Edgewood Plantation – Edgefield – Edgefield County

Basic Information

• Location – Edgefield County

  Original plantation lands were located northeast of the Town of Edgefield in the vicinity of Edgewood Road.
  

• Origin of name – ?

• Other names – The Pickens House or Pickens Plantation (1, p. 1) (5)
  

• Current status – The house was moved to the University of South Carolina - Aiken Campus.
  

Timeline

• ? – Earliest known date of existence

• 1829 – Governor Andrew Pickens built a house on the plantation for his son, Francis W. Pickens (1, p. 2).
  

• ? – Francis W. Pickens married Eliza Simkins, granddaughter of Arthur Simkins of Cedarfield (4, XI: 38-39).
  

  Pickens next married Marion Dearing. Little is known at the moment about his first two wives.
  

• 1857 – Francis W. Pickens married Lucy Petway Holcombe. Shortly after they were married Pickens was appointed United States Minister to Russia by President Buchanan (4, XI: 38-39).
  

  While the two were in Russia they had a baby girl named Eugenia Frances Dorothea Olga Neva. She was forever and always called "Douschka" meaning "little darling" in Russian.
  

• 1860 – Pickens and his wife and daughter returned to South Carolina and he became Governor (4, XI: 38-39).
  

• 1869 – Francis W. Pickens died in poverty. He is buried in the Edgefield Cemetery.
  

  Lucy Pickens kept the house and maintained it as best she could.
  

• 1899 – Lucy Pickens died and is buried next to her husband and daughter Douschka.
  

  The plantation was left to Douschka's two daughters, Lucy and Adrienne Dorothea Dugas.
  

• 1929 – By this time the plantation had been abandoned and was is serious disrepair. The owner at the time was the Tillman Estate (Lucy Dugas married Benjamin Tillman, Jr. It is not clear how they came to own the whole plantation).
  

  Eulalie Rutledge Salley visited the plantation and took an interest in the house. She purchasd the house from the Tillman Estate and then had it dismantled and moved to Aiken (1, p. 6).
  

• 1987 – The house was purchased by Ronnie Bolton who donated it to the University of South Carolina - Aiken Campus. It was moved to the campus in three sections and reconstructed. The idea was to make it useful for the University and community functions as well as preserve its historical integrity.
  

Land

• Number of acres – ?

• Primary crop – ?

Slaves

• Number of slaves – ?

• Slave families include Bush, Borum, Hightower, and Drumming. Many generations of these families have members with the first name of Pickens (5).
  

References & Resources

1. National Register of Historic Places
   – Nomination form - PDF - submitted in 1983
   – Photographs, architectural overview
   

2. Article on Governor Francis W. Pickens - Harper's Weekly January 19, 1861
   

3. Edgewood: Stage of Southern History: Click here - documentary movie
   

4. Claude Henry Neuffer, editor, Names in South Carolina, Volume I through 30 (Columbia, SC: The State Printing Company)
    Order Names in South Carolina, Volumes I-XII, 1954-1965
    Order Names in South Carolina, Index XIII-XVIII
   

5. Information contributed by Sheila Hightower-Allen, descendant of the Bush, Borum, Hightower, and Drumming slave families of Edgewood Plantation.
   

Contact Information

• Univeristy of South Carolina Aiken
  471 University Parkway
  Aiken, SC 29801
  

  Telephone: 803-648-6851