Hopsewee Plantation

My daughter and I are in Myrtle Beach for Spring Break. We have plans to see a lot of local history but today is rainy and cold. We decide to drive an hour away to Georgetown to tour the Hopsewee Plantation.

This beautiful plantation is directly off US17. During the tour I learn that the highway department took some of the plantation property to build US17. The current owner, Mr. Beatty, a lawyer by profession, had the land put into a conservation trust so that can never happen again. He and his wife believe in the history of the property and very generously open the house to the public for tours. He is also adding to the property. He originally bought the plantation with 70 acres and now owns 120. Mr. Beatty is originally from Columbia SC and his wife is from Aiken.

The entrance is absolutely breathtaking and we are so excited to see the plantation house. The moss adds ambiance and we immediately feel like we are stepping back in time.

The historic marker reads: HOPSEWEE Thomas Lynch Jr.. signer of the Declaration of Independence was born here Aug 5, 1749. He was elected from St. Jame's Parish, Santee, to 1st Provincial Congress December 19, 1774, to 2nd Provincial Congress Aug 7-8, 1775, to the Continental Congress March 23, 1776; Commissioned Captain , Provincial troops, June 17, 1775. Served on Committee to draft Constitution for South Carolina 1776. He was lost at sea 1779.

The drive in is beautiful and on unpaved roads. We can imagine horse drawn carriages driving along this same road.

After driving along a dirt and gravel road this is what we see. How spectacular.

We park the car and walk to the Tea Room to book our tour. It's cold and wet but we don't mind. It's beautiful here and we hope we aren't too late to join the 1:00 tour.

My daughter has never seen moss before and cannot resist a touch before we continue.

This is the Tea Room, a building added to the property after the Beatty's purchased the plantation. It's beautiful and fits right in.

The front part of the Tea Room is a TV room with a video on a loop about plantation life in the 1700s and about Thomas Lynch and his family. We are a little late but happy that we didn't missed the tour.

After the video, we walk to the house. We use the back entrance.

The back porch side of the house faces a river, not sure which waterway it is though. At one time, this was a large rice growing plantation.

This is the view from the front porch. We enter the house and I am asked not to take photos. The owners don't want anyone knowing what valuables may be inside the house because of robbery potential.

We are upstairs on the porch. We are once again allowed to take photos.

View from the balcony.

Another view on the upstairs balcony.

The step for the ladies of the house to board the carriages.

Side view of the house. We walk to the two existing slave quarters. At one time there were many slave cabins and they were called Slave row. Descendants of the former slaves occupied the cabins until the family either moved away or all the members died. The small cabins on Slave Row became dilapidated and fell apart in ruin. The two remaining slave quarters were used by the kitchen staff and one was occupied as late as the mid 1900s.

According to the docent, rice plantations were run by the task system and each slave was given a task to complete according to his age and ability. If he completed the task, he got the rest of the afternoon or evening to do with what he wanted. If he completed two days worth of tasks, then he had the next day off. But if he didn't complete the task he might be punished. They were also encouraged to have families and were not separated and sold.

At one time, Georgetown produced more rice than any country in the world except India. The reason they were so successful is because of the ingenuity of the slaves working here. They had previously lived in areas that grew rice using the same cultivation method needed here and they created and built the rice fields.

Both cabins look alike and are next to each other.

This is the view as you enter the cabin.

This is the other side of the cabin. It is pretty small.

We walk back to the Tea Room for lunch. You can see the other slave cabin in the distance. Beyond that is the Tea Room.

My daughter is very excited to have a special tea time. She loves all the fancy dinnerware around her.

She loves every bit of her special adventure at Hopsewee Plantation.

A small drive down the road, heading back towards Myrtle Beach we found this sign. The plantation owners are growing rice again but they have closed the property off from the public.

The view on the road as I was trying to find another way to see the rice plantation but no such luck. If you are ever in the area, Hopsewee Plantation is definitely worth a visit. The plantation house has most of it's original structures and you get a real feel for life back in the 1700s.

 

 

 

 

Jenkinsville White Hall AME Church Cemetery

It's been a while since my friend and I have been out discovering South Carolina. We've had rain and cold and one vacation to deter us. We did spend one cold morning in the library doing research on early Columbia so that we would have more starting points. And finally, today we are out again.

Jenkinsville is the smallest town in South Carolina. At its incorporation in 2008, there were only 50 people living there. But just because it has only recently become a town, don't let that fool you. There is plenty of history to discover there. And we intend to find it all. So today is day one. We are heading to Jenkinsville with only a street name for an old church that we are looking for. We can't find an address anywhere.

Guided by a misguided GPS, we end up at V.C. Summer Nuclear Station and are turned away at the guard gate. He doesn't know where our church could be located and he says it's definitely not on the site. On the way out, behind an old bar, The Twilight Zone, we spot an old abandoned house and my friend decides we should take a look.

I am a little wary because we are in the sticks, driving right beside a dive bar which sits in front of the property. There are already ten or so cars there at 9:00am. I worry that we might get shot for trespassing by some old drunks but I keep my thoughts to myself as my friend goes plowing forth. She tries to hide the car behind the old property.

I manage to shoot a photo as we drive around back. The area has lots of brush and after a few seconds we decide maybe it's best not to get out here. My friend backs up and hits a roll of wire fence. We are trying to make a quick and quiet getaway and as she pulls forward to back up again she accidentally lays on the horn alerting the drunks to our presence on the property. Thankfully none came out.

I snap one more photo before she speeds out of there. Once safely on the main road again, we both have a great laugh. Since we can't find an address, and our GPS is trying to take us go onto the nuclear plant, we decide to just drive around in hopes of discovering something old and interesting. We come across a church (the only one in town it appears) with a cemetery across the street.

We decide to investigate to see how old the graves are. Then we can determine what kind of history can be found here.

It looks like this is the White Hall AME Church.

The first thing we discover is that someone is throwing all the graveyard flowers and adornments over the fence into the woods. It's sad to see them all piled up. The place looks trashy and unkempt and even though the grass is kept short, not much care or maintenance goes on here. The fence is bent and deer tracks lead to and from the fence indicating that deer use this as a crossing to get inside the graveyard.

We find sites like this one where no gravestone has ever been erected. This is Ella May Hugher, "Loving wife, mother, and friend." Born August 29, 1915. Died July 28, 2011.

Many gravestones are broken or laying down now. This says, "Lodge No 8 ???CWS Francis Sanders Died Aug 30, 19?? Age 85 years, Asleep in Jesus."

Eliza wife of Nelson Thompson Died March 27, 1924

Geo Burns Died Feb 7, 1880 Age 12

Some sites had markers like these with no information at all.

Some of the grave sites were in good condition. Most were not. We could only find dates going back to the 1800s here. I'm going to list a few more. I'd like to research and find some personal information on all the sites we saw to give each one a story. Maybe sometime in the future.



In Remembrance of our Dear Father John Philip Lakin Born 1853 Aug 29 1917

Martha Harper Mother of Mariah Martin. Born in Slavery. Died 1897.

My friend found a buried stone and dug it up and cleaned it off. She then placed it back where it belonged.

Buddie Lakins Born April 18, 1814 Departed this Life September 21, 1849

We saw enough and decided to keep driving to see if we could find the church we were here to see.

We see this house on a dirt road. It is used as some kind of meeting place or perhaps a church. We continue driving and find another interesting church. I will show our next Jenkinsville find on a separate page..