Washington District is a former judicial district in South Carolina. It existed as a district from 19 February 1791 to 1 January 1800. The court house and jail for Washington District were in Pickensville, South Carolina.
In the colonial period, the land around the coast was divided into parishes corresponding to the parishes of the Church of England. There were also several counties that had judicial and electoral functions. As people settled the backcountry, judicial districts and additional counties were formed. This structure continued and grew after the Revolutionary War. In 1800, all counties were renamed as districts. In 1868, the districts were converted back to counties.[1] The South Carolina Department of Archives and History has maps that show the boundaries of counties, districts, and parishes starting in 1682.[2] Unlike the counties that were renamed as districts and later as counties, the Washington District is distinct from Washington County, South Carolina, which was a subdivision of Charleston District from 12 March 1785 to 19 February 1791.
^DenBoer, Gordon, and Thorne, Kathryn Ford, South Carolina Atlas of Historical County Boundaries, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1997, pp. 249-250, ISBN0-13-366360-4.
^McFall, Pearl Smith, It Happened in Pickens County, Sentinel Press, Pickens, SC, 1959, pp. 41-48.
^Aheron, Piper Peters, Images of America: Pickens County, Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, SC, 2000, p. 12, ISBN0-7385-0606-0.