Former Cotton Plantation on St. Helena Island SC

Coffin Point Plantation, Frogmore South Carolina

Date added: October 25, 2023 Categories:

Coffin Point, once a prosperous Sea Island plantation, was also a center of activity during the Port Royal experiment in the early years of the War Between the States.

The exact date of construction for the Coffin Point Plantation house is not known; however, Coffin Point Plantation diaries held by the South Carolina Historical Society in Charleston date back to 1800. An entry dated October (1801) notes an agreement to employ a Mr. Wade and additional carpenters "to work on St. Helena in the erecting a dwelling house, stable, Negro Houses." As there is no signature and several entries are missing, the diary's author is not identified; however, it is a Coffin Point Plantation Book and is believed to have belonged to Ebenezer Coffin. Coffin, born in Boston 1763, moved to South Carolina and settled at Coffin Point. His son, Thomas Astor Coffin, was in charge of the plantation until Union occupation of St. Helena in 1861.

The builder of Coffin Point was influenced by the Federal style of architecture. The second-story doorway is typical of this style with a semi-elliptical fanlight and with sidelights flanking the door. As is traditional of many early 19^th Century houses in the Sea Islands, the foundation of Coffin Point is of tabby.

Prior to the War Between the States, Coffin Point was a well-known cotton plantation on the Carolina coast, having a reputation of being well-managed and prosperous. Cotton produced at Coffin Point received top prices at market, and the high-quality sea island cotton seed produced on the plantation and given the Coffin name was in great demand. In addition to producing cotton, some shipbuilding and/or ship repairs took place at the plantation. A diary dated 1816 by Ebenezer Coffin discusses the supplies, slaves, and carpenters involved in the repair of a ship at St. Helena's. The Coffins were a prosperous family, owning land on St. Helena Island as well as a residence in Charleston. After Union occupation of St. Helena, Edward L. Pierce, special agent for the U.S. Treasury Department, reported that 260 slaves had been found at Coffin Point. With the arrival of Union troops in 1861, the Coffins left St. Helena. Thomas Coffin died in Charleston in 1863.

On November 7^th, 1861, the Sea Islands in the Beaufort area were captured by Union troops. Soldiers were dispatched to confiscate the plantations, crops, and other possessions, which included approximately 10,000 slaves, abandoned by the fleeing white population. The responsibility for the collection of abandoned property was that of the Treasury Department; as a result, Secretary Salmon P. Chase fostered a plan to train and educate newly released slaves in order to prove their effectiveness as free laborers. This effort, beginning in March 1862, came to be known as the Port Royal Experiment. Coffin Coffin Point Plantation was directly affected by these events. Cotton agents were sent to the Sea Islands; one of these, Colonel William H. Nobles, whose activities covered the northern end of St. Helena Island, used Coffin Point Plantation as his headquarters. Of the first teachers and labor superintendents sent to St. Helena, Edward S. Philbrick of Massachusetts was appointed to the position at Coffin's Point. Philbrick, who was to be one of the most prominent of the "Gideonites," bought acreage at Coffin Point as well as several other plantations in order to carry on the experiment with free labor. He continued this work at Coffin Point until 1865.

In the early 1890s U.S. Senator James Donald Cameron, a Republican from Pennsylvania and Secretary of War during the Grant Administration, and his wife Elizabeth, niece of General W.T. Sherman, bought Coffin Point. Henry Adams, great-grandson of John Adams and grandson of John Quincy Adams, was a friend of the Camerons and visited them at Coffin Point several times. Adams' correspondence with Mrs. Cameron appears in volumes of his published letters, and his visits to Coffin Point are mentioned in The Education of Henry Adams.

In 1952 Coffin Point was purchased from the Cameron estate by J.E. McTeer, then Sheriff of Beaufort County.

In 1969 Coffin Point was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. George McMillan. Mrs. McMillan, an Associate of the Russian Research Center at Harvard, is the author of Khruschev and the Arts and is the translator of Twenty Letters to a Friend by Svetlana Alliluyeva. Mr. McMillan has published in the field of civil rights, contributing to such magazines as Life, Look, Harper's and New York Review of Books. He is also the author of The Old Breed: A History of the First Marine Division and has written a biography of James Earl Ray.

Site Description

Coffin Point is a two-story white clapboard structure with a raised basement. Although the actual date of construction is unknown, Coffin Point possesses characteristics of the Federal style of architecture and is believed to have been constructed about 1801.

The front of the structure has stairs leading to a one-story porch with a deck. Vertical shiplap is on the first floor. Four 2/2 windows with simple lintels are on each floor and are flanked by louvered shutters. The door on the first floor is semi-elliptical. The second-floor doorway has sidelights and a semi-elliptical fanlight. The structure has a hip roof with dentil cornice trimming roofline. The roofline is broken by pediment. Gabled dormer windows on the east and west sides of the structure also have a semi-elliptical pattern. The rear facade has a one-story porch with deck. A second-floor porch originally on the rear of the structure was removed when damaged by a hurricane in 1959. Second-floor rear bedrooms were damaged during the storm and only a portion was rebuilt. Two hooded chimneys are visible from the rear. The foundation of the house is of tabby. Two cisterns remain in the basement and have been loosely filled in with debris.

Central halls divide the four main rooms on the first and second floors. The main floor features archways and wainscoting. The front two rooms on the first floor have denticulated mantels. Original pine floors remain. The staircase has a scroll pattern. A large office studio on the ground floor has a wall of exposed tabby and an unpainted mantle over the fireplace similar in design to those of the main floor. Exposed roof construction in the attic shows that ceiling rafters are pegged. An avenue of oaks one-half mile long provides land entrance to Coffin Point Plantation. Set on a large tree-shaded expanse of green, the house overlooks St. Helena Sound. No original outbuildings are in existence.