Halcyon Grove

Front inscription

This Federal house with a later Classical Revival porch was the home of two governors of S.C. It was built ca. 1824 for planter Daniel Bird, who sold it in 1829 to Francis Wilkinson Pickens (1807-1869), then a lawyer and planter. Pickens lived here until the mid-1830s, when he deeded the house to his father, Andrew Pickens Jr. (1779-1838). The elder Pickens, a planter, was an officer in the War of 1812 and then governor 1816-18. He lived here until 1836.

Reverse inscription

Francis W. Pickens, later a state representative and senator, U.S. Congressman, and U.S. Minister to Russia, was governor 1860-62, during the secession crisis and first two years of the Civil War. In 1836 Andrew Pickens Jr. sold the house to John Lipscomb (1789-1856), a planter and merchant who also owned plantations in Florida but lived here. Descendants of the Bates/Hartley/ Feltham family owned Halcyon Grove for nearly 140 years, from 1869 to 2008.