Visit to Brattonville

On the 3rd January, Chris took us to Brattonsville. Brattonsville is home to a Revolutionary War (1780) battle which the Americans won using surprise. The site was also a mid 19th century cotton plantation.

The site has two parts, the Revolutionary War site consisting of early 1700 buildings and fields, and then a later site (created by the son of the Revolutionary era owner) which is a cotton plantation. The girls enjoyed meeting pigs, chickens, goats and cats ( all breeds from that from that era). These original animals did not look all that different from those today. Well perhaps the cats were not original, they were just local strays.

Each of buildings were kitted out with period items. The plantation also had the added attraction of actors in period costumes acting out the daily lives of servants and slaves from 1820-40 era. The girls loved the cook house! A lot questions by the girls(and us for that matter) left several exhausted actors wondering what hit them! They were reenacting as if they did work for Mrs Bratton and creating meals and snacks for her and the people in the home. They had just cooked a cake in the dutch oven using as many authentic ingredients as possible, a chicken was cooking in the reflector oven and some cabbage was boiling to mash to make a cabbage patty (like a mince patty we would put on a hamburger) The girls paid a second visit to cookhouse to see the results of the actor/cooks efforts. Looked and smelled nice, particularly the roasted chicken all of this food they consumed themselves (they weren't allowed to share sadly). We also learnt about field work, cotton gins, ladder making, and tool making. We also saw the cotton pit used in pressing the cotton. The plantation was very successful with 80 brick slave houses (139 slaves), numerous buildings, sheds, barns as well as the grand house. A general store and a girl's School completed the site. We saw a number of ruined sites where original building such as slave quarters and the pit connected to the gin once stood once stood.

Today Brattonville is run and maintained by the local county. Well worth a visit to see a Revolutionary War site and a "southern mansion" that survived Sherman's (Civil War) burning of South Carolina plantations and great houses. The countryside reflects the popular imagination of rolling hills, deep woods of beautiful tall oak trees, oak tree lined roads and Cotton fields. Again the people were most friendly.