Marty and Karla Grant

!CENSUS:1790 Cheraws Dist, SC pg 48 Nathaniel SANDERS age 16+ (bef 1774) "2-3-4-0-0";

!CENSUS:1800 Darlington Dist, SC pg 125 Nathaniel SAUNDERS age 45+ (bef 1755) "01001-00101-0-32";

!CENSUS:1810;

!REFERENCE: A History of Marion County, South Carolina From Its Earliest Times to the Present, 1901, by W. W. Sellers, Esq., of the Marion Bar. 1902. pp. 157-158
Saunders.-In the settlement made at Sandy Bluff, the name of Saunders appears. John, George and William Saunders were the first of the name there. Bishop Gregg, on p. 71, says: "Of the "settlers at Sandy Bluff, the Murfees, Saunders, Gibsons and Crawfords accumulated the largest properties." The name Saunders has become extinct in Marion County-not one of the name in the county, to the knowledge of the writer. One John Saunders took up large grants of land between Catfish and Great Pee Dee. "They came from England. John Saunders had two sons, George and Thomas. George was the father of Nathaniel Saunders, who became a man of some note, and was the father of the late Moses Saunders and Jordan Saunders, in Darlington" (Gregg, p. 73). In a note to the same page, the Bishop says: "George Saunders came to an untimely end; in connection with which a singular incident is related. He was engaged on a Sunday in cutting down a bee tree, a cypress, in the swamp on the opposite side of the river. As the cypress fell, the limb of an ash was broken off, and being thrown with violence on the head of Saunders, killed him instantly. An ash afterwards came up at the head of his grave and grew to a large tree, being regarded by the people as a standing monument of the judgment sent upon him for the violation of the Lord's day, which led to his end. It is but a few years since that the last vestige of this famous ash was to be seen. Near the spot are faint traces of the burial ground of the Sandy Bluff settlement." The descendants of this Saunders family have all played out. Between fifty and sixty years ago, Tobias Saunders and Smithey Saunders, brother and sister (neither one ever married), lived on the road leading from Berry's Cross Roads to Marion, near the end of Pigeon Bay, just below where the Florence Railroad crosses said bay; they were descendants of old John Saunders, to whom much land had been granted ; the little hut of a house in which they lived stood on land granted to their ancestor ; they were invalids, and lived by begging and by the dharity of the neighbors. The writer used to see them at his father-in-law's many times begging, and the old man would give them a shoulder of meat and half bushel of meal, as much as they could carry. The sister was the stronger of the two ; they were imbecile, and especially the brother, and harmless ; they ultimately died there. Such are the sad changes in families.;

!NOTE:Could this be Mercy Crawford? She and Nathaniel were 1st cousins, so this could be her, but no proof;

!CENSUS:1790 Cheraws Dist, SC pg 48 w/Nathaniel SANDERS no ages (bef 1790);

!CENSUS:1800 Darlington Dist, SC pg 125 w/Nathaniel SAUNDERS age 45+ (bef 1755);

!CENSUS:1810;