The development and prosperity of the Gardens changed drastically during Williams Middleton’s ownership. In signing the Ordinance of Secession, he endorsed the last Confederate cause; a failed attempt at independence that eventually led to the destruction of Middleton Place.  On February 22, 1865, a detachment of the 56th New York Volunteer Regiment burned and looted the house and gardens.  All that remained was the south dependency building, which is today the Middleton Place House Museum.

Two decades after the Civil War, during the great Charleston earthquake of 1886, Middleton Place was dealt yet another destructive blow. The Garden’s terraces were ripped open and the water in the Butterfly Lakes was sucked dry, reshaping in just minutes what had taken scores of slaves a decade to build.

The Civil War and the great earthquake of 1886 had taken its toll, and Middleton Place Gardens lay overgrown and neglected until inherited by J.J. Pringle Smith in 1916. He soon began the massive project of restoring the Gardens to their original splendor of the mid-eighteenth century. The restoration of these elegant and beautiful Gardens gained national attention, and on the occasion of the Garden’s bicentennial anniversary in 1941, The Garden Club of America awarded the Bulkley Medal to Middleton Place “in commemoration of Two Hundred Years of enduring Beauty.” Fifty years later, the International Committee on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) has heightened that distinction, naming Middleton Place one of six U.S. gardens of international importance.

In 1974, J.J. Pringle Smith’s heirs established the non-profit Middleton Place Foundation, which now owns the Middleton Place National Historic Landmark. Today, Middleton Place is a thriving restoration or eighteenth and nineteenth century plantation life. Having survived wars, earthquakes, and hurricanes, including Hurricane Hugo in September of 1989, Middleton Place remains a resilient masterpiece of landscape design and a well-preserved plantation that demonstrates two centuries of plantation life.

Middleton Place is open daily at 9:00 a.m.

Magnolia Plantation saw immense wealth and growth through the cultivation of rice during the Colonial era. Later, British and American troops would occupy its grounds during the American Revolution, while the Drayton sons would become both statesmen and soldiers fighting against British rule.

The establishment of the early gardens at Magnolia Plantation in the late 17th century would see an explosion of beauty and expansion throughout the 18th century, but it was not until the early 19th century did the gardens at Magnolia truly begin to expand on a grand scale. Since that time, the plantation and gardens have evolved and grown into one of the greatest public gardens in America
with a rich history. To explore that history in-depth and hear the stories of those who lived and worked there over the centuries, visit Magnolia Plantation & Gardens today.

You now have the opportunity to be among the first visitors to submit your writing or business profile for featured placement, or to replace an existing profile, or to review existing business profiles to establish their ranking! To post your profile or writing, simply click Submit Here and fill in the blanks once you get there. It’s that easy! To review an existing profile, simply scroll to the bottom of that page and you’ll be able to click up to five stars! While registering as a user is not required for you to make your submission or write reviews, it will give you greater privileges, and it’s absolutely free, so we encourage you to register soon. For security reasons, we cannot give instant publishing or other site priveleges unless we can contact you and verify who you are, so you can trust registration is purely for the integrity and protection of the family-friendly content of GreaterCharleston.com, and nothing more. Registered users also have instant review/rating priveleges that automatically insert your screen name, so it can also make for a more enjoyable business reviewing effort. The Register link is on the right side of every page, or you can click here to register now. Likewise, you’ll want to register at the Gallery and at GreaterCharleston.tv for similar reasons. You can use the same username and password, or create new ones for each registration, but for security reasons we keep the databases separate so you will need to register for each that you intend to use for submissions. Once we know who you are, we give you increasing freedom and power to move around, and will eventually offer you contributing editor status, which is loaded with even more power and privileges… both in the site and around town! If you have any questions, feel free to email us at Submissions@GreaterCharleston.com anytime.

While we have our own team of writers and multi-media production folks who will be publishing articles, stories, and gallery albums in magazine format, we are also a publicly-driven publishing site. You may have heard the terms Wiki, open-source, and Web 2.0… well all of those aptly describe the organic strengths of this site. But few terms better describe GreaterCharleston.com than “totally free,” always and forever, with no limits to your publishing opportunities. Surf the menu again… we’re sure you’ll see categories where you’d like to be found.

Even now, all of your submissions will be searchable on Google, Yahoo, and all the other major search engines, and you’ll be able to start inviting your friends, your fans, and/or your clients to join others who will be commenting and/or reviewing your submissions. We will publish all business profiles, both those submitted by the public and those produced by our own staff, so if you represent a business be sure you submit as soon as possible so that your competition doesn’t gain all the early traffic. Cheers!