Rose Hill Plantation State Historic Site

Rose Hill Plantation State Historic Site
Rose Hill

Nearest city	Whitmire, South Carolina
Coordinates	34°36′19″N 81°39′57″W / 34.605325°N 81.665739°W / 34.605325; -81.665739
Area	44 acres (0.18 km)
Created	1960
Website	http://www.southcarolinaparks.com/park-finder/state-park/540.aspx

Rose Hill
U.S. National Register of Historic Places

Show map of South CarolinaShow map of the United States
Area	44 acres (18 ha)
Built	1832 (1832)
Architect	William H. Gist
NRHP reference No.	70000605
Added to NRHP	June 5, 1970

Rose Hill Plantation State Historic Site is a historic site in Union County, South Carolina, that preserves the home of William H. Gist (1807–1874), the 68th governor of South Carolina. Gist helped instigate a Secession Convention in South Carolina, which led to the creation of the Ordinance of Secession that preceded the Civil War.

William Gist was the natural son of Francis Fincher Gist (c. 1773–1819), a Charleston merchant and South Carolina state representative, who by 1811 had purchased land in Upstate South Carolina. Either Francis Fincher or William Henry built a Georgian-style brick house (c. 1811–1830), eventually called Rose Hill after the many varieties of roses planted in its formal gardens.

In the late 1850s and early 1860s, William Gist remodeled the house, adding two-tiered back and front porches and stuccoing the brick in order to transform the exterior into the more fashionable Greek revival-style. The final house had three stories, the first two used as living quarters and the third a mixture of living and storage areas. According to the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Rose Hill featured "more refined ornamentation than usually found in upcountry houses of the period." A spiral staircase led to the second floor, which included a ballroom with two fireplaces so that the space could be converted into two bed chambers to accommodate guests.

During Gist's term of office (1858–1860), the house served as the governor's mansion. From Rose Hill, Gist wrote the governors of Louisiana, North Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, suggesting that if Abraham Lincoln were elected president, South Carolina might take the lead in seceding from the Union.

Rose Hill was a working plantation of about 2,000 acres (8.1 km) where enslaved laborers grew cotton, corn, and oats. (There were approximately 20 slaves in 1820, 82 in 1840, and 178 in 1860). After slavery was abolished at the end of the Civil War, the plantation was farmed by tenant farmers and sharecroppers.

Gist died in 1874, but the mansion and land remained in the Gist family, though both were leased to tenants. In 1938 the US Forest Service purchased Rose Hill, and it became part of the Sumter National Forest. In 1942 Clyde T. Franks (1885–1970), a representative of the Federal Land Bank and an antique collector from Laurens, South Carolina, purchased the house and 44 acres (0.18 km) from the Forest Service; and in the following year, he opened the house to the public, restoring it and the gardens and adding period furniture. In 1960, Franks sold the property to the South Carolina State Park Service.

The park includes restrooms, a picnic shelter, and a small gift shop. A brick kitchen built in the 1850s is the only other antebellum structure on the property. The location of the slave quarters is unknown. A one-and-a-quarter mile nature trail runs through both park and Forest Service property and extends to the Tyger River. The Gist family cemetery is about one mile south of the mansion.

References

"National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
Biographical Directory of the South Carolina House of Representatives, 5:106
South Carolina Plantations; SCDAH description. Today the house is surrounded by rose gardens, mature boxwoods, and magnolias and is enclosed by a cast-iron fence.
"Rose Hill Plantation," Sandlapper (Winter 2002–03), 54.
South Carolina Plantations; Park website. By 1860 Rose Hill was producing nearly 300 bales of cotton and 4,000 bushels of corn per year.
Libby Rhodes, Laurens (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2000), 84; South Carolina Plantations. The house was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on June 5, 1970. National Register nomination form.
South Carolina Plantations; Clint Johnson, Touring the Carolinas' Civil War Sites (Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, Publisher, 1996), 326-27.

External links

Media related to Rose Hill Plantation State Historic Site at Wikimedia Commons

Rose Hill Plantation - History & Photos

v t e State Parks of South Carolina
Upstate	Caesars Head Croft Devils Fork Jones Gap Keowee-Toxaway Kings Mountain Lake Hartwell Musgrove Mill Oconee Oconee Station Paris Mountain Rose Hill Plantation Sadlers Creek Table Rock
Midlands	Aiken Andrew Jackson Baker Creek Barnwell Calhoun Falls Cheraw Chester Dreher Island Goodale H. Cooper Black Jr. Hamilton Branch Hickory Knob Lake Greenwood Lake Wateree Landsford Canal Lee Poinsett Redcliffe Plantation Rivers Bridge Santee Sesquicentennial
Coastal	Charles Towne Landing Colleton Colonial Dorchester Edisto Beach Givhans Ferry Hampton Plantation Huntington Beach Hunting Island Lake Warren Little Pee Dee Myrtle Beach Woods Bay

Protected areas of South Carolina

Federal

National Parks	Congaree
National Historic Sites and Historical Parks	Charles Pinckney NHS Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie NHP Ninety Six NHS Reconstruction Era NHP
National Military Parks and Battlefields	Cowpens NB Kings Mountain NMP
National Historic Trail	Overmountain Victory
National Forests	Francis Marion Sumter
National Wildlife Refuges	Cape Romain Carolina Sandhills Ernest F. Hollings ACE Basin Pinckney Island Santee Savannah Tybee Waccamaw
National Estuarine Research Reserves	Ashepoo Combahee Edisto Basin North Inlet-Winyah Bay
Wilderness Areas	Cape Romain Congaree Ellicott Rock Hell Hole Swamp Little Wambaw Swamp Wambaw Creek Wambaw Swamp
Wild and Scenic River	Chattooga River

State

State Parks	Aiken Andrew Jackson Baker Creek Barnwell Caesars Head Calhoun Falls Cheraw Chester Colleton Croft Devils Fork Dreher Island Edisto Beach Givhans Ferry Goodale H. Cooper Black Jr. Memorial Field Trial and Recreation Area Hamilton Branch Hickory Knob Hunting Island Huntington Beach Jones Gap Keowee-Toxaway Kings Mountain Lake Greenwood Lake Hartwell Lake Warren Lake Wateree Landsford Canal Lee Little Pee Dee Myrtle Beach Oconee Paris Mountain Poinsett Sadlers Creek Santee Sesquicentennial Table Rock Woods Bay
State Historic Sites	Charles Towne Landing Colonial Dorchester Hampton Plantation Musgrove Mill Oconee Station Redcliffe Plantation Rivers Bridge Rose Hill Plantation
State Forests	Harbison Manchester Poe Creek Sand Hills Wee Tee
Heritage Preserves	Aiken Gopher Tortoise Altamaha Towne Ashmore Bald Rock Bear Branch Belvue Springs Bennett's Bay Blackwell Botany Bay Plantation Brasstown Creek Bunched Arrowhead Buzzard Island Buzzard Roost Capers Island Cartwheel Bay Cathedral Bay Chestnut Ridge Childsbury Towne Clear Creek Congaree Bluffs Congaree Creek Crosby Oxypolis Daws Island Ditch Pond Dungannon Plantation Eastatoe Creek Eva Russell Chandler Fort Frederick Fort Lamar Forty Acre Rock Glassy Mountain Gopher Branch Great Pee Dee River Green's Shell Enclosure Henderson Janet Harrison High Pond Laurel Fork Lewis Ocean Bay Lighthouse Inlet Little Pee Dee Little Pee Dee State Park Bay Long Branch Bay Longleaf Pine Lynchburg Savanna Nipper Creek Old Island Pacolet River Peachtree Rock Peters Creek Poinsett Bridge Rock Hill Blackjacks Savage Bay Savannah River Bluffs Segars-McKinnon Shealy's Pond South Bluff St. Helena Sound Stevens Creek Stoney Creek Battery Stumphouse Mountain Tillman Sand Ridge Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center Victoria Bluff Heritage Preserve Waccamaw River Wadakoe Mountain Wateree Watson-Cooper Woods Bay
Wildlife Management Areas	Bear Island Belfast Bonneau Ferry Campbell's Crossroads Canal Causey Tract Cliff Pitts Clinton Reservoir Tract Crackerneck Donnelley Draper Edisto River Fant's Grove Gray Court Tract Hamilton Ridge Hatchery Herbert Kirsh Hickory Top James L. Mason James Ross Jim Timmerman Keowee Landsford Canal Forest Liberty Hill Marsh McBee McCalla McConnells Tract Moultrie Hunt Unit Nine Times Oak Lea Palachucola Pee Dee Station Samworth Santee Coastal Reserve Santee Cooper Santee Cooper Tract Santee Dam Santee-Delta Thurmond Tract Turtle Island Webb Wild Turkey Woodbury Worth Mountain
Seabird Sanctuaries	Bay Point Shoal Bird Key - Stono Crab Bank Deveaux Bank Joiner Bank North Santee Bar

v t e U.S. National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina
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Lists by city	Charleston Columbia Greenville North Charleston Rock Hill
Other lists	Bridges National Historic Landmarks
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