Peters Point Plantation is a historic structure located on Edisto Island, South Carolina. It was built by Isaac Jenkins Mikell in 1840 at the intersection of St. Pierre's Creek and Fishing Creek. It is located on the site General Lafayette used as a departure point from Edisto Island in 1826 during his southern tour. The plantation house displays early Edisto Island

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 ...

and Greek Revival styles. Mikell, a Princeton graduate, was one of the wealthiest

planters Planters Nut & Chocolate Company is an American snack food company now owned by Hormel Foods. Planters is best known for its processed nuts and for the Mr. Peanut icon that symbolizes them. Mr. Peanut was created by grade schooler Antonio Gentil ...

in the state. He served as a magistrate and commissioner of the public schools of Edisto. The house was listed 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 v ...

on June 19, 1973.

History

The plantation was one of the world's largest producers of

Sea Island Cotton ''Gossypium barbadense'' (''gos-SIP-pee-um bar-ba-DEN-see'') is one of several species of cotton. It is in the mallow family. It has been cultivated since antiquity, but has been especially prized since a form with particularly long fibers was ...

and was as large as 2,200 acres in 1860. It had an estimated yearly ginned cotton production of approximately 70,000 pounds. Isaac Jenkins Mikell inherited the plantation in 1838 and built the plantation home in 1840. The plantation had been owned by the Mikell family since 1715. The house is sometimes, less frequently known as the Isaac Jenkins Mikell House, but that name is much more commonly applied to the Greek Revival house Mikell built in Charleston in 1853. The house displays early Edisto Island

and Greek Revival styles. It reflects "the transitional stage between the functional plantation house of the early 1800s and the grandiose plantation dwellings of the 1850s." One of Mikell's projects was the landscaping of the grounds surrounding the house. On December 21, 2009, the South Carolina Supreme Court held that a zoning plan created in 2004 that would have allowed up to 55 dwelling units to be built on the same 160-acre tract as Peter's Point Plantation violated Charleston County's master plan.Mikell v. County of Charleston, 687 S.E.2d 326 (S.C. 2009). Edisto Island Open Land Trust now owns a conservation easement on the Peter's Point property.

References

National Register of Historic Places in Charleston County, South Carolina Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina Houses in Charleston County, South Carolina Cotton plantations in South Carolina Plantation houses in South Carolina 1840 establishments in Louisiana Houses completed in 1840 {{CharlestonCountySC-NRHP-stub

History

See also

References