Julia's House

On my birthday and to celebrate our anniversary, we spent a few wonderful days at beautiful Magnolia Plantation. It is on the Ashley River and was owned by the Drayton family since the 1600s.
Thomas Drayton received two thousand acres of land along the river as a wedding gift from his bride's father. He married Ann Fox and they started this plantation, trying to grow several different crops such as olives and silkworms, before deciding on rice, which brought an immense profit. Magnolia was a slave plantation and stayed that way until 1865.
Slaves on rice plantations led hard lives. Slaves old and even young children worked the fields. They planted the seeds to grow the rice. They transplanted the seedlings. They built and maintained and operated the dams and dikes used to flood and irrigate the rice fields. They harvested the rice. They got it ready for shipping, they did the pounding of the rice. They did all this in extremely high temperatures and in hard working conditions with poor living quarters and little time off. The humidity was breathtaking. The sun was brutal. There was often cruelty and abuse. There was sickness and diseases, so many with no cures like we have today.

I believe there are about six  of the original slave cabins still on the property. I think the Living History Group restored the cabins and  tours "From Slavery to Freedom" are conducted which tell alot about African American history.

The Carolina Gold rice made lowcountry planters extremely wealthy, including the Draytons.
British troops occupied the plantation during the American revolution.
The years passed by. The great grandson of Magnolia's very first Drayton man died around 1825 and had no male heirs. So he willed the plantation to his daughter's sons Thomas and John Grimke, with the specific condition in his will that they would assume their mother's maiden name of Drayton. 
The young John Grimke was in England studying to be a minister and he received word that his older brother died from an accidental shooting while deer hunting on the plantation. He died on the steps of the plantation. He was only in his 20s, and had not married yet.
 So young John, who was prepared to receive hardly anything because he was the second son, became a very wealthy plantation owner out of the blue. He was 22!
Also about this time, he met and married the young and beautiful Julia Ewing while up North, and brought her home to the plantation as his bride. Julia was born in 1820.
below---styles Julia might have worn:

(above)--this is not a picture of Julia, but it does look alot like her!
As the mistress of Magnolia plantation, she had the very best in dresses, I am sure. Ladies in this era also wore big hats to protect them from the sun, smooth white skin was highly prized and "tans" were frowned upon. Ladies also carried fans and I'd imagine they actually USED THEM alot down here, as hot and sultry as it gets all spring, summer and even Fall. And of course, they did use parasols.
There was no electricity. There were no light switches to turn lights on and off. There were no fans to cast cool breezes. There certainly wasn't any "air conditioning", or ice boxes to make ice cubes. I'm sure the Draytons all slept under mosquito nets and with all the windows open on hot summer nights, trying to catch a fresh breeze. They  might've used a sleeping porch and slept out on the wide piazzas.
How the ladies survived the heat of our Southern summers dressed in long gowns such as this and with the accompanying bustles, bouffant crinoline slips, and corsets, I just don't know. I guess they fainted alot. Homes of this era all had "fainting couches" in their decor. 

Their original home burned to the ground in the late 1790s and the Draytons re-built. The second plantation home was burned as well, in 1865 at the end of the Civil War.
When the Reverend John Drayton (two or three generations down from  the original Drayton) came home after the war he found their home burned to the ground, but the beautiful gardens remained, so he re-built the home once again. He dis-assembled his summer home in Summerville, and had it floated down the Ashley river and placed right on the location of the original plantation  home.

Reverend John Drayton opened his home and grounds to the public not long after the Civil War. He charged an entry fee to make the money to pay his debts. People came by steamboat from Charleston to visit the gardens for the day

Here they are unloading, you can see the ladies's long skirts and their umbrellas

(below--same photo as above, in color here)

There was a "new" type of garden design that had originated in England, a new style that actually rebelled against the formal and precise and well manicured gardens of the past--it was called the "new Romantic Style". John Drayton designed his plantation gardens in this style, hoping to please his wife Julia so that she would love living in the South so much that she would forget about being homesick and wanting to return to her home in Philadelphia.
She was the daughter of a well off attorney,(Samuel Ewing--he was born in 1776) and she was homesick.
 He filled the gardens with all her favorite flowers and plants. I think I read that he gathered azaleas and camellias from conservatories as far away as Philadelphia and other cities to bring here.

John Grimke Drayton (photo internet)

the only picture I could find of Julia on the internet. Her Mother was named Eilza Redman. I'm not sure if that was a miss-spelling of "Eliza" or if Eilza was really her name. I think Julia was an only child.

Reverend Drayton's Grandma Mary Grimke (born 1764)--she was a cousin of Abigal Smith, who married John Adams (photo-internet)

(above internet photo)--Reverend Drayton's Grandpa John Grimke, born 1752. I guess the Reverend was named after his Grandpa. John and Mary had FOURTEEN CHILDREN! Goodness gracious--can you even IMAGINE!? I think several died as babies. The Grimkes were German immigrants who came to South Carolina in the 1700s. He was born into a wealthy upper class Charleston family. He was a Judge with a military background who fought in the Revolutionary War. He attended law school in London. He and his wife Mary owned many many slaves on their rice plantations. Interestingly enough--two of their children, famous sisters Sarah and Angelina, were well known abolitionists and speakers about ending slavery. I read that later on, the Judge became a pretty outspoken abolitionist as well.

the Reverend John Drayton, wearing his top hat, with his little girl Julia. She was named after her Mother and inherited the whole plantation when she grew up.
The Reverend and his wife Julia had two daughters, Julia and  Ella.
Julia was born in 1848 and Ella came along in 1853. Little girls in this era looked like this:

Little girls played in full skirted dresses and pinafores and often worn small hoops underneath their dresses-called "bell hoops".

Ruffles, ribbons, bouncy curls for hair, bows, and lace trimmed pantaloons worn under their dresses.

the young lady below looks to be about 13 or 14, and is wearing a young girl's ballgown, so she has become old enough to practice her dancing and social skills and attend her first balls. She has probably been laced into her very first corset and is surely noticing boys and excited about being courted.

I wonder what childhood was like for little Julia and Ella? These were very priveleged little girls, being raised in a wealthy home. They surely had the pretty porcelain head dolls, and little play trunks full of ruffly and satiny dresses to put on their dolls. I'm sure they had fancy doll houses and little table and chairs to sit and play "tea party" at, probably with little flower trimmed miniature china tea sets. 
Girls of this era were encouraged to  learn musical instruments and how to read and play music, and many played piano, flute, harp, and violin. Schooling was most likely done right here on the plantation. Living on these big plantations back then was to be pretty isolated from the city, in this case, Charleston. The roads back to Charleston were bad, and travel by river was actually safer and quicker. Long, hot, bumpy carriage rides were not enjoyable, and at least there were probably good breezes out on the river. The girls probably had a tutor on the plantation. 

I'm sure they loved playing outside as well. They might've picked berries and nuts to snack on as they scampered about the paths surrounding Magnolia. There were so many pretty flowers for them to pick and to make bouquets with, and so many places to run, and climb, and to sit down in the shade of a big oak tree to play dolls or read a children's book. They probably played house underneath one of the big magnolia trees, and since all plantations had big stables, I'm pretty certain they probably had a pony or two to ride! There were probably lots of puppies and kittens for them to play with on the big breezy porches as well.
Julia and Ella most likely had books like Grimms Fairy Tales and Tales of Mother Goose.

Little Women came out in 1868, so Julia would've been about 20 and little Ella would've been 15.

Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights,  came out about the time little Julia was born, so their mother probably enjoyed these books. She might've also read Sense and Sensibility and Emma.

This garden is called FLOWERDALE:
this part of the plantation has been in continuous cultivation longer than any other garden in the united states....since the 1600s. As the years passed, the garden grew to be over 5 acres.

Isn't this pretty?

The bright red bridge over Schoolhouse Pond:

It was named Schoolhouse Pond because of the schoolhouse close by which was built to educate the slave children. This was against the law but Reverend Drayton built it anyway. Today it's an Administration building.

my skirt has a little lace ruffle sewn onto the bottom---that is NOT MY SLIP hanging out! LOL

Beautiful bridges appear around corners, misty and dreamlike

(below) Large White Bridge over Big Cypress lake

The still dark water is like a black mirror. The tannin from the bald cypress roots stains the water to make it this color. This bridge was built by Reverend Drayton and is about 165 years old! This is the most well known bridge on the plantation, and hundreds of brides have posed in their wedding gowns here over the years.

small white bridge

So much living and thriving and growing here: huge live oaks, swamp cypress, palmettos, azaleas, magnolias,mimosa,wisteria, water lilies, lotus, jasmine, crepe myrtles, hydrangeas, lilies, hibiscus,Confederate roses, gardenias, cannas, caladium, coleus, and so many more I couldn't even identify. The famous camellias of all colors bloom in December, they are gorgeous. We just missed the blooming tulips, daffodills, cherry trees, dogwoods, and azaleas and caught only a few blooms left by the river. 

big tree by the river

see me up there on the bridge?

this interesting bird is called an "anhinga".

Paths lead all over..........which one to take?

Drayton family crypt

cracked from the Great Earthquake 1886

the heat was becoming unbearable. I'm so glad we brought water!

the maze of paths are not really marked at all, you kind of just are on your own to figure it out. We wandered and explored for hours--this is a big place, almost 400 acres, I think. Originally it was over 2000 acres.

This path led us into a shady woods area and suddenly there was water spraying all over! The sprinklers had gone off! I covered my camera and we got SOAKED. I didn't even complain because it felt so good and so refreshing. It's so hot and humid here. 

After being thoroughly doused with the "no warning sprinkler system", I laid my hat here to dry off!

The plantation is a NOISY place. Sometimes I would stop and just be quiet.....and listen. The woods and the waters are teeming with life of all kinds from reptiles and otters and raccoons to insects. And so many birds! White heron, egrets, wild turkeys, anhingas, bossy cardinals and proud bald eagles. They constantly chatter and call to each other. Sometimes you hear a splash as a big fat frog plops into the water of a rice pond. Woodpeckers drill loudly. If you're here in May and June, you may hear the low throaty bellow of the alligators and them slapping their big heads and snouts in the water, since this is their mating season. By August, the eggs will be hatching and there will be little baby alligators swimming around close to their mothers. Occasionally you hear the scratch scratch scrape as a squirrel digs in climbing up a tree. Bees, butterflies, and big dragonflies buzz and swoop about in the lazy heat. Suddenly there is a loud "snap!" and a big splash as a young alligator snaps open his jaws quick as lightning, to catch his lunch. This happened right underneath us on one of the bridges and startled us! LOL Not sure if he caught a fish or a turtle to feast on.

Beautiful wild peacocks have full run of the entire property, and they chatter and shriek  loudly! When you are standing by the swamp and you hear those screaming peacocks, they sound like dinosaurs echoing through the gnarled oak trees. There is just so much "wildness" here.
That, coupled with the fact that it seemed there was nary a living soul there but US that day, made it such a peaceful and interesting experience. It felt like we had the whole place to ourselves, just perfect for our anniversary, right?! I mean---do you see any other people in these photographs? ha ha LOL We passed a couple of people walking by the river and one other couple also celebrating their anniversary by the white gazebo and that is pretty much it. 

Peacocks were a symbol of wealth, so rich people often had them on their lawns and plantations.

I love to watch them strut around, with their elegant trains trailing behind them

There are some rare white peacocks here as well:

Their feathers remind me of dandelion fluff!

Julia Drayton, who the Reverend worked so hard for to make the plantation a floral Eden, lived to be about 67 years old. She is buried in North Carolina. Reverend Drayton lived up to his 70s.
Their daughter Ella also lived up into her 70s. I think she had one child, a daughter.
Daughter Julia also lived to be in her seventies. I think they are all buried in North Carolina. She was mother to three children, two sons and a daughter I believe, Drayton, Ella, and Carlisle.
I love wandering Magnolia because there are no "formal" gardens, exact flower beds, precise anything---it's more like an explosion of twisting vines, blooms and bouquets straight up out of a swamp! Many of the flowers have "naturalized", and are growing wherever they please. To me that is beautiful. Some people do like neatly manicured gardens.  I think I prefer this wild place--where 'fancy' flowers have intertwined with the wild things-- becoming tangles of color and scent and beauty.
Some people like neat tidy paths--Magnolia is more like taking a big long hike through woods that have been fairy sprinkled with beautiful bright blossoms and elegant silent statues.
 It's a wild place for sure. No "gardens" here---the whole place is one big swamp garden. If this is what Reverend Drayton visualized his "romantic garden" to be and to become, I only wish he could lay eyes on it today. 
I just know he would be pleased. He wanted to create an "earthly paradise".
I believe he did.