One of the most interesting history stories in the ‘Biggins/ Cooper River Area’, and I almost forgot we visited the same day as Biggins Church.

Mepkins history starts at 1681. It was a plantation recorded as owned by three sons of Lord Colleton one of the original British Lord Proprietors for the colonies.

A generation later it was sold to Henry Laurens who took residence here with his wife Elizabeth Ball from the Comingtee Plantation.  Elias Ball was a founder of Strawberry Chapel published in an earlier related article. My first time photographing inside Strawberry was with one of the current Ball family members who are still in charge of the Chapel 300 years later.

Laurens was an early activist for independence, he was captured at sea, spending two years in the famous ‘Tower of London’. He was eventually traded in a prisoner swap for the famous British General Cornwallis.

Laurens also was President of the US Continental Congress and signed the US Declaration of Independence.

But wait, there’s more…

In 1936 Henry R. and Clare Boothe Luce bought the plantation.

Henry Robinson Luce  was an American magazine publisher who founded Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated. Clare Boothe Luce was an American writer, politician, diplomat, and conservative public intellectual. Both were important politicians in US history.

And finally…

The Luces donated a large part of the property to the Roman Catholic Church to be used by the Trappist Order’s Gethsemani Abbey. Twenty-nine monks of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists) came from Gethsemani, Kentucky to found the Abbey.

The Mepkin Abbey (Plantation) is currently a monastery for Trappist Monks, and a very friendly dog.

These last photographs in the project were shot behind the private area of Mepkin along the Cooper River… and a short distance from Biggins Church and Strawberry Chapel.

To view the other locations related to the plantations/churches on the Cooper River click here.