Basic Information

• Location – Middlepen Branch, Orangeburg, Orangeburg County

  Original plantation lands were located two miles southeast of the City of Orangeburg off US 301 on Middlepen Road.
  

• Origin of name – The name comes from the body of water, Middlepen Branch, that ran through the property.
  

• Other names – Donald Bruce House
  

• Current status –

Timeline

• ? – Earliest known date of existence

• 1836 – Daniel Larey purchased the Donald Bruce House from Donald Bruce Jones. He then moved the house to his property outside of Orangeburg.
  

  The house was originally located in the town of Orangeburg at the corner of Windsor and Dibble Streets. It was either built by John Fisher or Donald Bruce sometime in the 1770s ( Culler, p. 131 ).
  

• ? – Shortly before the Civil War Benjamin F. Simmons purchased the property. He gave it the name Middlepen Plantation.
  

• 1937 – Colonel Russell S. Wolfe owned part of the plantation. He moved the house about 100 yards to sit on the part of the plantation that he inherited.
  

Land

• Number of acres – ?

• Primary crop – ?

Owners

• Alphabetical list – Daniel Larey, Benjamin F. Simmons, Colonel Russell S. Wolfe
  

Slaves

• Number of slaves – ?

Buildings

• ?

Web Resources

• National Register of Historic Places
  – Nomination Form for Donald Bruce House - submitted in 1978 by Robert Stockton, Russell Wolfe, and Debora Gwinn - requires Adobe Reader
  

Print Resources

• Initial references: 1

• Daniel Marchant Culler, Orangeburg District 1768-1868 History and Records (Spartanburg, SC: The Reprint Company, 1995).