On the edge of Summerville, South Carolina, alongside the Ashley River, is the site of a town that no longer exists. Once the home to merchants and craftsman, planters and traders, and freemen and slaves, the town of Dorchester now exists only in historical documents found in archives and in archeological remnants buried in the soil. The town site is preserved by the South Carolina State Park Service as Colonial Dorchester State Historic Site.
Archeologists and historians with the South Carolina State Park Service are engaged in an ongoing effort to learn more about life in the town and early South Carolina. Some of the historical documents and archeological artifacts they've discovered are available to you here. They will allow you to take part in the process of discovery and draw conclusions of your own on the life and death of a village that no longer exists.
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