Brevard Place Plantation – Eastover – Richland County

— Brevard Plance Plantation • National Register of Historic Places, 1986 —

Basic Information

• Location – Eastover, Richland County
  

  Off Highway 378
  

• Origin of name – Named for the Brevard family
  

• Other names – Keziah Goodwyn Hopkins Brevard House, Alwehav, Sand Hill, LeConte Place
  

• Current status – The land is used as a tree farm held in a heritage trust (4, p. 159)
  

Timeline

• ? – Earliest known date of existence

  William Goodwyn was granted 1,700 acres (2).
  

• ? – James Hopkins acquired the property.
  

• 1815 – House built (4, p. 159)
  

  James Hopkins built a one-and-one-half story frame construction house (1, p. 2).
  

• Circa 1840 – Sometime after 1840, James Hopkin's daughter Keziah Goodwyn Hopkins Brevard moved Brevard Place Plantation with her husband Alexander Joseph McLean Brevard (1, p. 2).
  

• 1844 – James Hopkins died leaving Keziah Goodwyn Hopkins Brevard as the sole heir of his estate. Keziah also inherited Oldfield Plantation from her father (3, p. 2) (4, p. 159).
  

• 1850s – Keziah Goodwyn Hopkins Brevard moved the house built by her father approximately 500 feet. She significantly increased its size calling it Brevard Place and made it her primary residence (1, pp. 1-2) (4, p. 159).
  

• 1865 – Several Hopkins family members sought refuge at Brevard Place durning Sherman's March to the Sea. Union troops looted the plantation but did not destroy the house (4, p. 159).
  

• 1868 – Keziah died and left Brevard Place to her half-nephew Governor James Hopkins Adams's minor granddaughters. The property was neglected at this time since the girls were minors and many lived out of state (4, p. 159).
  

• 1904 – Caroline Hopkins Adams LeConte, one of the property's heirs, purchased the plantation house and 872 acres at public auction. She repaired the house and made it her home in 1906 (1, p. 2) (4, p. 159).
  

  The plantation became knows as Alwehav ("all we have") at this time when Caroline LeConte's daughter Eva heard of her mother's purchase of the house which took all of her assets and a mortgage (1, p. 2).
  

• 1935 – Caroline LeConte passed away (5).
  

• 1967 – Mrs. Caroline LeConte Gibbes, Caroline Hopkins Adams LeConte's daughter, owned the house along with 335 acres (4, p. 159).
  

• 1977 – The plantation passed to Caroline LeConte Gibbes' sons and grandchildren (4, p. 159).
  

• 1986 – Mason Gibbes was one of the plantation's owners. His is the grandson of Caroline Adams LeConte (1, p. 2).
  

Land

• Number of acres – 1,700; 335 in 1967 (2) (4, p. 159)
  

• Primary crop – Cotton (3, p. 3).
  

• The plantation's property is home to several unique species of plants including the rare Magnolia pyramidata (2).
  

Slaves

• Number of slaves – ?

Buildings

• The house was still standing as of 1986.
  

References & Resources

1. National Register of Historic Places
   – Nomination form - PDF - submitted in 1986
   – Photographs, architectural overview
   

2. South Carolina Association of Naturalists - trip planned to view fauna at Alwehav Plantation
   

3. Review of the Keziah Goodwhyn Hopkins Brevard Journal - PDF - from the University of South Caroliniana Society, 1989 Annual Meeting
   

4. Information contributed by Margaret M. R. Eastman, an Adams family descendant, from:
   Virginia Meynard, The History of Lower Richland County and Its Early Planters, (Columbia, SC: R.L. Bryan Company, 2010)
   

5. Grave of Caroline Adams LeConte
   

6. John Hammond Moore, Editor, A Plantation Mistress on the Eve of the Civil War: The Diary of Keziah Goodwyn Hopkins Brevard, 1860-1861 (Women's Diaries and Letters of the Nineteenth-Century South) (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1996)