Battle of Cedar Springs: How Spartanburg Got Its Name
BATTLE OF CEDAR SPRINGS REENACTMENT
July 18 • 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM
140 Cedar Springs Place • Spartanburg, SC 29302
Join us as we honor one of Spartanburg County’s earliest Revolutionary War victories—and one of its bravest women.
During the Revolution, Patriot leader John Thomas was captured and confined at Ninety Six. His wife, Jane Black Thomas, followed him on a grueling sixty-mile journey. Along the way, she overheard Loyalist women discussing a planned attack on the Patriot camp at Cedar Springs the next night. Without hesitation, Mrs. Thomas mounted her horse and rode sixty miles back through dangerous territory to warn the men at Cedar Springs—where her son, Colonel John Thomas, Jr., was among the officers.
Because of her warning, the Patriots were prepared. The victory at Cedar Springs, though small, became the first show of organized resistance to Major Patrick Ferguson in the Spartan District and gave new courage to the Whig cause.
Jane Thomas’s courage did not end there. When Loyalists later attempted to seize arms and ammunition stored at her home, she and her young son defended the supplies from the upper floor of the house, forcing the attackers to retreat. The preserved powder would later supply Patriot forces at Rocky Mount and Hanging Rock.
Experience this powerful story, brought to life through musket demonstrations, living-history camps, and battlefield interpretation.
Come stand where resistance began—and where a woman’s 60-mile ride on horseback helped change the course of the Southern Campaign.
