Oak Grove Plantation – Brunson – Hampton County

— Oak Grove Plantation • National Register of Historic Places, 1976 —

Basic Information

• Location – Brunson, Hampton County

  Old Pocotaligo Road

• Origin of name – Named for the large oaks on the property. These oaks were cut down in 1957 (1, p. 2).
  

• Other names – Old Richardson Place

• Current status – ?

Timeline

• ? – Earliest known date of existence

• 1852 – House built
  

  James Cameron Richardson built the house (1) (5).
  

• 1865 – General Sherman used Oak Grove Plantation as his headquarters for two days on his march to Columbia (5).
  

  Read a fascinating account of this event here.
  

• 1910 – Dr. Cameron Gregg Richardson, son of James Camerson Richardson, owned the plantation and took out a mortgage against it to buy a farm near Beaufort (5).
  

  Over the next several years, Dr. Richardson sold off pieces of Oak Grove Plantation's acerage trying to raise enough money to retain the family's ancestral home (5).
  

• 1932 – Oak Grove's property taxes were $1,000. Dr. Richardson couldn't pay the taxes and lost the plantation. The new owners renovated the house which had been vacant for several years (1, p. 3 and 5).
  

• ? – Jack Weir owned the plantation (1, p. 5).
  

• 1972 – Mr. and Mrs. Joseph J. Gallagher purchased the property and began a large restoration project of the house attempting to return it to its original appearance (1, p. 3).
  

• 2014 – Lee D. Cope and Kimberly Cole Cope own Oak Grove Plantation and have restored the plantation's house (6).
  

Land

• Number of acres – 1,375 in 1850; 1,850 in 1860; 20.5 in 1976 (1, pp. 3-4)
  

• Primary crop – ?

• Kelly Brown submitted an update in 2014 praising the current owners, the Copes, for the wonderful care they are taking care of Oak Grove and the many activities they are cultivating on the property: "They have honey bees and harvest from the garden they have nurtured there as well. Kim has added horses as she is an avid horse enthusiast. They even have dove hunts on the grounds for friends and family." (6)
  

Slaves

• Number of slaves – ?

Buildings

• The house is a two-story, clapboard building of Greek Revival Style. The slave cabins and other outbuildings were torn down in 1935 (1, p. 2).
  

References & Resources

1. National Register of Historic Places
   – Nomination form - PDF - submitted in 1976
   – Photographs, architectural overview
   

2. 30-15 Plantation File, held by the South Carolina Historical Society
   –  Online Catalog
   

3. 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
   

4. Alexania Easterling Lawton and Minnie Reeves Wilson, Allendale on the Savannah, (Bamberg, SC: Bamberg Herald Printers, 1970)
   

5. Information contributed by Robert Major Richardson, descendant of founder James Cameron Richardson
   

6. Information contributed by Kelly Brown, friend of the Copes