Bush River is actually a large creek that rises in Laurens County, flows across Newberry County, and empties into the Saluda River at Lake Murray's headwaters. Bush River Road began as a route between settlements in Dutch Fork and Columbia two hundred years ago. Most of the original trail is under Lake Murray's waters now. The original road was named around 1798, probably not for the creek but for the powerful Bush River Quaker Settlement, which had a meeting house on the creek in Newberry County. It had jurisdiction over all Quaker settlements in South Carolina and Georgia until 1820, when the Quakers' opposition to slavery caused them to move north.
Source: The State, 3 June 2002.
