[1] The South Carolina Department of Archives and History has maps that show the boundaries of counties, districts, and parishes starting in 1682.
The lands further west and on the other side of the Appalachian Mountains were still Cherokee homelands, which the British Crown had tried to protect from colonial encroachment by the Royal Proclamation of 1763.
The westward expansion of the borders of the Province of North Carolina and the Colony of Virginia (then including present-day Kentucky) were confirmed by the 1770 Treaty of Lochaber with the Cherokee.
[3] Due to poor surveying, Tryon County, North Carolina infringed on much of its northern boundaries through the 1770s.
These counties were responsible for maintaining court houses, as part of the larger judicial districts from which they were formed.