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It is the oldest public tourist site in the Lowcountry, and the oldest public gardens in America, opening its doors to visitors in 1872 to view the thousands of beautiful flowers and plants in its famous gardens.
The Colonial Period
1680 – 1776
During the 1680’s, Thomas and Ann Drayton completed the first residence at Magnolia. Historians who knew considered the home “the first plantation house of consequence in the Carolina colony.” As this mansion was completed, a small garden was laid out to complement the formal regularity of the mansion’s classical design. The first garden at Magnolia was completed around 1680 – making Magnolia-on-the-Ashley this hemisphere’s oldest estate garden. Today, “Flowerdale,” almost unchanged in design, acts as the historic core of the great gardens the Drayton family would create over centuries. By 1717, when its builder, Thomas Drayton, was laid to rest within the plantation vault, what began as a small formal French garden had grown to encompass over 10 acres.
Thomas and Ann Drayton planted the family roots deep, and their Magnolia Plantation, with its imposing colonial plantation house, ambitious garden, and vital river flowing to the sea was a European dream realized, a grand outpost of civilization standing alone in the Carolina wilderness.
John Drayton was born in that same Magnolia house in 1713. Having failed to inherit his birthplace, he brought an adjoining tract in 1738 and built stately Drayton Hall, which, through luck as much as anything else, is the only ancient Ashley River plantation house still standing today. Both Magnolia Plantation and Drayton Hall would build their fortunes on the great export commodity of that era, which was rice. Rice cultivation in the early to mid-18th century was one of the most profitable export crops of any British colony, and most appropriately they grew a variety of rice known as “Carolina Gold.” The Lowcountry of South Carolina, with its swamps, marshes, and inland fresh-water rivers, was the perfect environment for growing such a crop. Because its climate and terrain mirrored the West Coast of Africa, slaves were brought from this region by the thousands to clear the lands, build the rice dikes and levees, and use their valuable knowledge of rice cultivation to make fortunes for their European owners, including the Drayton family.
In 1774 after his older brother’s death, John Drayton purchased Magnolia Plantation from his brother’s son and his nephew, William Drayton, after he moved to Florida to assume the prestigious post as Chief Justice of that state. This finally brought both Magnolia Plantation and Drayton Hall under single family ownership for the first and only time. The American Revolution was looming on the horizon, and life in the Lowcountry would soon change radically.
The American Revolution Period
1775 - 1783
On April 19, 1775, the crack of musketry sounded on Lexington Green, Massachusetts as seven colonial minutemen were killed in an act of defiance by British soldiers. A running battle would ensue to Concord, followed by the bloody British retreat to Boston. Thus began open, armed conflict with the British government which signaled the beginning of the American Revolution. On that fateful day in Charleston, South Carolina, however, it was the height of the rice-planting season at Magnolia Plantation and Drayton Hall, both now owned by John Drayton.
Three of John’s sons would each enter military service in various capacities from Infantry to Artillery, while his eldest son, William Henry Drayton, would take a leading role in the American Revolution and later serve in the Continental Congress.
Following the British defeat in Charlestown at the Battle of Sullivan’s Island in June of 1776, things remained relatively quiet for almost three years in Charlestown. But in spring of 1779, British General Augustine Prevost made a move towards Charlestown after the fall of Savannah. His attempts were thwarted, but upon his retreat he ransacked most of the plantations along the Ashley River, including both Drayton Hall and Magnolia Plantation. It was during this raid to Charlestown that John Drayton fled the approaching British with his fourth wife Rebecca and their three small children. However, while crossing the Cooper River, John suffered a seizure and died quickly.
While most of his elder sons had fallen out of favor with their father, Thomas Drayton (the second son of his third marriage) did well by his father’s will, inheriting a town lot on Meeting Street, a plantation on the Coosawhatchie called Ocean and his family’s ancient South Carolina home Magnolia Plantation. However, soon after inheriting Magnolia Plantation, Thomas was serving in a cavalry regiment attached to Francis Marion’s forces.
In March of 1780, Sir Henry Clinton, who was in command of all the British forced in North America at the time, moved a large army of more than 8,000 men up along the Ashley River and encamped his sprawling force at both Drayton Hall (which he used as his headquarters) and Magnolia Plantation.
The forces that were encamped at Magnolia Plantation consisted of the Second Battalion of English Grenadiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Abecromby, four battalions of Hessian Grenadiers under the command of General von Kospoth and English and Hessian light artillery.
On the morning of March 29th, 1780, the British Navy brought three make-shift gunboats and almost 100 flatboats and long boats and ferried the entire British Army from Drayton Hall and Magnolia Plantation across the Ashley to cut off the American forced on the peninsula. In less than two months time, Charlestown would surrender. This was the greatest defeat for the American forces during the entire Revolution and its staging point had been at Magnolia Plantation and Drayton Hall.
Over the course of the next three years Magnolia Plantation would see its grounds occupied by both British and Continental troops, many times foraging and requisitioning rice and other foods from the plantation in order to survive. It wasn’t until December if 1783 that the British would finally surrender and leave Charlestown for good.
Antebellum Magnolia
1784 - 1859
Following the American Revolution, Thomas Drayton married and fathered six children during his lifetime.
During this time, Magnolia and other Lowcountry plantations, saw a drastic decrease in the rice market and they had to diversify or whither away. Many plantations did not survive this change, but by the early 19th century, Magnolia Plantation had diversified its crops and labor and continued to survive.
While he had six children during his lifetime, Thomas never sired any sons. Upon his death in 1825, Thomas Drayton, great grandson of Magnolia’s first Drayton, willed the estate successively to his daughter’s sons, Thomas and John Grimké, on condition that they assume their mother’s maiden name of Drayton. Some time later, while in England preparing for the ministry, young John Grimké Drayton received word that his older brother Thomas had died on the steps of the plantation house of a gunshot wound received while riding down the oak avenue during a deer hunt. Thus, having expected to inherit little or nothing as a second son, young John found himself a wealthy plantation owner at the age of 22.
Despite the prestige and wealth inherent in ownership of Magnolia and other plantations, he resolved still to pursue his ministerial career; and in 1838 he entered the Episcopal seminary in New York. While there, he fell in love with, and married, Julia Ewing, daughter of a prominent Philadelphia attorney. But until his death a half-century later, along with his ministry, Rev. Drayton continued to devote himself to the enhancement of the plantation garden, expressing his desire to a fellow minister in Philadelphia, "...to create an earthly paradise in which my dear Julia may forever forget Philadelphia and her desire to return there."
In tune with the changes he had seen taking place in English gardening away from the very formal design earlier borrowed from the French, John Grimké Drayton moved towards greater emphasis on embellishing the soft natural beauty of the site. More than anyone else he can be credited with the internationally acclaimed informal beauty of the garden today. He introduced the first azaleas to America, and he was among the first to utilize Camellia Japonica in an outdoor setting. A great deal of Magnolia’s horticultural fame today is based on the large and varied collection of varieties of these two species—not the abundant and lovely Southern Magnolia for which the plantation just happened to have been named.
The Civil War Period
1860 – 1865
In December of 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the United States. Soon afterwards, twelve other Southern states would follow suit. On April 12, 1861 Confederate forces in Charleston harbor opened fire on Fort Sumter and the American Civil War had begun. This marked the beginning of a dark period in American history, and like many Southern plantations, Magnolia was to suffer greatly. John Grimké Drayton would spend much of the war safely at his retreat in Flat Rock, North Carolina and away from Magnolia Plantation.
Charleston Surrenders
The war ended for Charleston on February 18, 1865 with the surrender of the city to Union forces after the longest siege and constant bombardment of the Civil War. In fact, the siege of Charleston by Union forces is only surpassed by the siege of Stalingrad in World War II.
Many myths surround the destruction of the plantations along the Ashley River Road. One is that Sherman burned them; however, General Sherman never brought his army to Charleston, rather he went on towards Columbia from Savannah and never came through Charleston. It was Federal troops from the Army of the South that had been laying siege to Charleston the previous years that marched into Charleston when it fell.
As for the plantations, certainly some plantations, such as Middleton Place, were burned by Union forces, but under orders and not in some uncontrolled rampage. Union soldiers enlisted the help of former slaves whenever possible, and recent research suggests that Magnolia Plantation’s main house was destroyed by both soldiers and slaves.
In October of 1865, Reverend Grimke’s mother wrote him a letter from Charleston keeping him abreast of the news while he was in Flat Rock, North Carolina. In the letter she talks about how West Ashley had been taken over by the former slaves and she states:
“I do not think the negroes will allow any white man to remain there again. It is believed your house was burned by your own negroes as well as some others.”
However, the real heart and soul of Magnolia Plantation, the beautiful gardens, remained fairly intact. It would be these gardens that would revive Magnolia Plantation and help it grow into the future.
Following the Civil War, Rev. John Grimké Drayton, once one of the South’s wealthiest landowners, was reduced to near poverty. Only by sacrificing his sea island plantation, his town house, and much of this beloved Magnolia Plantation, was he able to rebuild. Owning a modest pre-revolutionary summer house in Summerville, 14 miles up the Ashley River, he disassembled the house, loaded it on barges, floated it to Magnolia, and mounted it on the burned-out ground floor walls.
However, Magnolia Plantation’s garden began to draw increasing national recognition. By 1870, while Charleston and the South was still recovering from the devastating effects of the Civil War, Magnolia Plantation had opened its gates to the general public to tour it’s beautiful gardens and grounds.
By the end of the 19th century, Magnolia Plantation had become Charleston’s most famous attraction.
Drayton Hastie felt strongly that Magnolia’s natural heritage – its marsh, lake, river, and swamp environments-- be shared with visitors. Once an avid hunter, in later life Hastie became a fierce animal activist. Setting aside all of Magnolia’s 500 acres as a wildlife refuge, he developed a network of canoe trails through the former rice fields, built a wildlife observation tower, and introduced the “Nature Train,” which carries visitors through the plantation on a guided wildlife tour.
But in 1989, Hurricane Hugo struck the gardens a devastating blow.
Magnolia Gardens’ recovery was largely due to Drayton Hastie’s perservering spirit.