Old Combahee Plantation – Yemassee – Beaufort County

Basic Information

• Location – Combahee River, Yemassee, Prince William Parish, ACE Basin, Beaufort County

  Original property located near Auldbrass Plantation
  

• Origin of name – ?

• Other names – ?

• Current status – Privately owned
  

Timeline

• 1736 – Earliest known date of existence

  By 1736 Walter Izard had purchased and received several grants for land on the south side of the Combahee River. He owned approximately 4,753 acres.
  

• 1755 – Walter Izard, Jr. became the owner of one of his father's tracts of land. It was called Old Combahee.
  Izard did not live at Old Combahee choosing instead to make his home at Cedar Grove Plantation on the Ashley River (Linder, p. 431).
  

  Old Combahee was left to his son John Izard who in turn left it to his sister, Mary Izard, because he had no surviving children (Linder, p. 432).
  

• 1813 – Mary Izard, now married to Arthur Middleton, left Old Combahee to her son John Izard Middleton.
  

  John Izard Middleton spent most of his life in Europe, and it appears that he transferred ownership of the property to his brother, Henry Middleton. Henry had inherited Middleton Place so it is unlikely that he made his home at Old Combahee (Linder, p. 432).
  

• 1846 – Henry Middleton died and left all his property to his sons: Arthur, Henry, Oliver Hering, John Izard, Williams, Edward. The six brothers operated their inheritance as a trust, but Old Combahee was more or less owned by Williams Middleton.
  

• 1865 – Old Combahee was restored to the Middletons after it had been raided and confiscated during the Civil War (Linder, p. 433).
  

• 1879 – Old Combahee along with Hobonny Plantation were divided up amongst Henry Middleton's heirs.
  

• 1891-1892 – Oliver Middleton Read, grandson of Oliver Hering Middleton, purchased the shares of the other heirs along with one fourth of his grandfather's. Oliver Read chose to make his home at his wife's plantation Richfield (Linder, p. 434).
  

• 1899– Oliver Middleton Read sold Old Combahee to James U. Jackson. About the same time Jackson also purchased Mount Alexander Plantation.
  

• 1903 – Jackson gave 1,000 acres to the Combahee Hunting Club. The rest of the acreage changed hands numerous times among various timber companies (Linder, p. 424).

• 1910 – The Combahee Hunting Club sold the 1,000 acres to J.R. Paschall and Thomas Gresham. The property changed hands several times before it was owned by C. Leigh Stevens.
  

• 1938 – C. Leigh Stevens reorganized the Savannah River Lumber Company, and as a fee for his services the company gave him several tracts of land. C. Leigh Stevens combined Old Brass (formerly Mount Pleasant), Mount Alexander, Charlton, Richfield, and Old Combahee to form a large piece of property. He then commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to build a plantation complex that represented a working farm. Frank Lloyd Wright is given credit for naming the complex Auldbrass.
  

• 1962 – C. Leigh Stevens died and left the plantation to his son and daughter. Jessica Stevens Loring bought out her brother and was the sole owner of Auldbrass.
  

• 1979 – Jessica Stevens Loring sold Auldbrass with the exception of Old Combahee. In 1995 she was still managing the property for its timber and wildlife habitats.
  

Land

• Number of acres – ?

• Primary crop – Rice

Owners

• Alphabetical list – Walter Izard; Walter Izard, Jr.; James U. Jackson; Jessica Stevens Loring; Arthur and Mary Izard Middleton; Henry Middleton; John Izard Middleton; Williams Middleton; J.R. Paschall and Thomas Gresham; Oliver Middleton Read; C. Leigh Stevens
  

Slaves

• Number of slaves – ?

Buildings

• ?

Web Resources

• ?

Print Resources

• Suzanne Cameron Linder, Historical Atlas of the Rice Plantations of the ACE River Basin - 1860 (Columbia, SC: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, 1995)
   Order Historical Atlas of the Rice Plantations of the ACE River Basin - 1860

• Lawrence S. Rowland, Alexander Moore, and George C. Rodgers, Jr. The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina: Volume 1, 1514-1861 (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1996)
   Order The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina: Volume 1, 1514-1861