Calais Plantation – Georgetown – Georgetown County

Basic Information

• Location – Winyah Bay and Waccamaw River, Georgetown, All Saints Parish, Georgetown County
  

  Original plantation lands were located on the Waccamaw Neck, off US 17, and were bordered by the Waccamaw River and Winyah Bay.
  

• Origin of name – Named after Calais, France. There was a crossing over the English Channel between Calais and Dover, England. At Calais Plantation there was a ferry crossing to Dover Plantation.
  

• Other names – Fraser's Point

• Current status – Owned by the Belle W. Baruch Foundation as part of Hobcaw Barony which is open to the public for guided tours.
  

Timeline

• 1718 – John, Lord Carteret, one of the Lords Proprietors, claimed 12,000 acres and called it Hobcaw Barony (5, p. 3).
  

• 1730 – Lord Carteret sold the property to John Roberts for £500.
  

  John Roberts sold the land to three men: Sir William Baker, Nicholas Linwood, and Brice Fisher. The three men appointed two agents to sell off the land. Hobcaw Barony would eventually be divided into many plantations (5, p. 3).
  

• 1767 – Samuel Clegg III bought 3,304¾ acres of Hobcaw Barony for £4,200 (5, p. 3).
  

• 1796 – Samuel Clegg III divided his land into two tracts. He gave Calais to Reverend Hugh Fraser who was married to his granddaughter, Elizabeth Clegg Porter (6, p. 268).
  

  The other tract was sold to Paul Michau and was called Michau Plantation (3, p. 4).
  

• 1797 – The Reverend and his wife, Elizabeth, had a son named Benjamin Porter Fraser. When he came of age he inherited two-thirds of Calais (5, p. 7).
  

• 1825 – The plantation was advertised for sale. There are no records but it is believed that Reverend Hugh Fraser bought the plantation from his son.
  

• 1829 – Benjamin Porter Fraser died and his son, Hugh, was raised by his grandfather, the Reverend (5, p. 7).
  

• 1838 – Reverend Hugh Fraser died leaving numerous heirs. He had married three times. A daughter, Frances, from his third marriage married John Ashe Alston. It is believed that these two either inherited or bought the plantation from the Reverend's estate (5, p. 8).
  

• ? – William Algernon Alston acquired the plantation (1, p. 43).
  

• 1860 – By this time William Algernon Alston owned Marietta, Friendfield, Strawberry Hill, Calais, and Michau (1, p. 44).
  

• 1865 – William Algernon Alston's plantations were considered unoccupied and seized by the Freedman's Bureau. His grandson, William Algernon Alston, Jr. was able to reclaim the land before he died in 1867 (1, p. 44).
  

• 1874 – The executor of William Algernon Alston, Jr.'s estate sold all of the plantations to Hardy Solomon (5, p. 8).
  

• 1875 – Hardy Solomon sold the land to Eliza Donaldson. The Donaldson family referred to all the plantations as Friendfield Plantation. The family continued to plant rice on the plantations (5, p. 8).
  

• 1905 – All of the plantations comprising Friendfield Plantation were sold to Bernard M. Baruch. Upon hearing the history of the original Hobcaw Barony, Baruch began acquiring the plantations that had been created from the Barony. He called all of his property Hobcaw Barony using the original name.
  

• 1935-1943 – Bernard M. Baruch conveyed most of Hobcaw Barony to his daughter, Belle Wilcox Baruch (1, p. 42).
  

• 1956 – Belle Baruch created the Bernard M. Baruch Foundation to manage the barony as an educational center focusing on forestry and marine science (5, p. 54).
  

• 1964 – Belle Baruch died and her father decided to change the name of the foundation to the Belle W. Baruch Foundation. The foundation still exists today and continues to provide educational opportunities in wildlife conservation and research (1, p. 42).
  

Land

• Number of acres – 3,304¾ in 1767; 1,391 in 1796
  

• Primary crop – Rice

Slaves

• Number of slaves – ?

References & Resources

1. National Register of Historic Places
   – Nomination form - PDF - submitted in 1994
   – Photographs, architectural overview
   

2. History of Hobcaw Barony: Click here

3. Julian Stevenson Bolick, Waccamaw Plantations (Clinton, SC: Jacob Press, 1946)
    Order Waccamaw Plantations

4. Alberta Morel Lachicotte, Georgetown Rice Plantations (Georgetown, SC: Georgetown County Historical Society, 1993)
    Order Georgetown Rice Plantations

5. Suzanne Cameron Linder and Marta Leslie Thacker, Historical Atlas of the Rice Plantations of Georgetown County and the Santee River (Columbia, SC: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, 2001)
    Order Historical Atlas of the Rice Plantations of Georgetown County and the Santee River

6. George C. Rogers, Jr., The History of Georgetown County, South Carolina (Spartanburg, SC: Reprint Company, 1990)
    Order The History of Georgetown County, South Carolina

Contact Information

• Belle W. Baruch Foundation
  22 Hobcaw Road
  Georgetown, SC 29440
  

  Telephone: 843-546-4623
  Website: Click here