 1891, and has lived sixty-two years at his present home near Pleasant Lane, ten miles north of Edgefield C. H. There were once many Culbreaths in “Scotland,” but now there are none in that region of country and the name is almost extinct in Edgefield. James Y. Culbreath is a lawyer at Newberry. He is a direct descendant of Edward Culbreath, the founder of the colony at “Scotland.” His father was William, a brother to Luke Culbreath, above mentioned.
There was a family named Hazel, Scotch also, who came with Edward Culbreath to seek new homes in a new world. The head of the family was Harry Hazel. Some of that family are still living in that part of the country not far from the original place of settlement.
Passing down Saluda, not far from “Scotland,” and near Saluda Old Town, is an old settlement, now owned, that is part of it, by Johnson Hagood, and is cultivated as a grass farm, that is, the low grounds bordering on the river. The other part, which includes the original homestead, is owned by J. Y. Culbreath, and others, of Newberry. It was here at this old homestead where Capt. William Butler, of the Revolution, found his wife, Behethland Foote Moore. This place was settled a few years after the settlement at “Scotland,” by Mr. Savage from Virginia, who had married the widow Moore, the mother of several children, William, George, and Behethland.
Source: Chapman, John Abney; History of Edgefield County from the earliest settlement to 1897; Newberry, S.C.: E. H. Aull, 1897.