Rose Hill 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.
  

• Other names – Heriot-Huger 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).
  

• 1767 – Robert Heriot bought 2,177 acres of Hobcaw Barony.
  

  Benjamin Huger bought another tract to the south of Heriot's consisting of 1,711 acres (Linder & Thacker, p. 35).
  

• 1772 – Benjamin Huger sold his acreage to Robert Heriot (Linder & Thacker, p. 35).
  

• 1792 – Robert Heriot died and his estate was divided into three tracts. The middle section was bought by Benjamin Huger, Jr.and became known as Alderly and the lower third was bought by Thomas Young who named his portion Youngville (Linder & Thacker, p. 36).
  

• 1794 – The northern third of Robert Heriot's estate went to his cousin Roger Heriot. It consisted of 1,243 acres. He bought the place for his cousin's widow, Mary Ouldfield Heriot (Linder & Thacker, p. 58).
  

• 1802 – Mary Ouldfield Heriot sold the plantation to Colonel William Alston (Linder & Thacker, p. 58).
  

• 1803 – Colonel Alston gave the plantation to his son William Algernon Alston. It was the Colonel's practice to buy plantations and hold onto to them until his sons became of age. William Algernon Alston made his home at Rose Hill with his wife and nine children (Linder & Thacker, p. 58).
  

• 1860 – William Algernon Alston died at the age of 78. None of his sons survivied him so he left Rose Hill to his twin daughters, Charlotte and Anna Alston (Linder & Thacker, p. 59).
  

• 1906 – Anna Alston passed away and left her share of the plantation to the children of one of her brothers, John Ashe Alston (Linder & Thacker, p. 60).
  

  That same year the house burned down due to the carelessness of a hunting party that stayed there (Linder & Thacker, p. 60).
  

• 1909 – Dr. Isaac Emerson purchased Rose Hill.
  

  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 – 1,243 in 1794

• Primary crop – Rice

Owners

• Alphabetical list – Charlotte and Anna Alston; Colonel William Alston; William Algernon Alston; Sir William Baker, Nicholas Linwood, and Brice Fisher; John, Lord Carteret; Dr. Isaac Emerson; Mary Ouldfield Heriot; Robert Heriot; Roger Heriot; Lucille Pate; John Roberts; George Vanderbilt
  

Slaves

• Number of slaves – 134 in 1824

Buildings

• ?

Web Resources

• ?

Print Resources

• 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).
  

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