Redcliffe Plantation

      Redcliffe Plantation is a South Carolina state historic site.  It was built by James Henry Hammond in 1857 and was home to three generations of his descendants.  Redcliffe was a showplace for Hammond to entertain and flaunt his success.  Hammond's business operations occurred at his other plantations - Silver Bluff, Cathwood, and Cowden.  John Shaw Billings, the great-grandson of James Henry Hammond, donated Redcliffe Plantation and Hammond's collections to the people of South Carolina in 1973.  Hammond's meticulously detailed business records and revelatory personal diaries and  correspondence were not destroyed by his long suffering widow when he died.  Her actions (widow's revenge perhaps?) preserved the record of Hammond's avarice, child abuse, and narcissism.  These documents were made public in 1978.  

      James Henry Hammond was born in 1807.  James' father Elisha Hammond wanted James to become a lawyer.  James was not able to afford a prestigious law school, so he obtained his degree from South Carolina College.  He earned his living practicing law and publishing a newspaper.  He met sixteen-year-old Catherine Fitzsimmons, a shy, plain looking girl, in 1830 and saw an opportunity to elevate his social and economic status.  Catherine had a sizable dowry - the 7,500 acre Silver Bluff plantation and 147 slaves.  While Catherine believed the good-looking Hammond's professions of love, her brothers did not.  They saw Hammond for the gold digger that he was, but Catherine won out and married Hammond in 1831.

     From this point, Hammond was a planter, member of the United States House of Representatives, governor of South Carolina, and member of the United States Senate.  After Hammond's term as governor ended in 1844, he prepared to run for the United States Senate.  Around this same time Hammond's nieces, ages thirteen to eighteen, revealed that their Uncle James had been molesting them during family visits to Redcliffe.  The girls' father publicly denounced Hammond thinking that the scandal would ruin Hammond's political ambitions, and this would be the best way to punish him.  Voters' memories were short, and Hammond managed to be elected to the U.S. Senate thirteen years later in 1857.  When it came to the nieces, memories were not short.  Their reputations were ruined and none of them ever received an offer of marriage.  

     Also in 1857, Hammond published a manual for planation owners in which he outlined his methods of slave husbandry.  He recommended more food and better diets for field laborers, longer periods of breast feeding for slave babies, and more nutritious diets for slave children.  These practices would make stronger, heathier slaves who could work harder, be less prone to illness, survive childhood, and live to older ages.  He kept families together only because he believed they would be less likely to run away.  Hammond's obsessive record keeping - recording first and last names of his slaves and noting birthdates and familial relationships - has had the positive consequence of giving descendants of Hammond's slaves an easier time assembling their family trees. 

     Hammond was a strong supporter of slavery and State's rights.  He coined the phrase, "Cotton is king," believing that the entire world relied on southern cotton, and for this he reason was sure the south would win the Civil War.  He died of mercury poisoning in 1864 just before the end of the war.

     Read more about it:

https://headstuff.org/culture/history/james-henry-hammond-pro-slavery-paedophile-politician/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Henry_Hammond

https://south-carolina-plantations.com/aiken/redcliffe.html

The architecture is Greek Revival style.  Moving the stairs to the side during a renovation has ruined the original symmetry. 

This prickly pear has been here since 1857. 

This is known as Magnolia Row.  The trees line the road that leads to the front of the mansion.

Ranger Brandon conducted our tour.  The building in the background is one of the slave's quarters.   

Bedrooms contained a commode ...

... and a sitz bath since the house didn't have bathrooms.

The fourth generation used the house as a vacation home and added bathrooms.  

John Shawl Billings, great-grandson of James Henry Hammond, was the editor of Time, Life, and Fortune magazines.  He bought Redcliffe and restored it after his aunt Julia Hammond Richards died.  Billings' only child (pictured on the desk), Frederica Wade Billings, died in childhood.  Since there were no heirs, Billings left the estate to the State of South Carolina.