Forlorn Hope Plantation – Georgetown – Georgetown County

Basic Information

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

  Original plantation lands were located on the Waccamaw Neck, off US 17, and stretched from the Waccamaw River to the Atlantic Ocean.
  

• Origin of name – ?

• Other names – Mitchell Tract

• Current status – Part of Arcadia Plantation

Timeline

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

• 1766 – Thomas Mitchell bought 2,412 acres of Hobcaw Barony. He died before he could do much with the property. It went to his son Edward Mitchell.
  

• 1785 – Edward Mitchell sold half of the place to Captain John Allston (Linder & Thacker, p. 63).
  

  The other half went to William Alston and was called Clifton (Linder & Thacker, p. 70).
  

• ? – Mary Allston, the only daughter of Captain John Allston, inherited the plantation. She probably had a manager take care of the place as she lived at Prospect Hill (Linder & Thacker, p. 64).
  

• 1835 – Forlorn Hope was for sale. It was advertised as 1,206 acres and came with 60-70 prime slaves. William Algernon Alston bought it but he only purchased 793 acres. He already owned Rose Hill to the south and by 1850 he also owned Clifton to the north. This gave him three contiguous tracts of land along the Waccamaw.
  

• 1860 – William Algernon Alston died. The property was confiscated during the war and managed by the Freedmen's Bureau (Linder & Thacker, p. 66).
  

  A court case was filed to get the land back and it was returned to the Alston family.
  

• 1880 – Forlorn Hope was in the possession of the children of one of William Algernon Alston's daughters, Mary Alston Deas (Linder & Thacker, p. 66).
  

• 1909 – Margaret Deas Lucas, Josephine A. Simons, and Mary A. Deas sold Forlorn Hope to Dr. Isaac Emerson.
  

  He already owned Prospect Hill, and he eventually owned seven other plantations. He combined all of his property and called it 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 – 1,206 in 1785 to 1835; 793 in 1835
  

• Primary crop – Rice

Owners

• Alphabetical list – Captain John Allston; Mary Allston; William Algernon Alston; Sir William Baker, Nicholas Linwood, and Brice Fisher; John, Lord Carteret; Margaret Deas Lucas, Josephine A. Simons, and Mary A. Deas; Dr. Isaac Emerson; Edward Mitchell; Thomas Mitchell; Lucille Pate; John Roberts; George Vanderbilt
  

Slaves

• Number of slaves – 60 to 70 in 1835

Buildings

• ?

Web Resources

• ?

Print Resources

• 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).