Middleton Place

It's Sunday night.  Mother's Day!  I think Amy had a nice day.  I took all the kids to see my grandmother so she had hours to herself! I finally got out of the house today.  Yesterday was so miserable I barely left bed.  I wasn't going to drag out Charleston but we just did too much last Sunday so here we go.  

At breakfast we got a glimpse of our celebrity staying with us. Robert Wuhl who was Alris on HBO.  Last week it was Mel Gibson with his new baby!  

 Caramel waffles!  Yummy.

 Amy really wanted to go to a plantation.  There were several to chose from and after hearing about them all, we decided on Middleton Place.  It's only one still in the family since the 1700's!  We rented a car and drove about 20 minutes to get there.

 Interesting parking lot.

 We wandered the grounds.  It was very pretty.

 That's the Ashley River and yes, that's an alligator swimming by!  

 That's where the rice was grown in the 1700's and 1800's.

 There were some crazy old oak trees.

 Beautiful gardens.

 Weddings were set up in 2 places.

 A wedding was here while we watched.

 The original house was blown up by the Union troops during the Civil War.  They did not rebuild it.  We are standing in the middle of the house.

 Nice peacock.

 These were their business offices that they moved into after the war.  

 There were no records of what the original house looked like.  Around 20 years ago, this painting was found in London.  It was painted by someone that stayed at the plantation in the early 1800's. So now we know!  We took a tour of the house that remains but weren't able to take pictures.  There was some crazy stuff in there.  Silver from the 1700's.  Furniture and paintings.  One of the owners signed the Declaration of Independence.  He was given a copy, which was hanging on a wall!  The craziest thing was a handwritten note from Abraham Lincoln allowing the plantation owners to pass through the Union lines during the war so they could return from New York.  

More of the grounds.

 The stables.

 Their carriages were still there.  They didn't drive them all the way to town because the roads were bad.  They would put them on a boat and take them to town.

 They had working shops.

 A slave house.

 They had a list of every slave that went through the place. What they paid for them and what happened to them.  Very interesting.  Stay tuned for the beach!