Brockington & Associates conducted a cultural resources survey using shovel tests of the 650 acre Burlington Plantation Tract, Beaufort County, SC in December 1997 and January 1998, in compliance with the County preservation ordinance. The survey encountered the remains of nine sites and 23 isolated finds (artifacts). Only one site is recommended eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, a pair of mid-to late 18th cent. tabby indigo processing vats, located on an inlet of the Broad River. Artifacts were primarily prehistoric ceramic and lithic scatters.
Beaufort, South Carolina, is well known for its historical architecture, but perhaps none is quite as remarkable as those edifices formed by tabby, sometimes called coastal concrete, comprising a mixture of lime, sand, water, and oyster shells. Tabby itself has a storied history stretching back to Iberian, Caribbean, Spanish American, and even African roots—brought to the United States by adventurers, merchants, military engineers, planters, and the enslaved. Tabby has been preserved most abundantly in the Beaufort area and its outlying islands, (and along the Sea Islands all the way to Florida as well) with Fort Frederick in 1734 having the earliest example of a diverse group of structures, which included town houses, seawalls, planters' homes, barns, agricultural buildings, and slave quarters. Tabby's insulating properties are excellent protection from long, hot, humid, and sometimes deadly summers; and on the islands, particularly, wealthy plantation owners built grand houses for themselves and improved dwellings for enslaved workers that after two hundred-plus years still stand today. An extraordinarily hardy material, tabby has a history akin to some of the world's oldest building techniques and is referred to as "rammed earth," as well as " tapia" in Spanish, "pisé de terre" in French, and "hangtu" in Chinese. The form that tabby construction took along the Sea Islands, however, was born of necessity. Here stone and brick were rare and expensive, but the oyster shells that were used as the source for the tabby's lime base were plentiful. Today these bits of shell, often visible in the walls and forms constructed long ago, give tabby its unique and iconic appearance. Colin Brooker, architect and expert on historic restoration, has not only made an exhaustive foray into local tabby architecture and heritage; he also has made a multinational tour as well in search of tabby origins, evolution, and diffusion from the Bahamas to Morocco to Andalusia, which can be traced back as far as the tenth century. Brooker has spent more than thirty years investigating the origins of tabby, its chemistry, its engineering, and its limitations. The Shell Builders lays out a sweeping, in-depth, and fascinating investigative journey—at once archaeological, sociological, and historical—into the ways prior inhabitants used and shaped their environment in order to house and protect themselves, leaving behind an architectural legacy that is both mysterious and beautiful. Lawrence S. Rowland, a distinguished professor emeritus of history at the University of South Carolina Beaufort and past president of the South Carolina Historical Society, provides a foreword.
Habersham Land Company proposes to develop a tract of land located on the Broad River near Port Royal, SC. SouthArc had completed research on the history of the tract and an archaeological survey in 1990 for another developer, who was unable to proceed with the project due to financial difficulties. Habersham contracted with SouthArc to complete the survey report and assessments of the significance of the identified cultural resources. Field work was conducted in April 1996. The Habersham tract consists of high uplands with a bluff along the marshes fronting the Broad River at its junction with Habersham Creek. This area would have been attractive to prehistoric Native Americans due to its elevation and proximity to a variety of ecological areas that would provide an abundant resource base. In addition, the adjacent creek provided easy water access to the river itself. For similar reasons the tract continued to be attractive to historic occupants of the Port Royal area. Prior to the Civil War, the property was the Campbell plantation, known as Treadlands. The plantation was seized for unpaid taxes during the war and the main house burned after that. The property changed several times after than prior to its sale to Dr. W. R. Eve in 1905. The land remained in the Eve family until 1987 when it was sold for development. Seven archaeological tracts were identified within the 280-acre tract, with the three most significant sites being the Campbell site, the Lookout site, and the Mum Grace site, all significant and potentially eligible for the National Register, having the potential to address research questions focusing on prehistoric occupation and resource exploitation, as well as historic occupation of this area at the junction of Habersham Creek and the Broad River.
