Discover the hidden history

Those who call the Cainhoy Peninsula home may not be aware of all the history it holds.

 

The Cainhoy Peninsula is one of the older settlements in Charleston that has acres of history still intact and preserved - some of it hidden amid the recent boom of road construction and home building that surrounds it.

 

One notable site within the peninsula is Blessing Plantation.

 

Tucked away off Cainhoy Road, Blessing Plantation encompasses 200 acres of protected land and was once occupied by Native American villages.

 

Today, the plantation is home to an antebellum house, rice fields, a steam engine, an African American cemetery, and is listed on the National Register of Historical Places.

 

The History

Along the East Branch banks of the Cooper River, the Blessing Plantation is regarded by local historians as a testament to centuries of historical and cultural significance in Huger.

 

According to the NRHP, its story begins in 1682, when settler Jonah Lynch received a land grant for 780 acres, naming his property “Blessing” after the ship that carried him to the Carolina colonies.

 

Over the years, the plantation would experience several changes, including being divided into three separate plantations: Blessing Plantation, Cedar Hill, and Cherry Hill.

 

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, Blessing Plantation exchanged hands multiple times, with owners including Henry Laurens, a South Carolina rice planter and American founding father who served as a president of the Continental Congress; William James Ball, who owned numerous plantations in Berkeley County and was related to the Harleston family through several intermarriages; and James Poyas, a Charleston merchant.

 

Under Poyas’ ownership in 1834, he and his wife Charlotte Bentham constructed the iconic two-and-a-half-story rectangular frame plantation house that still stands today.

 

By the mid-18th century, the Blessing Plantation had fronted 336 acres of rice fields, with water from the Cooper River playing a role in the crop’s production.

 

Among the plantation’s pastures and lakes, it also features the Bonneau Ferry archeological site. This site contains the remains of a 19th- through 20th-century ferry landing across the East Branch of the Cooper River.

 

“The ferry was a very important one as it allowed the East Branch of the Cooper to be crossed,” said Michael Dahlman, co-founder of the Daniel Island Historical Society.

 

In 1928, the Blessing, Cedar Hill, and Cherry Hill plantations were sold to new owners, and the dwelling house built by James Poyas on Cedar Hill was rebuilt. According to the Blessing Plantation’s property records, the last documented owner was Louise Colas des Francs, who passed away in 2022.

 

The Plantation Today

As part of the Cooper River Historic District, the Blessing lives on as one of the many standing historical buildings that features archaeological remains of settlements, machines, like a steam engine, barns, and various agricultural structures.

 

Although the cultural landscape has evolved with changing land uses, the National Register of Historical Places states “the district (has) retained its historic rural setting of banked and ditched marshes and swamps, upland pine and hardwood forests, narrow tree-lined roads, and river views largely unobstructed by modern development.”

 

Protected from development by the Lowcountry Open Land Trust, the plantation mirrors what antebellum architecture was like in Cainhoy at the time, according to the NRHP.

 

“The house, with its central hall plan, has a lateral gable roof, a one-story porch around the facade and west elevation, two interior brick chimneys, and nine-over-nine windows.”

 

In addition to the house, ferry site, and rice fields, the plantation complex also includes remnants of its enslaved past.

 

 “An African American cemetery, which probably dates from the 18th century, is located on the property and has approximately 75 graves that date from 1928 to the present. It has an undetermined number of unmarked slave graves, and the markers include stone and cement head and foot stones, and cement slabs.”

 

The NRHP credits and acknowledges the plantation’s “landscape features are tangible evidence of the work of thousands of slaves who provided the labor force for the plantations.”

 

Dahlman said Blessing Plantation, as it stands today, is a reminder of Berkeley County’s complex history and the resilience of the communities that shaped it.