An old raised memorial stone, in a family plot, found in the ruins of an old church yard.  The church was an Anglican parish outside Charleston, South Carolina.

There seems to have been a line of John Colleton’s. I believe the Bart here is for the title Baronet. He was given that title, and large land grants in the Bahamas and Carolinas for his service to Charles II in 1661 as reward for his loyalty in the English civil war. . He was one of 7 Lord Proprietors of the area named Carolinas. This is where the South Carolina large plantations started. Land was granted to wealthy families by the Lord Proprietors for plantations, enslaved people were moved to work here from the Bahamas, and the early wealth of planters began.  They grew rice, lots of rice which all of England and Europe consumed.

Some of the initial US plantations were along the Cooper and Ashley rivers just upstream from Charles Town (Charleston), South Carolina.

Growing up in the north history was abstract to us. Something taught, read about, but difficult to see. In the Charleston area I go out, find places, talk to others, and can actually touch and photograph the past. Not long ago Ellen and I went by boat through the Santee Delta and had our lunch on the steps of an old rural plantation porch. We shared the porch that also had the Marquis de Lafayette, Francis Marion, and George Washington sitting there.

Found on a walk… very cool