This was one of the Largest Cotton Producers in the U.U.

Peter's Point Plantation, Edisto Island South Carolina

Date added: August 23, 2024

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The Mikell family arrived on Edisto Island before the close of the seventeenth century and were well-established planters before I. Jenkins Mikell built Peter's Point plantation house in 1840. Situated overlooking St. Helena Sound at the junction of St. Pierre's Creek and Fishing Creek, the house possesses a picturesque view and a commanding setting. The site also marks the point of Lafayette's departure from the island in 1826. The architectural design of the structure combines the style of the early Edisto Island plantation home and the Greek Revival style of the Charleston area in this period. Mikell, a Princeton graduate, became one of the wealthiest planters in South Carolina, however, he shunned political life, serving only as a magistrate and commissioner of the public schools of Edisto.

Mikell built Peter's Point at a time when the basic design of the plantation home stressed function over extravagance, and when most wealthy planters maintained a mere elaborate townhouse in Charleston. It was designed in keeping with the typical early 19th-century Edisto Island homes, built to serve as residences for the working plantation. However, the double piazzas are representative of the Charleston influence, and the overall architectural design reflects the Greek revival style which was so popular at the time. Peter's Point shows the transitional stage between the functional plantation house of the early 1800s and the grandiose plantation dwellings of the 1850s. Mikell's townhouse, located on Rutledge Avenue, has a wide portico supported by six heroic Corinthian columns and is a dwelling of massive proportions. Its elegance and grandiose style contrast greatly with the relative simplicity of Peter's Point.

The Peter's Point Plantation consisted of 2,200 acres of land by 1860. Its estimated annual production of 70,000 pounds of ginned cotton made it one of the largest producers of sea island cotton in the United States. It seems to have been representative of the large self-sufficient southern plantation with its 225 slaves working the cotton fields as well as cultivating grains and vegetables and tending livestock needed for the subsistence of the plantation population.

The lifestyle of the planters of Edisto Island was one of luxury. One of the owner's projects was the landscaping of grounds surrounding the house. His son, I. Jenkins Mikell, Jr., later described these grounds as follows in this quote from his book, The Rumbling of Chariot Wheels, a collection of sketches about his boyhood life on Edisto Island:

I see before me that grand old house, its groves of oranges, its figs, its pomegranates, its jujubees, with its extensive grounds of ornamental shrubs and imported cedars, trimmed into fantastic shapes by a master hand - all enclosed with moss, covered with live oaks, on a point where two rivers meet on their journey to the sea, three miles away, with not a tree to obstruct the view. I must not forget the artificial fish pond … It combined beauty and utility in a marked degree … It was a parallelogram having one of its long sides bricked up on the shore side, and a grove of immense live oaks overshadowing it. The other three sides were dykes reclaiming it from the river, planted with salt water cedars for beautifying the walks and to protect it from erosion … There were several Venetian bridges thrown across it and small islands covered with fancy shrubbery scattered at intervals over its area, each island about the size of a medium dwelling room on which diminutive Chinese tea gardens were built, reached only by a little skiff.

Today, Peter's point stands stately and serene in a setting of palmettoes and huge moss-draped oaks.

Building Description

This two-story, rectangular dwelling has a low gabled roof with a pedimented boxed cornice and two five-flue chimneys which are offset from the ridge of the roof. It is supported by a high foundation of brick and tabby. The front facade is sheltered by a double piazza. Eight Tuscan columns of slender proportions are evenly spaced on both levels and support the double piazza. Two of the eight columns per floor are engaged. A balustrade encloses the piazzas of the facade.

The facade's two main floors are identical, consisting of a central doorway flanked on either side by a pair of 9/9 light, double-sash windows with paneled shutters. The double piazza rests on a brick, Flemish bond, arcaded foundation which extends from the basement. The lower piazza has been screened.

Identical side facades feature four evenly-spaced windows per floor and a semi-elliptical wooden inset centered in the gable. The rear facade is similar to the front but has, a one-story, hipped roof piazza instead of the double piazza and a central window with sidelights on the second level rather than a doorway. The right side of the rear piazza has been enclosed to form an additional room. The piazza is supported by slender columns similar to those of the front facade and rests on freestanding, tabby-over-brick pillars.

The basement area appears to have been enclosed when the house was constructed since the bonding of the walls and foundations are both Flemish.

Wide, straight brick staircases with treads of brown sandstone and solid stepped copings lead to both front and rear entrances.

The interior arrangement of the main floors is that of four rooms divided into pairs by a central hallway with each room entering directly into the hall. The most notable interior feature is a wide central staircase which leads to a landing in the rear of the hall and then branches into two smaller symmetrical staircases leading to the second-floor hall.

Major alterations to the exterior of the structure include the enclosure of the right side of the rear piazza and the screening of the lower front piazza. The original mantels disappeared after the family vacated the dwelling in 1861 during the Civil War. After the war, plain wooden mantels were installed.