Rose Hill Plantation

Since we had such a good time visiting Cowpens we decided to take the long way home through the Sumter National Forest.  We had not done that before.  Mark looked at the map while I drove and he said there are two points of interest. Molly's rock and Rose Hill Plantation.  We chose Rose Hill Plantation.  I am glad we did.

The house!
We found out the reason the house was still standing, and not destroyed in the civil war was there was a flooded river that prevented Sherman and his troops getting to the house.
The house was built by the Gist family.  Gist was the sessionist governor, the one who lead South Carolina to leaving the union. 

The ranger office/gift shop was in the back of the kitchen.

The web site Mark looked at said tours available from April through September, but the ranger said she would give us a tour in about 5 minutes if we were interested.  A private tour of the house, of course we were interested!

While we had a tiny bit of time, Lon found the hoop and wanted to see if he could play it on grass, he did pretty good!

The front door is beautiful.  and large

There were some pieces of furniture that were original to the family that they got back for the house and this was one of them

The verdigris dining room. The picture over the mantle is States Rights Gist. Yes, they named him States Rights.  He was killed in the civil war
The ranger was very informative about the house and it's contents.
The house was spared from destruction by a flooded river, It was a cotton plantation.  All the trees in the Sumter National Forest were planted after the Park Service bought the Gist Plantation and surrounding plantations in the 1930s.  The house was restored by a private induvidual before turning it over to the Park Service.

This bed, in the upper room, along with the armoire were left in the house. They were too big to take out!

Rose Hill does have a good number of roses, because it might be near freezing at night they cover them to protect them.

A very old sewing machine in the ladies parlor

What the house looked like after sitting empty for 40 years. The georgian style part of the house was still structurally sound, the later added porches,  did not fare as well.  The house was originally brick, then covered by stucco, with brick lines drawn on the stucco for a more modern mid 1800s look.

We went to look at some of the out buildings, they were not originally in the positions they are now, except for the kitchen.   They were either re made or brought in from other places.  I love the fact they had a loom house !

With a loom!

The rear of the house, with the kitchen.

This magnolia tree was much smaller when the house was being built. The tree is HUGE!

Park information

 Our very wonderful day ended with a treat at Dairy Queen. 

It was a great day.