Ashtabula is a

plantation house A plantation house is the main house of a plantation, often a substantial farmhouse, which often serves as a symbol for the plantation as a whole. Plantation houses in the Southern United States and in other areas are known as quite grand and e ...

at 2725 Old Greenville Highway near Pendleton in Anderson County, South Carolina, USA. It has been also known as the Gibbes-Broyles-Latta-Pelzer House or some combination of one or more of these names. It was named in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

as a historic district on March 23, 1972. It is considered a significant example of a

Lowcountry The Lowcountry (sometimes Low Country or just low country) is a geographic and cultural region along South Carolina's coast, including the Sea Islands. The region includes significant salt marshes and other coastal waterways, making it an impor ...

style plantation house built for a Charleston family in the Upstate in the early 19th century. It also is part of the Pendleton Historic District.

History

Around 1790, Thomas Lofton built a two-story, brick house at the site. Later, the Gassaway family owned the house, which they operated as a tavern on the stage road from Pendleton to Pickensville and Greenville. In the mid-1820s, Lewis Ladson Gibbes from Charleston built the frame house now known as Ashtabula. His spouse was Maria Drayton of

Drayton Hall Drayton Hall is an 18th-century plantation located on the Ashley River about 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Charleston, South Carolina, and directly across the Ashley River from North Charleston, west of the Ashley in the Lowcountry. An e ...

and a niece of Arthur Middleton. She died in 1826 and he died in 1828 just before the completion of the house. Some of their children lived in the house. It was sold to Dr. Ozey R. Broyles in 1837. Broyles had an interest in agricultural and invented a subsurface plow. In 1845, the

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

set the "world's record for rice" production of 110 bushels per acre with each bushel weighing . During this period, the average production in South Carolina was of the order of 40 bushels per acre. In 1851, the plantation was sold to James Latta. He imported some of the first

Hereford cattle The Hereford is a British breed of beef cattle originally from Herefordshire in the West Midlands of England. It has spread to many countries – there are more than five million purebred Hereford cattle in over fifty nations worldwide. The bre ...

from England to improve the cattle stock. At the beginning of the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

, Robert Adger of Charleston purchased the house for his daughter Clarissa and her husband O. A. Bowen. Clarissa kept a detailed diary of life on the plantation that was published in 1973. Sarah E. Adger, daughter of Robert Adger, and her husband William D. Warner developed a dairy farm managed by a neighbor, J. C. Stribling. They brought the first

Jersey cattle The Jersey is a British list of cattle breeds, breed of small dairy cattle from Jersey, in the British Channel Islands. It is one of three Channel Island cattle breeds, the others being the Alderney (cattle), Alderney – now extinct – and th ...

into South Carolina. In 1880, Francis J. Pelzer, who built Pelzer Manufacturing Company, purchased the property. It was later owned by a number of South Carolinians. The last private owner was Frederick W. Symmes of Greenville. He owned it from 1940 to 1957. It was then purchased by Mead Paper Company. They gave the house to the Foundation for the Historic Restoration in the Pendleton Area in 1961. The Foundation's name was changed to the Pendleton Historic Foundation in the 1990s. Ashtabula is now a

house museum A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that has been transformed into a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a v ...

run by the Pendleton Historic Foundation. The house is furnished with

antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum ...

furniture. It is open Tuesday through Friday and Sunday afternoons from April to October.

Architecture

The house is a two-story, nearly square, frame structure that is four bays wide. The house has a

hip roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...

, two interior chimneys, and a

widow's walk A widow's walk, also known as a widow's watch or roofwalk, is a railed rooftop platform often having an inner cupola/turret frequently found on 19th-century North American coastal houses. The name is said to come from the wives of mariners, who ...

at the top. The house has two rooms on each side of a central hallway on each floor. The ceilings are about high. The house has

piazza A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. ...

s on three sides, supported by square columns. The front door has sidelights and a five-light transom. The windows are six over six light sash windows. The drawing room windows are French windows with panels below that open to the porch. The interior walls are wide, horizontal planks covered with wallpaper. The central staircase has been moved back. Currently, there is a U-shaped staircase with a landing above the back entrance. A passageway connects to the original brick house, which served as the kitchen and servants' quarters. This is the 1790 two-story brick building with a hip roof and central chimney.

References

External links

Ashtabula Historical Marker

* {{National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina Houses completed in 1828 Historic house museums in South Carolina Plantation houses in South Carolina Museums in Anderson County, South Carolina National Register of Historic Places in Anderson County, South Carolina Houses in Anderson County, South Carolina Historic American Buildings Survey in South Carolina Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in South Carolina