Old House Plantation – Edisto Island – Charleston County

— Old House Plantation • National Register of Historic Places, Circa 1985 —

Basic Information

• Location – Edisto Island, St. John's Colleton Parish, Charleston County

  Located about a mile east of SC 174 on Clark Road
  

• Origin of name – Got its name when Brick House burned and it became the oldest dwelling still intact on the island (7, p. 98).
  

• Other names – Four Chimneys (3, p. 2) (7, p. 98)
  

• Current status – ?

Timeline

• 1735 – Earliest known date of existence (1, p. 2)
  

  William Jenkins acquired the property.
  

• Sometime between 1735 and 1760 – House built (1, p. 2)
  

  William Jenkins constructed a small one-and-a-half story house. The house is believed to be the oldest house on Edisto Island still in use (1, p. 2) (4, p. 45).
  

• Prior to 1775 – The Seabrooks acquired the plantation (1, p. 2) (7, p. 98).
  

• Early 1800s – Extensive renovations were made by the Seabrooks, mostly to the exterior (1, p. 2) (7, p. 98).
  

• ? – The Whaley family acquired the plantation (3, p. 2).
  

• 1900s – Modern additions including, an updated kitchen, bathrooms, and central heating and air conditioning, were added to the house (1, p. 3).
  

• 1971 – Henry W. Frampton owned Old House Plantation. The commissary building was still standing at this time too but was in poor condition. The commissary building was constructed about 1898 to serve not only Old House Plantation but also Oak Island Plantation and Cassina Point Plantation (1, p. 1) (3, p. 1).
  

Land

• Number of acres – Approximately 5.35 in 1971 (3, p. 2)
  

• Primary crop – Indigo early then cotton (3, p. 1) (4, p. 70)
  

Slaves

• Number of slaves – ?

Anecdotes

• Margaret von Werssowetz shares that her grandmother, Margaret Rhett Martin, encounter a ghost at Old House Plantation and wrote about it in her book Charleston Ghosts.
  

References & Resources

1. National Register of Historic Places
   – Nomination form - PDF - submitted in 1970
   – Photographs, architectural overview
   

2. Catherine Campart Messmer, South Carolina's Low Country - A Past Preserved Text (Orangeburg, SC: Sandlapper Publishing, 1988)

3. National Register of Historic Places
   – Nomination form for Old House Plantation Commissary - PDF
   

4. Charles Spencer, Edisto Island, 1663 to 1860 (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2008)
   
   

5. Margaret Rhett Martin, Charleston Ghosts (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1973)
   
   

6. Claude Henry Neuffer, editor, Names in South Carolina, Volume I through 30 (Columbia, SC: The State Printing Company), VII: 6
    Order Names in South Carolina, Volumes I-XII, 1954-1965
    Order Names in South Carolina, Index XIII-XVIII
   

7. N. Jane Iseley and William P. Baldwin, Lowcountry Plantations Today (Greensboro, NC: Legacy Publications 2001)