#76 Boone Plantation, Charleston SC 4-1-09

After lunching at “Sticky Fingers” BBQ restaurant, we headed up the road to the old Boone Plantation. Some of the scenes from North and South were filmed here as well as other movies. It is a beautiful setting, but the house isn’t as old as many of the other plantations. The first two original plantation homes were destroyed by fire. This home is still occupied by the owners who do farm the land and grow crops. They also let it be used as a teaching farm for the local school children. The home itself is open for tours, but only the lower floor and the five rooms on that floor. We were told not to take pictures. So all I have is pictures of the outside of the home and the Live Oak lined road leading to the home.

You can see by the pictures above why this is one of the most photographed homes in the country.

The gates were added in the last century and are beautiful wrought iron work. The tree lined approach to the home is 3/4 of a mile long. The trees are over 200 years old. It took them 150 years to touch over the top of the road. Beautiful.

The amazing part of this plantation is the nine remaining brick slave quarters. The skilled slaves lived in these quarters, the field workers lived in wooden slave quarters that have since fallen down and disappeared.

We were fortunate enough to be at the plantation while a group of school children were there to learn about the Gullah language and stories. The lady below told us a story using the Gullah and then told us the same story in English. She was an amazing story teller, and got the adults and children involved.

She told us about how the slaves went into the woods, cleared circles and sang their worship songs and dances at night. Some of the plantation owners would build a meeting place for their slaves to gather and worship on Sunday’s, but they would still go into the woods during the night on the other days of the week.

Above are pictures of the slave quarters staged to look like a family was living there. We were told that most of the time it was two families living in these quarters and up to 16 people in each family. And remember these were the nicest quarters for the skilled slaves. Very hard for us to believe.

This was the best description I read about the sweet grass basket weaving. I hope you can read it. Remember to double click on the picture to enlarge it.

I’m sure this is a sample of some of the baskets that were used on the plantation.

Leaving the plantation and the quiet of rural Charleston with the azaleas blooming at the end of the Oak lined drive, we headed back to our campground at James Island County Park, just across the river from old town Charleston, SC.

We enjoyed the wonderful park area, that included a lake for fishing, a water slide park (not open until summer), biking/hiking trails, and spacious full hook-up RV and camping spaces. By the time we left town each day it was getting dark and “rush hour” traffic was in evidence. But, as you can see below, the greeting we received as we entered the park was a welcome site. I’m sorry I didn’t take a video, because he was winking at us!

After two very full days of sightseeing we decided it was time to just hunker down and rest. Boy, did we plan that right. It rained for 24 hours straight. Poor Gidget didn’t like having to go outside and do her business. She is too close to the ground and there were puddles of rain everywhere.

The last day we spent in Charlestown we found the Costco store! The rain even let up for us to do a little shopping.

We left Charleston on Friday, and by that time the sun was out, but we did have to contend with the wind. Before we left the park we filled up with propane. They charged $4.00 a gallon. That is the most we have ever had to pay—guess they have to make as much money on us campers as they can. With the wind blowing we had a slow trip. One of the other campers said that the wind usually brought in a cold front. Uh Oh! Where are my winter clothes?