Visiting Hampton Plantation is like traveling back in time to the 18th-century Santee Delta of South Carolina. Spanish moss drifts in the wind, hanging from centuries-old oak trees that frame the 300-year-old rural, timber-framed farmhouse. Situated along Hampton Creek just outside McClellanville, South Carolina, the former rice plantation holds layers of history: the enslaved people who lived on site and worked in the rice fields; the cultivation of indigo by Eliza Lucas Pinckney; Francis Marion—the “Swamp Fox”—hiding out at the plantation during the American Revolution; and the ladies of Hampton and close friends and acquaintances taking refuge at the rural farm while the British laid a six-week siege on Charleston.
Visiting Hampton Plantation: A House with Layers of History Intact
.jpg?w=720&h=405&crop=yes&u=nkm28l)
Layers of time are still visible in the historic fabric of the house itself. The State Park Service has done a wonderful job of leaving portions of the timber-framed Georgian-style house exposed on the interior, revealing the successive changes made over the centuries.
As an architectural historian, seeing those changes feels like stepping back in time: the building techniques and the chronology of hardware evolved as the house was modified through the years. Family oral history states that the structure started out as a one-and-a-half-story farmhouse, first built in 1735 by French Huguenot settler and religious refugee Noe Serre.
After Daniel Horry bought the house in 1757, it expanded in stages significantly. Based on the framing methods, hardware chronology and oral histories, it is presumed that Horry added the two wings, raised the house by an extra story, added more rooms to the second story with a rear addition and altered the style of the roof, among other details. The dining room ceiling appears to have been raised at one point to create a more stately space for the family, a common 18th-century practice intended to display wealth to visitors.
The Adamesque portico was added around 1790, and its construction was done under the supervision of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and her daughter Harriott. Shortly afterward, Harriott Pinckney Horry (Daniel Horry’s wife) hosted President George Washington for breakfast in 1791 during his tour of the southern states.
The ballroom, located in the eastern wing, features a barrel-vaulted ceiling, wainscoting and a rococo carving above the large, stately 18th-century fireplace. The large fireplace was typical for a room of this size in the period. The ceiling was potentially painted with an elaborate design, though this cannot be confirmed without oral histories or scientific testing. It is likely that Harriott and her mother Eliza hosted George Washington in this elaborate ballroom.
In addition to the wing additions, the Park Service partially restored the plaster in the dining room to show the method in which plaster walls and ceilings were made in the 18th century. Plaster was applied in layers. First, the hand-split wood lath was nailed to the studs and ceiling joists with hand-forged nails (known as rose-head nails). Then a scratch-coat plaster base is applied to the lath. It is made up of lime, animal hair (such as horsehair) for tensile strength, and an aggregate such as sand. This scratch coat is applied to the split lath and forced through the cracks between the lath creating a “key” which locks the plaster in place. This coat was scored, followed by a brown coat and finally a finish coat. These layers remain exposed in the dining room so visitors can see how houses of this type were built.
Elsewhere in the house, wallpaper and stencil work from earlier centuries are still visible. One of the main parlors retains extensive ghost marks of stencils and wainscoting that once adorned its walls. A second-story room preserves an example of a painted floral stencil pattern, possibly dating to the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. There are also pieces of wallpaper from various periods in the house's history still stuck to the walls in some of the rooms.
Before Hampton became the large, stately farmhouse it is today, it was a modest one-and-a-half-story structure. Careful examination of the studs and the blue paint outlining former windows still reveals evidence of that earlier form, before the wings were added. Looking closely with a flashlight also reveals nail holes behind the studs where exterior cladding was once fastened and then removed when the ballroom was constructed.
Many of the features added to the house through the generations show the growing economic status of wealthy South Carolina Planters.
In front of the house is the George Washington Oak. According to legend, when George Washington visited in 1791, the Horry family told him that they planned to chop down the stately tree so it would not obstruct the view from the portico. Washington disagreed and urged them to keep it. The giant oak has stood ever since.
The kitchen house stands separate from the main dwelling. Presumed to have been built in the 1800s, it was large enough that it may have housed enslaved workers. Kitchen houses of the period were placed apart from the main house to reduce the risk of fire spreading. This kitchen is closed to the public and can be viewed only from the outside and through the windows. It was closed when the State Park Service assumed control of the site because it shelters a colony of Rafinesque’s big-eared bats in the attic. The species is endangered, and the colony must be protected.
As an architectural historian, I find Hampton Plantation a fascinating study in how structures change over time. The visible alterations at the house have deepened my understanding of architectural history, and I often draw on what I’ve learned here to better interpret other historic buildings. The nail holes that once held the exterior cladding, for example, taught me to look for similar evidence elsewhere. Details like these can help determine whether a space was later enclosed or modified. When you visit Hampton Plantation, take note of the many changes made to the house, you might just find yourself wanting to become an architectural historian.
The Enslaved at Hampton Plantation
Hampton was a rice and indigo plantation worked by enslaved people who lived on the site. According to the first census taken in the U.S. in 1790, Hampton had a workforce of 340 enslaved people living and working on site. By the American Civil War, the number dwindled to 130. The cabins they occupied no longer stand, but recent archaeological excavations have uncovered the foundations of those quarters.
The landscape once contained over 1000 acres of land, over half of which were rice fields, the waterways that framed them, and the rice dikes constructed by enslaved workers. Eliza Lucas Pinckney is credited with developing indigo cultivation in the region; the crop was grown here and processed into dye. No indigo vats survive at Hampton, though examples remain at other Lowcountry plantations.
Rice was a major cash crop in the Lowcountry, and the enslaved workers at Hampton reshaped the landscape to grow it. Given the multiple periods of architectural change at the house, it is likely that enslaved carpenters, blacksmiths, masons and other skilled workers also contributed to its construction and expansion. A plantation of this size would almost certainly have included a blacksmith shop.
Archibald Rutledge, the last private owner at Hampton Plantation, sold the property to the State Park Service to be used as a historic site. A descendant of the Horry, Pinckney and Rutledge families who owned the plantation over the centuries, Rutledge was instrumental in protecting the historic African American cemetery on the grounds, which visitors can still see today. He also granted hunting and fishing rights to the descendants of those who had been enslaved at Hampton.
It was the enslaved work force that generated wealth at Hampton from the late 18th-century until emancipation. They brought with them knowledge of rice cultivation from their West African origins. Today, visitors can see a rice trunk that shows how the rice fields were controlled in the 18th-century. The property also shares the stories of the freed people who left slavery after emancipation and settled in the Santee Delta region.
Today, Hampton Plantation is far more than a carefully preserved house. It is a document of the Lowcountry across the centuries of the people who owned the land and of those whose forced labor shaped it.
When you visit the Lowcountry, make sure to visit Hampton Plantation and experience the layers of history that will transport you right back in time to an era before the internet. The exposed 18th-century building techniques are a sight to be seen, and the hand-hewn lumber is a fascinating example of 18th-century building techniques. Finally, stand underneath the George Washington Oak tree, a witness to centuries gone by in this rural South Carolina landscape.
