Barings Plantation – Parkers Ferry – Charleston County

Basic Information

• Location – South Edisto River, Parkers Ferry, St. Paul's Parish, Charleston County

  Original property was bounded to the south by Penny Creek, to the north by US 17, and to the west by the South Edisto River
  

• Origin of name – Named after Charles Baring II, owner in the 1830s
  

• Other names – Sandy Point Plantation

• Current status – Privately owned

Timeline

• ? – Earliest known date of existence

  1831 – Charles Baring II purchased 1,200 acres from Thomas Middleton. This was the first purchase he made in his attempt to create his own plantation (Linder, p. 31).
  

  Charles Baring II married Susan Cole Heyward, a widow. She had several plantations which were her late husbands. The couple could have lived on any of them for as long as Susan was alive. Upon her death all the plantations would revert to her brother-in-law, Nathaniel Heyward. Charles Baring chose instead to create his own plantation (Linder, p. 31).
  

• 1832 – Charles Baring II purchased 759 acres from Marks Lazarus. The tract of land was known as 'Hext Old Field' (Linder, p. 32).
  

  That same year Baring also purchased two tracts at a Sheriff's auction: 200 acres known as Denny's Tract and 600 acres from N.G. Cleary (Linder, p. 32).
  

• 1846 – Susan Cole Heyward Baring died on September 5. A year later, at the age of 73, Charles Baring II remarried to Constance Beatrice Dent and they had a son, Alexander Baring (Linder, p. 32).
  

• 1850 – Charles Baring had a plat made of his property to ensure a legal title to his 4,544 acres (Linder, p. 32).
  

  Barings Plantation was quite successful. In the 1850 Census, the plantation was listed as 4,544 acres with 1,600 under cultivation. There were 140 slaves working on the plantation (Linder, p. 32).
  

• 1856 – The Charleston and Savannah Railroad obtained a right-of-way directly through Barings Plantation (Linder, p. 33).
  

• 1860 – Charles Baring II and his wife Constance began living in Flat Rock, North Carolina full time (Linder, p. 33).
  

  Around this time, the Barings leased the plantation house to Seymour, a free black hotelier. Seymour and his wife made the house an inn for travelers going back and forth from Charleston and the Beaufort area (Linder, p. 33).
  

• 1865 – Charles Baring II died in Flat Rock, North Carolina. His wife and son kept the plantation even though the house had been burned by Union troops (Linder, p. 34).
  

• 1881 – Constance Baring appointed George W. Grafflin trustee of the plantation. Grafflin leased the plantation lands for 10 years to Frank Fishburne to pay off debts either incurred by Charles Baring or his wife. Frank Fishburne used the land to mine for phosphates (Linder, p. 34).
  

• 1891 – George W. Grafflin sold the plantation to Georgia Chemical Works for $70,000. The plantation consisted of 3,294 acres at the time (Linder, p. 34).
  

• 1902 – Georgia Chemical Works sold the land to the Charleston Mining and Manufacturing Company (Linder, p. 34).
  

• 1995 – After the property passed through several hands Lucius G. Fishburne and William Bruce Wimberley purchased a large part of the property. Fishburne and Wimberley refer to their property as Sandy Point Plantation (Linder, p. 34).
  

  Lee Wimberley, son of William Bruce Wimberley, shared these memories with us, "My father, WB Wimberley, owned this property with LG Fishburne for 20+ years and we hunted, fished and explored it from one end to the other. There were a couple of old home sites on this property as well as one or two abandoned wells. We frequently found Civil War, Revolutionary War and pre-Revolutionary war artifacts, including some incredible Indian things (spear heads, pipes, pottery) and while digging a sand pit to sell sand for the widening of the Charleston Highway (US 17) we found prehistoric fossils like Megaladon shark teeth, etc."
  

Land

• Number of acres – 1,200 in 1831; 2,759 in 1832; 4,544 in 1850; 3,294 in 1891
  

• Primary crop – Rice

  In the 1850 Agriculture Census, Barings Plantation produced 570,000 pounds of rice, 2,000 bushels of corn, 2,000 bushels of peas, and 1,600 bushels of sweet potatoes. The livestock on the plantation consisted of 30 milk cows, 15 horses, 16 oxen, 150 sheep, and 300 other cattle (Linder, p. 33).
  

  The 1860 Agriculture Census shows a dramatic decrease in the production of the plantation. Only 40,000 pounds of rice were produced, 100 bushels of peas, and 400 bushels of sweet potatoes (Linder, p. 33).
  

Owners

• Chronological list – Thomas Middleton (?-1831); Charles Barings II (1831-1865); Constance Baring (1865-1891); Georgia Chemical Works (1891-1902); Charleston Mining and Manufacturing Company (1902-?); Lucius G. Fishburne and William Bruce Wimberley (1995-?)
  

Slaves

• Number of slaves – 140 in 1850

Buildings

• Plantation house – It is assumed that Charles Baring II built a plantation house on the property. In the 1860s he leased the house to a free black hotelier, Seymour. Seymour and his wife created an inn for travelers going back and forth from Charleston to the Beaufort area (Linder, p. 33-34).
  

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