Botany Bay Plantation Heritage Preserve and Wildlife Management Area is a state preserve located on Edisto Island, South Carolina. The plantation was established in the 1930s through the merger of two Colonial-era plantations: Sea Cloud Plantation and Bleak Hall Plantation. In 1977, it was bequeathed to the state as a wildlife preserve and opened to the public in 2008.

 

The preserve features several registered historic sites, including two listed on the National Register of Historic Places: a set of three surviving 1840s outbuildings from Bleak Hall Plantation and the prehistoric Fig Island shell rings.

 

### Contents

1. History

1.1 Sea Cloud Plantation

1.2 Bleak Hall Plantation

1.3 Botany Bay Plantation

2. Historic Preservation

2.1 Bleak Hall Outbuildings

2.2 Other Historic Sites

3. Wildlife and Habitat

4. References

 

### History

 

#### Sea Cloud Plantation

In 1695, Christopher Hinkley received a grant of 170 acres (69 ha) on Edisto Island. In 1727, Paul Hamilton Sr. acquired the property, which was later inherited by his son, Paul Hamilton Jr., in 1748. After the Revolutionary War, a 21-acre (8.5 ha) parcel adjacent to the Hamilton property was acquired by Normand McLeod. Eventually, the property came into the possession of Ephraim Mikell Seabrook, who built a house there around 1825. It has been suggested that the name “Sea Cloud Plantation” originated from the marriage of a Seabrook to a McLeod.

 

#### Bleak Hall Plantation

In the late 1790s, Daniel Townsend III began developing Bleak Hall Plantation. His first son, John Townsend, was born there in 1799 to his wife, Hephzibah Jenkins Townsend. Around 1805, they constructed a mansion, and by 1842, John Townsend inherited the property. At some point in the 1840s, he also acquired Sea Cloud Plantation.

 

John Townsend was a prominent agriculturist and political leader in 19th-century South Carolina. He was one of the state’s largest planters of Sea Island cotton, which commanded high prices from lace-makers in Belgium and France and won several awards for its quality and length. Between 1822 and 1858, Townsend served multiple terms in the South Carolina General Assembly, and in the early 1860s, he was a delegate to the state’s Secession Convention and a signer of the Ordinance of Secession, which marked South Carolina’s withdrawal from the United States, contributing to the American Civil War.

 

In November 1861, Edisto Island was evacuated. During the Civil War, both Union and Confederate forces utilized the cupola atop the Bleak Hall plantation house as a lookout. The original house burned during or shortly after the war, and a new one was constructed in a mix of Victorian styles. The war disrupted property records, and Townsend was eventually able to establish ownership of the combined plantations through an appeal to U.S. President Andrew Johnson. Townsend passed away at Bleak Hall in 1881. The plantation continued to produce valuable Sea Island cotton until 1917 when the boll weevil infestation affected Edisto Island. By the early 1920s, cotton production had ceased, and the plantation transitioned to farming and timber production.

 

#### Botany Bay Plantation

The Bleak Hall and Sea Cloud plantations remained in the Townsend family until 1933, when Dr. James C. Greenway, part of the Lauder Greenway Family, bought them and combined them to form Botany Bay Plantation.

 

In 1968, hotel and real estate magnate John E. “Jason” Meyer purchased Botany Bay. An avid outdoorsman, Meyer bequeathed the 4,630-acre (1,870 ha) plantation to the state of South Carolina as a wildlife preserve, with the stipulation that his wife, Margaret, could continue to use the property if he predeceased her. Meyer passed away in 1977, and his widow remarried, becoming Margaret Pepper. She managed and improved the property for conservation purposes until her death in 2007. In 2008, the property was opened to the public as the “Botany Bay Plantation Heritage Preserve/Wildlife Management Area,” which is managed by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.