History
of Brookgreen Gardens

brookgreen gardens

The Waccamaw Neck and the entire Pee Dee Region of South Carolina are rich in history and legend. Brookgreen Gardens is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. This property was originally four rice plantations -- the Oaks, Brookgreen, Springfield and Laurel Hill -- laid out in Colonial times to run side by side from the river, where the ricefields lay, to the beaches, where plantation families moved during the summers to take refuge from the heat and diseases of the swamps. Most of the planters had homes in Charleston, where they took their families in the winter for the social season; many also had cottages in the inland areas of the Sand Hills and Blue Ridge. This society was born of the cash crop, indigo, before the American Revolution and, later, rice. It became even more prominent after the Carolina Golden Big Grain Rice was developed and cultivated at Brookgreen Plantation by Joshua John Ward. In the 1840s, South Carolina produced one-half of the rice grown in the nation and Georgetown County planters grew half of the South Carolina crop.

The original grant was to two brothers, John and William Allston. The surname had been spelled A-l-s-t-o-n in England. During the Revolutionary War there were two cousins, each with the same name and rank, serving the General Francis Marion. To avoid confusion, William Alston of Clifton Plantation reverted to the English spelling, his descendants, who included Governor Joseph Alston, owner of The Oaks and husband of Theodosia Burr, are known as the "one-1 Alstons." The family of William Allston of Brookgreen Plantation included the well known artist Washington Allston and Governor Robert F. W. Allston.

brookgreen gardens