SANKOFA'S PLANTATION DATABASE

Boone Hall Plantation

Location: Mount Pleasant, Charleston, SC
Constructed: mid 1700's
Learn more at: www.boonehallplantation.com, UWEC Geog188 Vogeler
Information: boonehall@hotmail.com

History: The Plantation was part of a series of land grants from South Carolina's Lords Proprietors to Major John Boone, the earliest grant dating from 1681. As cotton became king of Southern agriculture, Boone Hall, a cotton plantation spread over thousands of acres, became a giant of the Low Country's plantation culture.

Associated Free White Names

• Major John Boone: Lord Proprietor's deputy, member of the Grand Council, member of the vestry of Christ Church; one of the "First Fleet" settlers of SC
• Captain Thomas Boone: son of John Boone
• John Horlbeck
• Henry Horlbeck

Associated Black Slave Names

• none found yet

Agriculture

• Cotton - former cotton plantation of over 17,000 acres
• Pecans - Two Horlbeck brothers, John and Henry, established one of the first, and the largest, commercial pecan groves here. Some of the trees planted by the Horlbecks still flourish on Boone Hall Plantation, producing pecans in commercial quantities.

Description of Associated Architecture

• The Horlbeck family made brick and tile on the plantation. Their work is seen in the main house, in the nine original slave cabins and in the plantation's other brick buildings. It can also be seen in some of Charleston's oldest brick buildings.
• The nine original slave cabins along the Oak Avenue make up one of the very, few remaining "Slave Streets" in the Southeast. At one time there were twenty-seven cabins, arranged in three groups of nine cabins each. These quarters housed house servants, the elite within the plantation system. They also housed the skilled slaves that provided blacksmithing, carpentry, weaving sewing, cooking, and other skills that supported the plantation.
• Boone Hall Plantation holds the distinction of being, one of the first plantations in the South to provide academic education for its slaves. The small wooden building near the slave quarters, now known as The Commissary, was once a school and may have been the building in which the Slaves were taught.
• Cotton Gin House: Boone Hall's original cotton gin house was built to house the ginning equipment that separated the cotton fiber from the seed. After the cotton fiber was pressed into bales, it was loaded onto barges docked at the plantation's boat dock. From the boat dock it floated with the tide into the Charleston harbor, and from there it was shipped to the spinning mills in the North or in England.
• Smoke House: Another original building remaining virtually unchanged for centuries is the circular smokehouse located near the slave quarters. The smokehouse, once necessary to smoke and cure hams and beef for the plantation owner, his family and guests, is a fine example of the very rare header bond brick work.