Robert Smalls House - Beaufort, SC
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 32° 26.116 W 080° 40.132
17S E 531128 N 3588731
Smalls hero of Civil War, escaped slave who became First Black sailor, and first black Naval Officer.
Waymark Code: WMZNCJ
Location: South Carolina, United States
Date Posted: 12/07/2018
Views: 0
County of house: Beaufort County
Location of house: Prince St. & New St., Beaufort
Built: 1843
Purchased by Smalls in 1863
"Built in 1843, the Robert Smalls House is a good example of a large frame house with a
two-story portico. The original structure has been considerably altered and the result
is a square house with small wings on the north and east walls which extend the northeast
corner of the house.
"Robert Smalls purchased the house in which he had lived as a slave at a tax sale in 1863,
He and his descendants occupied the property for approximately ninety years.
"Robert Smalls, the hero of the Planter, state legislator, U.S. Congressman from South
Carolina during the turbulent years of Reconstruction, and customs collector for the
Port of Beaufort, deserves to be better known to the American Public.
"Currently, the south facade is shaded by a two-story balustraded portico which rests on
bricked-in foundations with wooden supports. The main entrance, centered in the south
front, is approached by a short flight of brick stairs which leads to the narrow, decorated
doorway. Here, as upstairs, two shuttered windows flank the door to the porch.
The roof is supported above the attenuated Doric columns of the verandah by a plain
boxed cornice. A lightly decorated pediment sits over the center of the colonnaded
porch; the roof is gabled with east-west pediments.
"As originally built, the house had a one-story front porch and an Adam-styled front door
which opened on to a central hall flanked by two principal rooms. The back of the hall
led into the center of the three rooms which extended across the back of the house to
form a one-story "T". Above the two principal rooms were two more of the same size;
all four of these rooms had dadoes to the lower window sills. The room to the left on
the main floor had an Adam-styled mantel which extended all the way to the ceiling.
The ceiling had an elaborate wooden dentil moulding. The mantel and ceiling mouldings
in the right-hand first-floor room were less elaborate than those in the one across
the hall. There was a Palladian window to light the hall on the stair landing located
two-thirds the way up the stairs. Six fireplaces in the main rooms of the house led into
the two main twin chimneys." ~ NRHP Nomination Form