Mr. Hart’s House

In my work with the colonial plats in the Orangeburgh District area of South Carolina it has been rare to come across a plat drawing that shows a house location. Today’s cluster of plats at Cattle Creek and Sandy Run  included one that indicates approximately where William Hart’s house was located below Orangeburgh Township.

Berry, Clark, Funchess (Fonteus), Grew, Hart, Lambright, Staley, Wood

These eleven tracts (numbers 5 and 10 were for the same land) were surveyed over a nineteen year period by three different surveyors. George Strother did the last six plats and included some details about paths (indicated by red arrows) and the location of “Mr. Hart’s House.”

The path shown on plats 7, 8, and 9 corresponds well with what is currently known as Banbury Drive. The path shown on plat 6, leading to “Mr. Hart’s House,” does not seem to exist in any modern form. The house was drawn just off the edge of the tract on plat 6 and is shown on the drawing above in an approximate location. (Note: Bowman Branch Highway did not exist until the 20th century but is labeled on the map above to help identify the area.)

Plat number 5 was surveyed for Henry Wood in April 1767 by John Mitchell. George Strother resurveyed the same tract eighteen months later for William Hart (plat number 10). Strother indicated in the text of the plat drawing that it was the same land surveyed for Wood.

Plat number 7 was first surveyed in July 1767 for Philip Lambright. He probably never took out the grant for the land as it was certified twenty years later for Peter Stalley in September 1787. Both of the Berry plats (numbers 8 and 9) reference Lambright as the adjoining owner.

While looking at some later maps of this area, I noticed an interesting name. The 1913 soil survey map of the eastern portion of Orangeburgh District shows a community called Lambrick  in this vicinity. While recently re-reading David Gavin’s diary, I noticed that he frequently referred to tracts of land by their original owners, regardless of who may have currently owned them. Is Lambrick perhaps a corrupted reference to Lambright? Do any of my readers have any other information on the name Lambrick in this vicinity?

As an interesting aside, notice that this soil survey map did not show the configuration of Cattle Creek and Sandy Run as accurately as the topographic map does. On the topographic map notice that after Sandy Run flows west for a short distance it then runs parallel to Cattle Creek briefly before flowing into Cattle Creek. Google Earth will confirm that the topographic map is more accurate.

Back to Mr. Hart, the owner of the house … William Hart first appeared in the Giessendanner Records when he married Sarah Young on October 3, 1750. He was described as “of the Congarees” by Rev. John Giessendanner but apparently settled below Orangeburgh Township after his marriage. Two of his children were baptized by Rev. Giessendanner in the 1750s. His daughter Grace married John Wood. In 1785 John and Grace sold 250 acres of her father’s land to Sebastian Funchess. [1]  The tract they sold was the one labeled number 3 on my map above and probably was the location of “Mr. Hart’s House.”

[1] Brent Holcomb, South Carolina Deed Abstracts, 1783-1788 (Columbia: SCMAR, 1996), page 340.

For a PDF copy of the plat drawing click this link:

Colonial Plats at Cattle Creek and Sandy Run

Tags: Cattle Creek, Sandy Run