Introduction to this tour

Welcome to a tour of the history of the town of Cornelius.

First, we will give some background of this region of the Piedmont country. Then, we will discuss the reason the town Cornelius was established. On our tour, we will point out some historical sites that played a part in the development of the town.

The Piedmont's early Native American inhabitants, the Catawbas, numbered between 4,000 and 8,000. The Catawbas were not a nomadic tribe, living in bark houses rather than tepees. They enjoyed nature's bounty and supplemented it by planting fields of corn. The Catawbas resisted the influx of Europeans until 1759, when a smallpox epidemic drastically reduced their numbers. Survivors were forced to sign a treaty that restricted them to a small area around present-day Rock Hill, South Carolina.

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