Bannockburn Plantation – Georgetown – Georgetown County

Basic Information

• Location – Waccamaw River, Georgetown, All Saints Parish, Georgetown County
  

  Located northwest of US 17 in the vicinity of Preservation Boulevard
  

• Origin of name – Probably named after the Battle of Bannockburn where the Scots defeated the British in 1314.
  

• Other names – Crowfield

• Current status – Part of Arcadia Plantation
  

Timeline

• ? – Thomas Butler owned land on the Waccamaw Neck. It is not clear how or when he came to own this land.
  

• 1765 – Thomas Butler added to his property by purchasing 624 acres from his neighbor's estate. He paid £2,500 for the land. He eventually owned over 1,700 acres of land in the area (Linder & Thacker, p. 94).
  

• 1777 – Thomas Butler sold a portion of his property (536 acres) to James Mackie for £3,500 (Linder & Thacker, p. 94).
  

• 1800 – Thomas Butler died and his estate was left to his daughter, Margaret. Records list Margaret as being mentally handicapped and her inheritance was managed by a committee (Linder & Thacker, p. 96).
  

• 1811 – Margaret Butler died and her estate was brought before the equity court to be divided equally. Fifteen people claimed they were entitled to the estate, but it is not clear what the end results of the division were.
  

  It is known, however, that John Ashe Alston became the owner of Bannockburn but it is not clear when or from whom he bought the property. He never lived at Bannockburn choosing instead to live at Hagley, another of his plantations. He also bought the 536 acres owned by the Mackies thus returning Bannockburn to its original acreage (Linder & Thacker, p. 97).
  

• 1831 – John Ashe Alston died and his property was advertised for sale. His son-in-law, John Izard Middleton, is presumed to have bought the place. He called the plantation Crowfield after the Middleton's ancestral estate in England (Linder & Thacker, p. 97).
  

• 1875 – A bill of foreclosure was brought against John Izard Middleton. As a result, Janet McFarlane acquired Bannockburn (Linder & Thacker, p. 97).
  

• 1876 – William Buck acquired Bannockburn from Janet McFarlane (Linder & Thacker, p. 97).
  

• 1880 – Bannockburn was purchased by Ralph Nesbit from William Buck.
  

• 1925 – Ralph Nesbit sold Bannockburn to Dr. Isaac Emerson.
  

  Dr. Emerson eventually owned seven other plantations which he combined and called Arcadia.
  

• 1931 – Dr. Emerson left his property to his grandson, George Vanderbilt.
  

• 2006 – The property is owned by Lucille Pate, daughter of George Vanderbilt.
  

Land

• Number of acres – 1,700 in 1765; 1,164 in 1777; 1,700 in 1831
  

• Primary crop – Rice

Owners

• Alphabetical list – John Ashe Alston; William Buck; Margaret Butler; Thomas Butler; Dr. Isaac Emerson; Janet McFarlane; John Izard Middleton; Ralph Nesbit; Lucille Pate; George Vanderbilt
  

Slaves

• Number of slaves – ?

Buildings

• ?

Web Resources

• ?

Print Resources

• Initial references: See #1, 4

• Alberta Morel Lachicotte, Georgetown Rice Plantations (Columbia, SC: The State Printing Company, 1955).
  

• Suzanne Cameron Linder and Marta Leslie Thacker (with preliminary research by Agnes Leland Baldwin), Historical Atlas of the Rice Plantations of Georgetown County and the Santee River (Columbia: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, 2001).
  

• Catherine Campani Messmer, South Carolina's Low Country: a past preserved (Orangeburg, SC: Sandlapper Pub., 1988).
  

• George C. Rogers, Jr., The History of Georgetown County, South Carolina (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1970).