Pond Bluff Plantation – Eutaw Springs – Orangeburg County

— Pond Bluff Plantation 1934 © Charleston Museum Archives —
(Lowcountry Digital Library)

Basic Information

• Location – Upper St. John's, Orangeburg County

  4 miles east of Eutaw Springs

• Origin of name – There is a pond near the house which is set on a bluff of the river swamp (7).
  

• Other names – ?

• Current status – Mostly submerged under Lake Marion (2, VII: 1-2)
  

Timeline

• 1758 – Earliest known date of existence

  Granted to William Flud
  

• ? – John Matthews acquired the property (4, p. 279) (7).
  

• 1773 – General Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, purchased the property from John Matthews and constructed a two-story house of cypress at the plantation. He would go on to purchase adjoining property until Pond Bluff Planation reached 1,452 acres (4, p. 279) (7).
  

• 1795 – General Francis Marion intended to make Pond Bluff Plantation his home until his death in this year. However, upon returning after serving as Brigade Commander, he found his plantation in ruins. Marion died and his buried at his brother's Bell Isle Plantation. Pond Bluff passed to his wife Mary Esther Videau Marion after his death (7).
  

• 1814 – Mary Esther Videau Marion willed the plantation to relative Colonel Keating Lewis Simons (2, VII: 1-2) (4, p. 280).
  

• Circa 1816 – The house built by General Francis Marion was destroyed by fire (4, p. 280) (7).
  

• 1819 – Colonel Keating Lewis Simons died and left Pond Bluff to his wife, Annie Cleland Simons (7).
  

• Circa 1825-1830 – A one-story home was built for Annie Cleland Simons by Joseph Palmer as a dower house for nearby Springfield Plantation, which Palmer owned (6) (7).
  

• Circa 1845 – Joseph Palmer Simons and Julia Simons inherited Pond Bluff from their mother, Annie Cleland Simons (7).
  

• Circa 1939 – The house was burned to the ground for the Santee-Cooper flooding project (2, VII: 1-2).
  

Land

• Number of acres – 1,452 acres in the late 1700s (4, p. 279)
  

• Primary crop – ?

Slaves

• Number of slaves – ?

References & Resources

1. 30-15 Plantation File, held by the South Carolina Historical Society
   –  Research Guide
   

2. Claude Henry Neuffer, editor, Names in South Carolina, Volume I through 30 (Columbia, SC: The State Printing Company)
    Order Names in South Carolina, Volumes I-XII, 1954-1965
    Order Names in South Carolina, Index XIII-XVIII
   

3. Caption on map of plantations along the Santee River in Upper St. John's Parish, SC 1865
   

4. J. Russell Cross, Historic Ramblin's through Berkeley (Columbia, SC: R.L. Bryan Company, 1985)
    Order Historic Ramblin's through Berkeley
   

5. Marion Salley, The Writings of Marion Salley (Orangeburg, SC: Orangeburg County Historical Society, 1970)
    Order The Writings of Marion Salley
   

6. Information contributed by photographer and historian Brandon Coffey.
   

7. Waterman Report of 1939 - article by Mr. F.M. Kirk