About
About the Archive
John C. Calhoun and his family moved to Fort Hill in 1825. The house had been built in 1803 as a four room parsonage for Old Stone Presbyterian Church, known as Clergy Hall. Under the Calhouns, it would grow to become a 1,341 acre cotton plantation with up to 140 enslaved persons working the land and helping to run the home. After John C. Calhoun's death, the land would be held by his wife, Floride, who would later sell the plantation to her son, Andrew Pickens (A.P.) Calhoun. While living at Fort Hill, A.P. sold his Alabama plantation, forcing many of the enslaved persons there to move to Fort Hill. After A.P. and Floride's deaths, Thomas Green Clemson and his wife, Anna Maria Calhoun Clemson would inherit the land. Though Clemson ran the plantation post-emancipation, African American sharecroppers, many of whom were former slaves on the plantation, continued to work the land at Fort Hill. Thomas Green Clemson died without children in 1888 and willed the land to the state to create Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina, later Clemson University.
Though some work has been done to recover the lives of the enslaved persons at Fort Hill, this digital archive aims to serve as a repository for documents relating to them and their contributions to Fort Hill and consequently, Clemson University.
About Me
I am currently living in Washington, D.C. where I am a graduate student studying history at Georgetown University. I am originally from South Carolina and graduated from Clemson University in May 2018. While at Clemson, I worked for Clemson University Historic Properties where I began learning about the history of the land that Clemson was founded on, including the enslaved laborers that worked at Fort Hill. While taking a class about archives at Georgetown, I began thinking about the enslaved persons at Fort Hill whose voices have historically been silenced. This archive is an attempt to remember these people and their contributions, giving them a place in the historical narrative.
Sources
- Clemson University Historic Properties
- Clemson University Special Collections and Archives
- South Carolina Department of Archives and History
- Library of Congress
Questions?
Contact Victoria Lewis at veo2@georgetown.edu