During the height of the plantation wealth it was important to show it off. One way was to have the entrance road to be lined with large moss covered Live Oaks. Hollywood always uses the idea in any film depicting old southern life.
Below I took this shot standing in the avenue facing the grand house.
An Avenue Of Oaks
Note; there’s another part of showing off their wealth that Hollywood has left out of the plantation shots. Behind the line of Oaks there can be lines of old shacks, also for people to see when they rode up to the main house.
The shacks were homes for the enslaved kept on the plantation.
If you have looked around this site you will know I have this tendency to photograph the old large windows and staircases of the Charleston manor/plantation houses. Probably because I grew up in a NYC 1800’s building, my one window looked into an air shaft.
I was standing around and waiting for my explorer partner who was watching a small Heron. Having a shorter zoom on my backup camera I grabbed a few ‘scenic’ shots of the neighborhood.
A Quick Look At A Wildlife Management Area
Above was taken from a Trunk (water gate) which you can see part of on the left side. This is a canal that runs between the open water off in the distance and many larger marshes behind me.
The water in the distance is a large pond that was once a very big plantation rice field. This is in a remote area. I had always assumed a plantation included a big house, barns, and many out buildings. Not so much. There were plenty of places with huge rice fields, and nothing else. They were maintained and harvested on a schedule.
A Quick Look At A Wildlife Management Area
Here I am looking in the opposite direction of the first image. A dirt road passes through here and turns further down to run along the top of the various dikes separating marshland. Keeping areas separate allows for changing water levels, by opening a trunk, to control vegetation, swamps, and wildlife feeding.
At any given point just looking around will find several types of critters.
A Quick Look At A Wildlife Management Area
Last image here I again did an about face to catch the complete opposite direction. I wanted this for perspective, to try to impress on how large this is…and I am in one small corner of the wildlife area.
If you click and enlarge the image above you will see a figure down the dirt road, watching a small Heron of course. Way off on the left you may see a white structure. This covers tractors used for maintaining paths, and travel. In the thousands of acres that roof is about all you will find.
This marsh area here is about 30 miles (49 Km). Bring food and water, no creature comforts… for a long way.
Established 1787, this Tabernacle was completed in 1848.
Tabernacle At Indian Fields
The United Methodist Church has been having religious gatherings here for 160 years.
Tabernacle At Indian Fields
The building seats 1,000 people.
Tabernacle At Indian FieldsTabernacle At Indian FieldsTabernacle At Indian Fields
note; photographs of Indian Fields have been previously published however these particular images were not used since they were dark and grainy. I reworked them as a test using Topaz Labs De Noise AI and Sharpen AI software and my standard B&W tools.
If you know ‘The Great Gatsby’ you know these homes of the Golden Age.
In New York and Connecticut, along the sound shoreline the roaring twenties was a time of wealth and excess. This was one.
This is Eolia, a 42 room mansion named for the goddess of the wind. The mansion is on the Connecticut shore side and very windy.
Eolia, The Golden Age
I came across this original image taken in 2015. It has been published, printed, in shows, and on-line for years but I still love it. Even now it hangs in my South Carolina home.
These historic buildings have recently been either damaged by age, or vandalism. They are all a ‘Chapel Of Ease’, old Anglican Church buildings. When built it was to provide a church building far from the main parish church. Travel in the outer lands was difficult at best.
Having visited these in the past I thought a small article and photographs of how they were prior to any new damage might be of interest…like a snap shot of history.
Below is Strawberry Chapel, the most intact chapel. The only one I know of not being damaged during the revolution and civil war. It was completed in 1725 in Childsbury, South Carolina. The chapel is all the exists of the town.
Chapel Of EaseChapel Of Ease
Pon Pon Chapel Of Ease is shown below. In spite of on going efforts the structure continues to fall. This chapel, first wood, was also built in 1725. Previous settlements were destroyed in the Yammasee War, a Native American tribe that fought the English here and Spanish in Georgia just south.
Eventually the Yammasee, and Creek, kept going south away from the invaders to join the Seminoles in southern Florida.
The chapel has been burned numerous times and now is a ruin. What has kept it standing is the remote location. A dirt power line road is the only access. However…we found it LOL.
Pon Pon Chapel (1)Pon Pon Chapel Of Ease
Last here is St. Helena chapel on the St. Helena Barrier Island near the Georgia border.
Built in the mid 1700’s it was owner by the local planters until 1885 when the island was abandon and taken by the union army.
As expected this chapel also has been burned, a few times.
The structure was created using ‘tabby’ as concrete and this is one of the best examples in the US of the technique. Tabby is burnt oyster shells, lime, water and ash, only used in the Lowcountry and Georgia. It is an ancient Spanish concrete. Morocco is known for Spanish Tabby also. Georgia and Florida were part of the Spanish Empire when this chapel was built.
Chapel Of EaseAn Old Chapel Made With Tabby
No wildlife in the article, brief local history instead.
An image held in the ‘to do’ file finally coming to light.
Each old Charleston home was designed with a staircase as a central point when entering the home. It was created to immediately show the family wealth. They were made to impress.
