Ramsay Grove Plantation – Black River – Georgetown County

Basic Information

• Location – Black River, Georgetown County

  1012 Ramsey Grove Road - approximately seven miles north of Georgetown
  

• Origin of name – Possibly named Ramsay Grove by James Anderson as a memorial to his uncle's wife Mary Ramsay. Click here to see a picture of Mary (3).
  

• Other names – Ramsey

• Current status – ?

Timeline

• 1731 – Earliest known date of existence (1, p. 485)
  

  William Hinckley received a grant for 500 acres (1, p. 485).
  

• 1738 – Hinckley sold the land to Daniel and Thomas LaRoche (1, p. 485).
  

• 1750 – Isaac Carr purchased the property from LaRoche (1, p. 486).
  

• 1763 – Carr sold the land to Dr. Charles Fyffe. Fyffe also purchased an adjoining 325 acres of a 500 acre land grant John White received in 1733 (1, pp. 485-486).
  

• 1771 – House built (1, p. 487)
  

  Dr. Fyffe and his heiress wife Ann Rowe built a house at the plantation (1, p. 487).
  

• 1782 – Fyffe remained loyal to the British crown and was about to be deported. He filed a petition with the South Carolina legislator in protest noting his care and treatment of wounded Patriots at a refugee hospital in Charleston. Fyffe was not deported, nor all his land confiscated, instead he was fined 12% of his estate (1, p. 487).
  

• 1786 – James Anderson purchased the plantation from Fyffe. Anderson was the first to legally call the property Ramsay Grove Plantation (1, p. 487).
  

• 1820 – James Anderson died and his son Richard Oswald Anderson inherited the plantation. Richard was very successful at growing rice at Ramsay Grove (1, p. 488).
  

  James Anderson's will is available for purchase here (3)
  

• 1852 – Anderson died while visiting his sister in Bath, England. The executors of his estate sold the plantation to Edward Percy Guerard (1, p. 488).
  

• 1875 – Guerard was able to hold onto Ramsay Grove through the Civil War and continued to farm the plantation with freedmen. In 1875, the sheriff foreclosed on the property and it was sold to Joshua W. LaBruce for repayment of the outstanding mortgage (1, p. 488).
  

• 1884 – LaBruce also lost Ramsay Grove to mortgage foreclosure. Mary F. Ladson purchased the property (1, p. 488).
  

• 1885 – Ladson sold the plantation to Elizabeth C. LaBruce, the widow of Joshua (1, p. 488).
  

• 1894 – Elizabeth willed the plantation to her son J.L. LaBruce (1, p. 488) (4).
  

• 1894 – Oliver Brightman Skinner purchased the plantation from LaBruce (1, p. 488).
  

  The plantation passed through several hands after the death of Skinner (1, p. 488).
  

• 1920 – The Ramsey Gun Club owned the plantation and changed the spelling from Ramsay (1, p. 488).
  

• 1963 – A corporation based in South Carolina purchased the plantation. The timber and farmland was under professional management with the house used for business meetings (1, p. 488).
  

Land

• Number of acres – 500 in 1731; 825 in 1763; 1,200 in 1963 (1)
  

• Primary crop – Indigo and rice (1, p. 486)
  

Slaves

• Number of slaves – 384 in 1850 (1, p. 488)
  

References & Resources

1. 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

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

3. Information contributed by Ann Bell.
   

4. Information contributed by Nancy Hart Shepack, a LaBruce family descendant.