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"B" is for Bratton, William [ca. 1742-1815]

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"B" is for Bratton, William [ca. 1742-1815]. Soldier, legislator. Bratton was born in county Antrim, Northern Ireland and immigrated with his family to America not long afterward. Beginning in 1765, an extended family of Brattons moved into present-day York County as part of a larger Scots-Irish migration into the Carolina Piedmont. In 1766, Bratton purchased 200 acres on Fishing Creek and built a two-story log house that is still standing today. During the Revolutionary War, he serve din the militia and rose to the rank of colonel and commanded a regiment in Thomas Sumter’s Brigade. After the war, he served as justice of the peace for York County, sheriff of Pinckney District, and a state legislator in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. William Bratton also operated a small store, was a successful planter and businessman. 

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.