Lee Brockington

Plantation Between the Waters: a Brief History of Hobcaw Barony Lee Brockington

Located at the tip of the Waccamaw Neck between the Waccamaw River, Winyah Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, Hobcaw Barony is a 17,500-acre plantation in Georgetown County, South Carolina. Originally home to the Waccamaw Indians, the acreage was subdivided by colonial settlers into numerous smaller plantations where rice, indigo and naval stores, produced by slave labor, were exported during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Continual economic setbacks in post-Civil War South Carolina led landowners to sell the various plantations that compose Hobcaw Barony to Wall Street financier Bernard Baruch. Baruch used Hobcaw as a hunting retreat and family refuge, eventually selling the land to his oldest daughter, Belle, in 1935. Belle's foresight and love for the land led her to establish a trust through which Hobcaw would serve as a preserve for research and education in marine science, forestry and wildlife.

Plantation Between the Waters, by Lee Brockington, senior interpreter at Hobcaw, brings the centuries of history surrounding Hobcaw Barony to the public in remarkable clarity. The images and text provide an intimate glimpse into the lives of the people who have been connected to this unspoiled landscape for generations.