Basic Information

• Location – South Santee River, McClellanville, St. James Santee Parish, Charleston County

  Original plantation lands were located in what is today the Santee Coastal Reserve.
  

• Origin of name – Named for Arthur Blake, an early owner.
  

• Other names – ?

• Current status – The land is part of the Santee Coastal Reserve managed by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.
  

Timeline

• ? – Earliest known date of existence

• ? – House built

• ? – The plantation house was burned by federal troops during the Civil War (Bridges & Williams, p. 280).
  

• 1898 – Hugh R. Garden purchased the plantation with the intent that it become part of the Santee Club. The lands belonging to the Santee Club eventually consisted of twelve former rice plantations (Bridges & Williams, p.297).
  

• ? – The Santee Club gave all the land it owned to the Nature Conservancy.
  

• ? – The Nature Conservancy turned over all the land to be managed by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.
  

Land

• Number of acres – ?

• Primary crop – Rice

Owners

• Alphabetical list – Arthur Blake, Hugh R. Garden, Nature Conservancy, Santee Club, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources
  

Slaves

• Number of slaves – ?

Buildings

• ?

Web Resources

• ?

Print Resources

• Anne Baker Leland Bridges and Roy Williams III, St James Santee Plantation Parish History and Records, 1685-1925, (Spartanburg, SC: The Reprint Company, Publishers, 1997).
  

• Suzanne Cameron Linder and Marta Leslie Thacker (with preliminary research by Agnes Leland Baldwin), Historical Atlas of the Rice Plantations of Georgetown County and the Santee River (Columbia: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, 2001), pp. 762-771.
  

More about Charleston

• Learn more about historic Charleston County including the port city of Charleston. We have helpful guides to Charleston history and Charleston libraries and museums – plus Charleston restaurants, Charleston bed & breakfasts, Charleston hotels, Charleston real estate, and Charleston jobs.