Power, Prestige, and Influence of the Nineteenth Century Upcountry
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Power, Prestige, and Influence of the Nineteenth Century Upcountry Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina Cotton Planters and Their Appropriation of the Greek Revival House A dissertation submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Heidi Amelia-Anne Weber December 2015 Dissertation written by Heidi Amelia-Anne Weber B.A., Upsala College, 1994 M.A., East Stroudsburg University, 1997 Ph.D., Kent State University, 2015 Approved by __Leonne M. Hudson, Ph.D._________ Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee __Kenneth Bindas, Ph.D.___________ Co-Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee __Bradley Keefer, Ph.D.____________ Member __Babacar M’Baye, Ph.D.___________ Member __Patrick Coy, Ph.D._______________ Member Accepted by __Kenneth Bindas, Ph.D.___________ Chair, Department of History __James L. Blank, Ph.D.____________ Dean, College of Arts and Sciences TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………….iii-iv LIST OF FIGURES AND ILLUSTRATIONS……………………………v-vi LIST OF PLANTATIONS AND THEIR OWNERS……………………..vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………..viii INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………….1-43 CHAPTER 1: GREEK REVIVAL ARCHITECTURE…………………..44-75 CHAPTER 2: BUILDING OF GREEK REVIVAL HOUSES IN UPCOUNTRY SOUTH CAROLINA…………………………………….76-125 CHAPTER 3: GREEK REVIVAL PLANTATION HOMES IN UPCOUNTRY GEORGIA AND NORTH CAROLINA…………………126-147 CHAPTER 4: THE UPCOUNTRY COTTON PLANTER AND THE PLANTATION DESIGN…………………………………………………..148-171 CHAPTER 5: POSSESSIONS, HOUSE CONTENTS, AND DECORATIONS…………………………………………………………..172-216 iii CHAPTER 6: ADDITIONAL POSSESSIONS, HOUSES, PLANTATIONS, AND SLAVES………………………………………….217-246 CHAPTER 7: THE END OF THE UPCOUNTRY COTTON PLANTERS’ WORLD……………………………………………………..247-278 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………..279-291 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………..292-331 iv LIST OF FIGURES AND ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1 Parthenon………………………………………………….45 Figure 2 First Baptist Church………………………………………68 Figure 3 Map, Richland County, S.C……………………………...89 Figure 4 The Charleston Hotel…………………………………….90 Figure 5 Drawing and First Floor Plan of Millwood ………………93 Figure 6 Milford………………………………………………………101 Figure 7 Milford Interior Dining Room Doors……………………..102 Figure 8 Milford Interior Silver Plated Door Hardware…………..103 Figure 9 Milford Central Hall………………………………………..103 Figure 10 Fort Hill……………………………………………………..111 Figure 11 Redcliffe…………………………………………………….121 Figure 12 Lowther Hall………………………………………………..130 Figure 13 Lowther Hall, Interior Stairs………………………………131 Figure 14 The Oaks……………………………………………………132 Figure 15 Lockerly (Rose Hill)………………………………………..135 Figure 16 Montmorenci, Artistic Drawing……………………………140 Figure 17 Montmorenci Fireplace……………………………………141 Figure 18 Montmorenci Staircase (Reproduced Version)…………142 Figure 19 Fairntosh…………………………………………………….147 Figure 20 Millwood Site Plan………………………………………….154 Figure 21 N.F. Potter Architectural Drawing of Milford……………..165 Figure 22 Milford with Kitchen……………………………………….166 v Figure 23 Lockerly (Rose Hill) Pocket Doors and Fireplace………175 Figure 24 Lockerly (Rose Hill) Second Floor Fireplace……………176 Figure 25 Redcliffe, Interior Main Hallway and Staircase…………179 Figure 26 Pocahontas by Edward Troye……………………………201 Figure 27 Argyle by Edward Troye………………………………….202 Figure 28 Fort Hill Library…………………………………………….213 Figure 29 Millwood Main House Ruins……………………………..260 Figure 30 Millwood Main House Ruins……………………………..261 Figure 31 Millwood Wall Ruins………………………………………262 Figure 32 Ruins of House on Bull and Blanding Streets………….264 Figure 33 Milford Façade……………………………………………..268 vi LIST OF PLANTATIONS AND THEIR OWNERS Georgia Lowther Hall Samuel Lowther The Oaks William Jones; William Cousins White Hall Judge John Harris Rose Hill (Lockerly) Judge Daniel Tucker South Carolina Redcliffe James Henry Hammond Fort Hill John Caldwell Calhoun Milford John Laurence Manning Millwood Wade Hampton II North Carolina Fairntosh Paul C. Cameron Montmorenci William Williams vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my parents, the Honorable Frederic and Patricia Weber, for all of their love, support, and guidance throughout this entire process. They have always stood by me and supported me. They are my greatest inspiration and I know that I have made them proud. I am grateful for all the support I have received from my three sisters and their families as well. My family and friends amaze me and I am so grateful that they are always by my side. I want to give a special thanks to John Williams for being with me at my defense. Thank you for being by my side. I appreciate all the help that my advisors, Dr. Leonne Hudson and Dr. Kenneth Bindas, have given me. They guided me through this process and I am thankful for their patience and support. I also thank all the members of my committee and appreciate their suggestions as to how to make this a better dissertation. I would also like to thank everyone who helped me at the South Caroliniana Library, the South Carolina State Archives, the Hargrett Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, the Georgia State Archives, Emory University Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Books Library, the North Carolina Division of Archives and History, the University of North Carolina libraries, the Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Princeton University Library Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the Winterthur Archives and at the plantation houses. This has been a long process and I thank everyone who has been with me along the way. I am grateful. viii INTRODUCTION Impressive Greek Revival mansions found on the upcountry plantations of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina are a vestige of a bygone era. Yet, in the early part of the nineteenth century, these estates stood as pillars within the community, as did their owners. Although fact sometimes mixes with fiction, compliments of the Reconstruction era “moonlight and magnolias” mythology, the goal of this dissertation is to delve into reality. Increased cotton production and sales in the early nineteenth century, built on the backs of slaves, created a new generation of wealthy and prosperous citizenry in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, particularly in the upcountry regions. These planters set the criterion of status for the South and their mansions reflected their positions of power. Their newfound economic prosperity was reflected in their appropriation of the Greek Revival plantation home which became a mirror of sorts, reflecting the planter himself. The Greek Revival architectural style was not distinct to upcountry Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, as it existed throughout the entire United States. The design originated and was used in ancient Greece and Rome. It then found a place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe. Transported from abroad, this architectural style found its place in Philadelphia, first in the public sector. The Bank of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, by most accounts, was the initial Greek Revival structure 1 built in the United States.1 From this point, this style made its way to the private sector. Successful capitalists built their homes in the Greek Revival architectural style. The imposing pillars which lifted the massive portico, key features of this architectural design, created an image of majesty and might; in essence, power. Greek Revival made its way from the Philadelphia region and found a home throughout America.2 Yet it found a place of distinction in the antebellum South. Wide porticos offered shading from the intensity of the sun. The planter class embraced this architectural style for a variety of reasons. At the most basic level, Greek Revival was functional and practical for the weather, yet still aesthetically appealing. Mark Gelernter asserted in his A History of American Architecture: Buildings in their Cultural and Technical Context (2001) that: the Greek idea spread to the southern plantation homes where…free-standing colonnades were long employed for climate control in this region. Updating the plantation house in the new style required little more than constructing the columns and entablatures with more accurate Greek proportions…3 Although this architectural design was practical, it was more importantly symbolic. Greek Revival served as a representation of power and of financial means. It 1Mark Gelernter, A History of American Architecture: Buildings in Their Cultural and Technical Context (Lebanon, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2001), p. 134.; Talbot Hamlin, Greek Revival Architecture in America: being an account of important trends in American architecture and American life prior to the War Between the States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1944), p. 63.; Clay Lancaster, Ante Bellum Houses of the Bluegrass: The Development of Residential Architecture in Fayette County, Kentucky (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2015), p. 79.; Gary B. Nash, First City: Philadelphia and the Forging of Historical Memory (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), p. 141. 2George Hopkins, Jr., Creating Your Architectural Style (Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, Inc., 2009), p. 90.; Julia M. Truettner, Aspirations for Excellence: Alexander Jackson Davis and the First Campus Plan for the University of Michigan, 1838 (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2003), p. 24. 3Gelernter, Cultural, p. 136. 2 became a symbol of the slaveocracy of the nineteenth century, almost in the