— Kensington Plantation © Gazie Nagle, 2013 —
(Do Not Use Without Written Consent)

Basic Information

• Location – Huger Creek (eastern branch of the Cooper River), Huger, Berkeley County

  Located on SC 402

• Origin of name – ?

• Other names – ?

• Current status – Part of the property is privately owned and the rest has been developed.
  

Timeline

• 1740 – Earliest known date of existence

• 1745 – House built (1, p. 7)
  

• ? – John Coming Ball owned the plantation (4, p. 171).
  

• ? – Ball's son Elias Octavus Ball owned Kensington (4, p. 171).
  

• 1843 – Elias Octavus Ball died (4, p. 171).
  

• 1846 – Kensington was sold to Dr. John B. Irving (4, p. 171).
  

• ? – Irving's grandson Heyward Hamilton Irving owned Kensington (4, p. 181).
  

• 1924 – The house was destroyed by fire; only ruins remain.
  

Land

• Number of acres – 670 in 1846 (4, p. 187); 224 in 2002 (1, p. 8)
  

• Primary crop – Rice

• Comments – In the slave cemetery, there is a stone marker for Old Peter who was born and died as a servant of the Ball family.
  

Owners

• Alphabetical list – Elias Octavus Ball (?-1843); John Coming Ball; Stoney Gough; Heyward Hamilton Irving; Dr. John Beaufain Irving (1846-?); Hamer Ball Irving
  

Slaves

• Number of slaves – ?

Buildings

• In 1830, a one-story frame overseer's house and a slave cabin were built. There is also a modern brick house on the property (1, p. 8).
  

References & Resources

1. National Register of Historic Places
   – Nomination form - PDF - submitted in 2002
   – Photographs, architectural overview
   

2. 30-15 Plantation File, held by the South Carolina Historical Society
   

3. Claude Henry Neuffer, editor, Names in South Carolina, Volume I through 30 (Columbia, SC: The State Printing Company)
    Order Names in South Carolina, Volumes I-XII, 1954-1965
    Order Names in South Carolina, Index XIII-XVIII
   

4. John Beaufain Irving, A Day on Cooper River (1842) (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2010)
   
   

5. SC Highway Historical Marker Guide - online database by the SC Department of Archives & History
   

6. J. Russell Cross, Historic Ramblin's through Berkeley (Columbia, SC: R.L. Bryan Company, 1985)
    Order Historic Ramblin's through Berkeley