Editor’s Note: At the request of his readers and in memory of Warner M. Montgomery, Ph.D, we will continue to publish his Adventure Travel stories for the time being.
Just as Columbia was the place the Native Americans crossed the Congaree River, Augusta was where they crossed the Savannah River. Both locations were on the Fall Line, the shallow rapids of the river. The Georgia settlement was named by James Oglethorpe for Augusta, the princess of Saxe–Gotha and mother of King George III.
Coincidently, the first settlement on the Congaree, 60 miles to the east, was also Saxe–Gotha, a Swiss–German land grant in which the town was later named Granby…