Thomas Golden is the first Golden known to me to own property in the Ninety Six District of South Carolina.
The Honorable Egerton Leigh, Esq., Surveyor General of the the province requested on November 2, 1763 that a plat for 200 acres be laid out for Thomas Golden in Berkeley Count on the north side of the Saluda River, on a branch of Bush Creek, called the Matthews Branch. The land on all sides of this parcel are vacant and the parcel itself was vacant prior to being surveyed. The survey was certified on January 31st 1763 by Isaac Perry, D.S. and also bears a date of Aug 1767.
1763 is an important year as this is when this territory was opened up for settlement. The French and Indian War (1756-1763) had just ended. To punish the Cherokees for siding with the French, the Cherokee boundaries were pushed to the western side of the Appalachian mount peaks.
1767 — Although this former Indian territory was opened up for settlement by treaty in 1763, and land was actually surveyed and allocated to named settlers (such as Thomas Golden), settlement was not allowed until 1767, after a 1766 agreement between North Carolina, South Carolina and the Cherokee as to where the new boundary line would be.
These areas were heavily settled by Ulster-Scots, what we call Scots-Irish today. There was little to no Irish settlement of the area. Catholics were unwanted. The Scots-Irish were primarily Presbyterians from Virginia and from Pennsylvania.
COMMENT: I can find no family claiming descent from this Thomas Golden. There is a Thomas Golden/Golding that lives in the area through 1840; no family history exists for him in Ancestry.com.
A good discussion of Scot-Irish immigration to this area in South Carolina can be found online.
1763 Jan 31 – Thomas Golden, Plat for 200 acres on Matthews Branch of Bush River. SC Archives; see Series: S213184 Volume: 0010 Page: 00053 Item: 02. Mentioned within the document: Egerton Leigh, Isacc Perry, Berkeley County, Bush Creek, Matthews Creek and Saluda River.
There is no period map of this era known to me. I have followed the Bush River all the way to its source, well north of Newberry, and can find no branch called ‘Matthews’.
Mislocation / An Old Map