So we have sojourned far and wide. Worldwide. But a while back we decided that we had not seen much of our own vast country. So we sort of sectioned out the states, and each summer (teacher travel time) we take in a chunk.
We usually have anchor points to bring us in closer to a space, and I always do some intense pre-deep dives to learn as much as I can about a space before the journey.
When I say deep dive, I mean I start with a land acknowledgement and awareness that I am traveling on sacred and special land that ancestrally were inhabited by Indigenous people or the Native tribes of people who lived in these spaces for thousands of years. There is something amazing about stepping on the ground and connecting spiritually with the vibe of human inhabitation through time, conflict, conquest, stewardship, and all the other things that being human brings.
I see spaces and places of extreme beauty, ingenuity, and upkeep. I also see places of ugliness and disrepair and despair.
I thank the ancients for the stewardship that brought us forward, travel to conflict spaces and say spiritual "I'm sorries," and in extreme cases of continued conflict and my own inner frustration over this, I take pictures and now have a place and space to send them to in a collectivistic collaboration with famous dissident artist Ai Weiwei and Avant Arte, which has created an interactive online platform to share your raised middle finger pictures to. I thank these folks to for the spaces to share frustration.
So onto Yemassee, South Carolina. We went there with one place in mind, but I have learned so much more about it (and frustratingly have so many more questions). Of course there is Indigenous History, yet we saw NO historical markers anywhere denoting it. Of course much of the history I could find was from a non-Indigenous perspective and had to do with war, conflict, and defeat. And very much the seeming attempt to disappear a the ancestral descendants of the Indigenous tribes that once inhabited the town named after them was present in every space we visited in this place.
Yamassee Indians
Original inhabitants of this beautiful land. Name possibly means gentle + from the language family Muskogean
Their current status= Active - in Allendale and as the Yamassee Indian Tribe (The Yamassee Nation) which is not a state nor a federally recognized organization. Others may have formed the Oklevueha Band of Yamassee Seminole in Florida and the Altamaha Yamassee Indians in Georgia.
Traditional: Near the mouth of the Savannah River in Beaufort and Jasper counties. Altamaha Town along the Okatie River was the principal settlement.
A 1707 state act defined the boundaries of the 'Yamosee Settlement' as being the area from the Combahee River on the north to the Coosaw, Port Royal and Savannah Rivers on the south.
The Yamasee were already an amalgamation of of tribes trying to band together to fight for their survival. (With British + Spanish colonists beefing it out for territory too. What a sad mess.
87 warriors fought with the colonists in the Tuscarora War of 1712.
Angered by unfair trade practices, slavery and whipping of Indians, and encroachment on their land, the Yemassee and several other Indian tribes rose against the British and killed approximately 100 settlers in 1715. They were defeated by Governor Craven and fled to Florida. The uprising becomes known as the Yemassee War.
The Yamassee had Indian Mounds used as burial sites, yet we never saw, or read about any in the area. Wonder what happened to them? Not one sign or any current information that this tribe once resided here. If we had time and someone pointed it out to us, just 35 minutes away is Altamaha Town Heritage Preserve. This site is 100-acre oak-hickory forested gem along the Okatie and Colleton Rivers was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994 and co-purchased by the County and State in 2004 to preserve the beauty of the forest as well as the historical remnants of a Yamasee village. Fascinating to learn that this tribe, even though displaced, traveled back and forth to FL to rescue other Yamassee from slave plantations.
Another area that has Yamassee roots is Allendale, SC which reports a population of approx. 3500 and has 85% black as its demographic. However, there are mixed-race folks that were once called Yamassee Negroes.
There is a fascinating (albeit sad because it is reporting on the murder of a tribal Marshal killed in 2017) article about the history
https://www.wrdw.com/content/news/What-is-the-Yamassee-Nation-425940564.html
In part, the article states: “While many history books claim the Yamassee tribe is extinct, the Yamassee Nation says the federal government still classifies them as a living people.”
Their history states that when the South Carolina slave code was introduced around the time of the Civil War, many Yamassee were forced into slavery and their classification was changed from Indian to Negro or Mulatto, and they were coined as the "Negro Indians."
Now onto the pictures:
I imagine there were many well worn paths + wonder if the RR was one of them?
The town has a population of approximately 1,100. This is downtown.
The depot sits along the – border. It was purchased by the Town of Yemassee from CSX for one dollar in 2010 as project of the Yemassee Revitalization Corporation. It was then restored to its 1940s appearance.
The train depot has this uninteresting fact: The Yemassee Train Depot was the final stop for Marine Corps Recruits to Parris Island for much of the 19th and 20th centuries. We found it funny that it was on Wall Street in the downtown of this booming town. There is also mention of battles during Civil War. Lots and lots of battles in this country/world.
1912 built former general merchandise store. Yemassee Junction became known as the wartime depot for beginning marines who went to nearby Paris Island for training (1914-1965).
Here is a website that has a picture of the church with a mural on the top area:
https://www.scpictureproject.org/beaufort-county/yemassee-junction.html
The Town of Yemassee is a small town rich in local history. In the late seventeenth century, when Englishman began to settle coastal Carolina, a number of tribes, mostly of Muskogean stock, inhabited the area. Of those tribes, the Yamasee Indians were the most extensive and powerful. Its territory stretched along the coast from southern Georgia to the Edisto region.
The Yamasee's two major centers of power lay between the Savannah and Combahee Rivers at Pocataligo and Coosawhatchie. Towards the end of the War between the States, Sherman's army came through the area on his infamous march to the sea from Atlanta, Georgia. All of the churches in the area were destroyed, except for the Presbyterian Church, which was used as a hospital by the union army. Blood stains on the floor are visible on the still standing church.
After that war, the Port Royal-Augusta Railroad was constructed. At that time, the railroad hamlet of Yemassee was formed from the lands of Richfield Plantation and portions of the Cuthbert lands. In 1868, a post office was established. The house where Somerest Maughn wrote the Razor's Edges is located in that area. There is also a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous architect. The house is unique in its design as having no right angles. The house is located on Auld Brass Plantation and has been refurbished (now you know why we came!)
An interesting tidbit on the town is that it is over 50% black in present day, yet the Wiki page for this town cites the proud fact that w/in town limits are 3 historical plantations! I wonder about the black population and if residency is tied to slavery? Descendants + land ownership; like did anybody get their 40 acres and a mule? I was just glad to get away from all the damn golf courses and still seemingly segregated “developments” of McMansion homes/condos.
The Combahee River bordered and supplied the water for some of the largest, most productive rice plantations prior to the Civil War.
Carolina Gold rice and Sea Island cotton were cultivated here using , two commodities that were grown only in the South Carolina Lowcountry and coastal Georgia. Because the cultivating of these crops was limited to this small region, planters of Carolina Gold rice and Sea Island cotton became quite wealthy.
The Plantations
There is a property in Yemassee that is currently on the market called the Old Combahee Plantation. It is mind boggling that the property is 1,851 acres + asking price= 11 million. Here is a little blurb + map of the area to give you an idea:
“Located between Charleston and Savannah the Ace Basin covers 350,000 acres of rivers, creeks, estuaries, and some of the most beautiful plantations in South Carolina. Old Combahee Plantation is a unique property in this wonderful area. Its northern boundary borders over four miles on the Combahee River and the entire boundary has remained unchanged since 1754.”
Old Combahee is surrounded by plantations including Twickenham, Brewton, and Rose Hill. Auldbrass Plantation with the Frank Lloyd Wright designed complex is next door, and Cherokee Plantation is directly across the river.
The property is protected under a conservation easement with The Nature Conservancy. The property is being sold after having been in the same family for four generations. Dreaming of great things time= why don’t the proceeds of that sale go to the descendants of any and all black folks that were once slaves on those 1,851 acres?
There is a website, “South Carolina Plantations” that has some information on the plantations in this area. It starts by telling the tale + lineage of ownership + acreage, then moves in to products produced and if available, some sketchy information on number of slaves.
There is also a website and company, “Plantation Services Inc.” that is in the business of selling plantations. The whole thing is mind-boggling to me, a New Englander from tiny, tiny Mass.
Hobonny Plantation (est. 1733) 826 acres 1121 River Rd. Yemassee
Hobonny is an original rice plantation located between Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia in an area known as the ACE Basin. The plantation lies on the south side of Combahee River and is surrounded by other historic plantations such as Twickenham and Bonny Hall. This is one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the state. The cities of Charleston, Savannah, Hilton Head and Beaufort are easy drives. By boat one can be in Beaufort in forty five minutes.
At the crossroads + we didn’t take. It has 20 properties on it with lots + sale prices of < 1 acre to one with 10 acres. Avge. Age of construction 1976 and home values range from 5.7k to 261k. I’m guessing the name of the street doesn’t match the character of the street. An interesting factoid none-the-less= If we had taken this road, we could have driven over the Harriet Tubman Bridge. Next Time!
More history of just this one small place in the South is this:
“On June 2, 1863, Harriet Tubman led 150 black Union soldiers, who were part of the U.S. 2nd South Carolina Volunteers, in the Combahee River Raid and liberated more than 700 enslaved people. Tubman, often referred to as “the Moses of her people,” was a former slave who had fled to freedom in 1849. Throughout the 1850s, she returned to her native Maryland to bring other enslaved people north into freedom, first to Pennsylvania and then eventually to Canada.” The associated picture of a drawing of the event is from the newspaper “Harper's Weekly”
Interesting Tidbit
Next door neighbor to Auldbrass is the Brewton Plantation, once a 1,400 acre place growing rice, indigo, and corn. It had 95 slaves. But through the years the land was cut up and 383 acres went ironically to a black man!
1971 – "Smokin'" Joe Frazier, a heavyweight-boxing champion, purchased Brewton Plantation, sight unseen, for his mother Dolly. Instead of having a sign at the entrance of the plantation, Frazier hung a pair of boxing gloves. Frazier had grown up in Beaufort, SC. The plantation was in poor shape when Frazier purchased it. Frazier worked diligently on the plantation and tripled his investment upon selling it 14 years later.
Building a Rice Field
A rice plantation took years to build. Slaves worked in intense heat among snakes, alligators and disease-carrying mosquitos - in thigh-deep mud - to construct the system.
Who were these people? Do they make the Freedman’s Bureau doles? Are they on local Freedmen’s Savings and Trust records? Where did they go after 1865?
The Gullah Geechee people are mostly associated with this area and the rice plantations here. This map gives an idea of what a low country rice plantation would look like.
AND NOW for the anchor stop (drum roll please)...
The Auldbrass Plantation
From the “Carolina’s Plantations” site: Basic Information
Location – Combahee River, Yemassee, ACE Basin, Beaufort County
East of Yemassee on River Road
Origin of name – Frank Lloyd Wright modified the name Old Brass to Auldbrass.
Current status – Privately owned
We define a plantation as a large farm on which most of the work was done by slaves. Thus all the plantations we catalog were established before the Civil War.
Auldbrass was established in 1938 from the combination of several plantations in the area. This new plantation never grew crops on a commercial scale or used slave labor.
1940 – Wright had all the initial drawings and plans finished. Hexagonal shapes and inward-sloping walls were the main design features of the house and complex.
The following buildings were to be part of the complex: Stable and Kennel, Caretaker's Cottage, Guest House, Main House with a detached kitchen, Farm Buildings, Staff Cabins, Swimming pool, and Laundry and Bath Houses for the staff.
1941 – The farm buildings were nearly completed and the main house was in the beginning stages
1942 – By December all worked had stopped on the construction of Auldbrass. Stevens was running low on funds due to the war, and as a result, creditors were hounding him to receive their payments
1946 – Stevens was ready to resume construction of Auldbrass and complete the main house. He decided to move into Auldbrass and first occupied the nearly completed caretaker's cottage, more or less camping out.
1950 – Up until this point Stevens wives had never had any interest in what was going on at Auldbrass. However, Stevens third wife, Nina Lunn, took an interest in Auldbrass and started to direct the workers herself.
Since the beginning of the project Wright's designs had been modified and changed numerous times by Stevens and now by his third wife, Nina. The original plans had been designed for a bachelor's lifestyle. With the addition of a female into the picture, the designs changed again to reflect her wants.
1952 – In March, a fire destroyed portions of the farm buildings. The fire began in a large detached barn but quickly spread to the hay barn and machine shed. The volunteer fire fighters were able to hack down the roof that connected the barns to the caretaker's house, stables, saddle room, cook shed, and kennels. The main house and staff cabins were not affected.
Stevens did not have the buildings replaced. Instead, he built a small hexagonal shed to store tools and house electrical switches.
1952 – In March, a fire destroyed portions of the farm buildings. The fire began in a large detached barn but quickly spread to the hay barn and machine shed. The volunteer fire fighters were able to hack down the roof that connected the barns to the caretaker's house, stables, saddle room, cook shed, and kennels. The main house and staff cabins were not affected.
Stevens did not have the buildings replaced. Instead, he built a small hexagonal shed to store tools and house electrical switches.
1959 – Frank Lloyd Wright died. Stevens died three years later of a heart attack. Auldbrass would remain unfinished until 1987 when Joel Silver purchased the complex and proceeded to restore and finish Auldbrass the way Wright and Stevens had imagined it in the beginning
1962 – C. Leigh Stevens died and he gave Auldbrass to his son and daughter. His daughter, Jessica Stevens Loring bought out her brother's share of Auldbrass and proceeded to try and manage the complex.
1971 – Jessica and her husband, Stanton, moved into Auldbrass permanently in order to manage it more efficiently.
They proceeded to make extensive repairs to the buildings. They replaced the roof and upgraded the mechanical systems. They tried their best to reverse the changes made by Nina Lunn.
The Lorings also had to deal with visitors who had an interest in Wright's work. The visitors were always given a tour and welcomed in.
1976 – To help make sure the property would always be protected and recognized as a Wright project, the Lorings had Auldbrass nominated for the National Register of Historic Places.
1979 – Due to the constant upkeep of all the buildings and land, the Lorings sold Auldbrass to Boise Cascade, a timber company. However, they kept the Old Combahee tract for themselves.
Almost immediately the land was sold to Westvaco Corporation. Westvaco sold the buildings and a small parcel of land to a group of local hunters.
1980s – The hunters found the management of the buildings difficult, and they gradually fell into ruin. The hunters realized the buildings were not well suited to their needs and tried to donate them to Clemson University for an architectural restoration center. Working with the Beaufort County Open Land Trust it was decided to place an easement on the property and offer the place for sale at a drastically reduced price.
1986 – Joel Silver, who had just finished restoring another Wright building in California, was contacted about purchasing and saving Auldbrass. Silver made a donation of $148,000 to the Open Land Trust with an agrement that he house and property would be open for tours on occasion. Silver became the next, and current, owner of Auldbrass.
Silver planned to restore the complex in four stages. First he would restore all of Wright's original buildings as he had originally designed them, retaining as much original fabric as possible. Second, all Wright-designed buildings that had been destroyed or altered beyond recognition would be rebuilt using materials as close to the originals as possible. Third, Wright's unbuilt projects for the complex would be built as he had designed. The exterior would look like the original designs, but the interior would be organized to meet current needs. Fourth, the buildings needed by Silver would be added, designed to mimic Wright's designs, but located at a distance so as not to intrude on the original complex.
So what's left? For land= 334 acres (2011)
The following buildings currently make up the complex at Auldbrass:
Grinding Shed and Barn Horse Stables
Tack Room Offices
Laundry Guest Houses
Playroom Workshop
Cook Shed Kennels
Main House Swimming Pool
Car Shed Aviary
And can I visit????????????
Every odd numbered year, the Beaufort County Open Land Trust is permitted to host tours at Auldbrass Plantation in Yemassee for one weekend as a fundraiser for the organization, and tours are now scheduled for the fall of 2023. Heartbreaking right? After all that research and travel.
$175-$250
It wasn’t the biggest of billboards.
Nor was the street it was on (Lane= I think the only building actually), nor was the building big (size of a small convenience store, but the famous name brand was big and the store was miraculously open until 6p on a Sunday, so we got 15 minutes to shop!!!
Le Creuset (French for the crucible) is a French-Belgian maker of cookware. They are best known for producing enameled cast-iron cookware.The company first manufactured their products in the town of Fresnoy-le-Grand in France in 1925. The Le Creuset Dutch oven is on display in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. as a part of the recreation of the chef Julia Child's kitchen. It has been widely reported to be her favorite cooking pot.
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