The New International Encyclopædia/Georgetown (South Carolina)

GEORGETOWN. A city and the county-seat of Georgetown County, S. C., at the head of Winyah Bay, about 55 miles northeast of Charleston; on the Georgetown and Western Railroad (Map: South Carolina, E 3). It is a seaport of some importance, the market for a fertile agricultural region traversed by 1000 miles of navigable rivers that empty into the bay; has steamship communication with New York, Charleston, and Wilmington, and exports rice, cotton, turpentine, shingles, lumber, fish, etc. Georgetown, settled about 1700, and incorporated in 1805, is famous as the landing-place of Lafayette on his first visit to the United States. The government is administered under a charter of 1892, which provides for a mayor, chosen biennially, and a council elected at large. Population, in 1890, 2895; in 1900, 4138.