Comingtee Plantation – Cooper River – Berkeley County

— Comingtee Plantation 1940 © Library of Congress —
(Prints & Photographs Division HABS SC-132 )

Basic Information

• Location – Western branch of the Cooper River, St. John's Berkeley Parish, Berkeley County
  

• Origin of name – Named after Captain Coming, who settled the land, as well as the T-shape made by the Cooper River's east and west branches coming together (7, p. 126).
  

• Other names – Coming Tee, Coming T, Coming's T

• Current status – The house stands inside the 10,700-acre Bonneau Tract that the state of South Carolina and The Conservation Fund acquired from MeadWestvaco in 2004. The SC Department of Natural Resources does have the property open for public use. Access is available to the Comingtee ruins and nearby rice mill on days without hunts. The gates on the roads leading to these sites will be closed on hunt days.
  

— Comingtee Plantation House © Brandon Coffey, 2015 —
(Do Not Use Without Written Consent)

Timeline

• 1669 – Earliest known date of existence (9)
  

  John Coming gained land grants along the Cooper River, which brought him to South Carolina. He was mate of the pioneer ship Carolina, and later captain of the Blessing. He was married to a passenger on the Carolina, Affra Harleston.
  

• 1695 – John Coming died leaving his entire estate to his widow (9).
  

• 1698 – Affra died childless and willed her estate to her nephew John Harleston and to her husband's half-nephew, Elias Ball (9).
  

• 1701 – Elias Ball was a planter and lived at Comingtee. He married a sister of John Harleston (9).
  

• 1703-1704 – Elias Ball purchased two adjoining tracts adding another 678 acres to Comingtee (18).
  

• 1735 – Elias Ball bought another 140 acres to expand the plantation (18).
  

• 1738 – Wooden house built by Elias Ball. He would later add a brick addition to the house (9).
  

• 1751 – Elias Ball passed away. Comingtee became under ownership of his son Elias Ball Jr (18).
  

• 1786 – Elias Ball Jr died willing Comingtee and Limerick to his son Elias Ball III (18).
  

• ? – John Ball Jr acquired the plantation (17).
  

• 1834 – John Ball Jr passed away from malaria. At the time of his death, he owned at least five plantations (17).
  

• 1835 – Sales were held for John Ball Jr's estate. Including the sale of 600 slaves, the largest known slave auction in US history. Ball Jr's widow, Ann Simons Ball, purchased Comingtee and Midway which composed 3,517 acres in total. Ann also purchased 215 of the slaves (17).
  

• 1840 – Ann Simons Ball passed away leaving the plantation to son Keating Simons Ball (18).
  

• 1893 – The house was damaged by a storm and sold to Alwyn Ball, Jr. who began extensive work on the house (9).
  

• 1918 – The Ball family formed the Comingtee Corporation (9).
  

• 1927 – Senator Joseph S. Frelingheysen purchased Comingtee from the Comingtee Corporation for use as a hunting retreat. Frelingheysen also owned Fish Pond Plantation and Rice Hope Plantation (9).
  

• 1946 – Grover Sullivan discovered the lost Parish silver. The colonial sacramental plate of Strawberry Chapel was placed in Keating Ball's possession in 1865 when Sherman was marching through the area. Ball had a servant bury the silver for safe keeping but after the war, the servant could not locate where he had buried it (13).
  

• 1949 – West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company (which through mergers would later become part of MeadWestvaco) purchased the property to harvest the lumber (9).
  

• 2004 – The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources acquired the 10,700-acre tract from MeadWestvaco (12).
  

— Comingtee Plantation House © Barry Gooch —
(Do Not Use Without Written Consent)

Land

• Number of acres – Part of 10,700-acre Bonneau Ferry Wildlife Management Area (2004)

• Primary crop – Rice

Slaves

• 1810 – Slaves of Elias Ball (18)

• 1834 – Slaves of John Ball Jr (18)

• 1865 – Slaves of Keating Simons Ball (18)

• Circa 1865 – Mary Ann Royal - includes photo - The Charleston Museum

• Date unknown – Fortune Ford - includes photo - The Charleston Museum

— Interior of Comingtee Plantation House Ruins © Brandon Coffey, 2016 —
(Do Not Use Without Written Consent)

Buildings

• Elias Ball constructed a house made of wood in 1738, later adding a brick addition. Over the years, the wooden portion has been destroyed, but a portion of the brick structure remains (9).
  

— Comingtee Plantation Cistern © Gazie Nagle, 2014 —
(Do Not Use Without Written Consent)

References & Resources

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

2. Comingtree Plantation: Coming and Ball Families: Click here
   

3. Kimberly Christine Norton and Abbid Hussein Kahn, Comingtee and Stoke Plantations: Historic Structures Report
   

4. Bonneau Ferry Wildlife Management Area

5. 30-15 Plantation File, held by the South Carolina Historical Society
   –  Research Guide
   

6. 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
   

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

8. Samuel Gaillard Stoney, Plantations of the Carolina Low Country (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1990)
    Order Plantations of the Carolina Low Country
   

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

10. Sankofa's Plantation Data Collection
    

11. Maxwell Clayton Orvin, Historic Berkeley County, South Carolina: 1671-1900 (Self published, 1973)
     Order Historic Berkeley County, South Carolina: 1671-1900
    

12. Information contributed by Barry Gooch.
    

13. Information contributed by Ramona L. Grimsley, Digital Projects Librarian for Berkeley County Library, from:
    J. Grahame Long, Stolen Charleston: The Spoils of War (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2014)
     Order Stolen Charleston: The Spoils of War
    

14. Comingtee Plantation Ruins - SC Picture Project: South Carolina Citizen History
    

15. Anne Simons Deas, Recollections of the Ball Family of South Carolina and the Comingtee Plantation (Charleston, SC: South Carolina Historical Society, 1909)
     Order Recollections of the Ball Family of South Carolina and the Comingtee Plantation
    

16. Edward Ball, Slaves in the Family (New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1998)
     Order Slaves in the Family
    

17. Jennifer Berry Hawes, How a Grad Student Uncovered the Largest Known Slave Auction in the U.S. (ProPublica: June 16, 2023) - contributed by Meghan Garmany
    

18. Comingtee Plantation, Berkeley County, South Carolina - WikiTree
    

Contact Information

• Bonneau Ferry Wildlife Management Area
  South Carolina Department of Natural Resources
  Highway 402
  Cordesville, SC 29434
  

  Website: Click here
  

— Interior of Comingtee Plantation House Ruins © Brandon Coffey, 2016 —
(Do Not Use Without Written Consent)

— Entrance to Comingtee Plantation © Gazie Nagle, 2014 —
(Do Not Use Without Written Consent)

— Grave at Comingtee Plantation © Gazie Nagle, 2014 —
(Do Not Use Without Written Consent)