Charleston County · Marker 10-40
Hampton Plantation
Hampton Plantation State Park, 1950 Rutledge Rd., at its intersection with U.S. Hwy. 17, McClellanville
Front inscription
Hampton Plantation, 2 mi. NW, was established by 1730 and was one of the earliest rice plantations on the Santee River, in an area settled by Huguenots and often called "French Santee." The house, built in the 1730s for Elias Horry, later passed to his granddaughter Harriott Horry, who married Frederick Rutledge in 1797. The plantation remained in the Rutledge family until 1971.
Reverse inscription
One of Hampton's best-known owners was Archibald Rutledge (1882-1973), educator, man of letters, and first poet laureate of S.C. He wrote of life there in Home By The River (1941), calling it "the mother plantation of this old plantation country." Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970, it has been Hampton Plantation State Park since the state acquired it in 1971.