Coffin Point Plantation, is a historic

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 ...

located in the Frogmore area of

Beaufort County, South Carolina Beaufort County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census, its population was 187,117. Its county seat is Beaufort. Beaufort County is part of the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton-Beaufort, SC Metropolitan Stati ...

, USA. A Sea Island plantation. Ebenezer Coffin, born in Boston in 1763, received 1120 acres and 63

chattel slaves Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

from his father-in-law and had the house built on the property. It is estimated that the home was built around 1801, and like many early 19th century homes in the area, features a

tabby A tabby is any domestic cat (''Felis catus'') with a distinctive 'M'-shaped marking on its forehead; stripes by its eyes and across its cheeks, along its back, and around its legs and tail; and (differing by tabby type), characteristic striped, ...

foundation. One of the home's more striking features is the one-half mile avenue of oaks that leads to the home. In 1862, during the Civil War, 260 people were recorded as being enslaved on the plantation. James Donald Cameron, a Republican U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and former Secretary of War bought the plantation house in the early 1890s.

Henry Adams Henry Brooks Adams (February 16, 1838 – March 27, 1918) was an American historian and a member of the Adams political family, descended from two U.S. Presidents. As a young Harvard graduate, he served as secretary to his father, Charles Fr ...

described his visits to the Camerons at 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 ...

in his book ''

The Education of Henry Adams ''The Education of Henry Adams'' is an autobiography that records the struggle of Bostonian Henry Adams (1838–1918), in his later years, to come to terms with the dawning 20th century, so different from the world of his youth. It is also a sh ...

''. The plantation was placed in the National Historic Register on August 28, 1975.

References

Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina Federal architecture in South Carolina Houses completed in 1861 Houses in Beaufort County, South Carolina National Register of Historic Places in Beaufort County, South Carolina 1861 establishments in South Carolina Plantations in South Carolina Plantation houses in South Carolina {{AfricanAmerican-stub