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Fort Motte

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Coordinates: 33°44′21″N 80°41′33″W / 33.73917°N 80.69250°W / 33.73917; -80.69250
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Fort Motte Battle Site
Fort Motte is located in South Carolina
Fort Motte
Fort Motte is located in the United States
Fort Motte
LocationCalhoun County, South Carolina
Nearest citySt. Matthews, South Carolina
Coordinates33°44′21″N 80°41′33″W / 33.73917°N 80.69250°W / 33.73917; -80.69250
Area5 acres (2.0 ha)
NRHP reference No.72001195[1]
Added to NRHPNovember 9, 1972

Fort Motte (Fort Motte Station) was built as Mt. Joseph Plantation; it was commandeered by the British and fortified as a temporary military outpost in what is now South Carolina during the American Revolutionary War.[2] It was significant for its military use as a depot for their convoys between Camden and Charleston, which they occupied.[2] It is roughly 90–95 miles from Charleston by 21st-century roadways.[3] During the Patriot Siege of Fort Motte, the plantation mansion was set on fire. The British surrendered at this site.

After the war, this site was considered for the capital for the newly formed state of South Carolina, before Columbia was chosen. Today Fort Motte is the name of an unincorporated village at the nearby crossroads of SH 419 and State Road S-9-13.[2]

The former area of the plantation house and grounds is known as the Fort Motte Battlefield Site. Privately owned, it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places]] in 1972.[2]

History

The Cherokee Path is nearby, long used by indigenous peoples for trading and travel. The first Anglo-European colonists in the area were Scots and English traders, who established trading posts with various Native American tribes. Some were fortified as early forts in the colonial period. Amelia Town was established in this area about 1735.

Mt. Joseph Plantation was built in 1767 as an up-country estate by Miles Brewton of Charleston, near the confluence of the Congaree and Wateree rivers.[2] A slave trader, he owned several ships and plantations, becoming one of the wealthiest men in the province.[4]

His sister Rebecca Brewton Motte (1737-1815), widowed in 1780,[5] moved with her children from Charleston to the relative safety of Mt. Joseph Plantation after the British occupied the city. They were living there when the British appropriated this property.[6] After the military took over the mansion and fortified it, the Motte family moved to the overseer's house.[7]

A British garrison of regular, Hessian and Provincial forces occupied the plantation, using it as a depot for their convoys running between Camden and Charleston. The Atlantic port city is about 95 miles away by current roadways but during the Revolution, waterways were more important. The site is near a strategic river crossing of the Congaree River, which gave the British access to an important chain of transport from Charleston to points north and west.[8]

By May 1781 the British had constructed wood and earth fortifications at Mt. Joseph: palisades (9' tall) and ramparts (10-11' wide), were faced with a 6' deep ditch in front. 20-30' from the ditch was a row of abatis. Defending the fortified mansion were 184 British regulars, Hessians, and Provincials under the command of Capt. Lt. Donald McPherson.[9] It became known as Fort Motte, because it was occupied by Rebecca Brewton Motte and her family; she later inherited it from her brother Miles Brewton after he died at sea in 1789.

General Francis "Swamp Fox" Marion and Colonel Henry Lee laid siege to the fortified site. Rebecca Motte became known for giving him arrows from East India which would ignite on impact. His forces shot flaming arrows into the roof in order to drive the British from it, and shot artillery to prevent soldiers from putting out the fire.[10] Captain Lt. McPherson surrendered. "The British surrender of the fort alarmed Lord Rawdon and hastened his retreat from Camden to Charleston."[2]

Miles Brewton and his family died at sea in 1789 as he was en route to Philadelphia after being elected to the second Provincial Congress.[4] His sister Rebecca Brewton Motte (1737-1815), widowed in 1780 when her husband Jacob died, later inherited her brother's estate and plantations, becoming more wealthy.[11] She had also inherited Fairfield Plantation (Charleston County, South Carolina), which she and her husband had owned, and its more than 240 slaves, as well as their town house in Charleston.[12]

The South Carolina Department of Archives and History, the South Carolina Library, and the University of South Carolina have the earliest extant maps for this area. When cultivation of short-staple cotton became profitable at the turn of the nineteenth century, after the invention of the cotton gin, this area was developed for cotton as a commodity crop. The battlefield site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, considered important because of the military and other history from 1750-1799.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Fort Motte Battle Site, Calhoun County (Address Restricted)". National Register Properties in South Carolina. South Carolina Department of Archives and History. Retrieved 9 June 2012.
  3. ^ Distance between Fort Motte and Charleston, SC, Google; accessed 29 December 2016
  4. ^ a b "Col. Miles Brewton and Some of His Descendents," South Carolina Historical Magazine (II). 1901. pp. 130-131, 142-144, 148-150.
  5. ^ Edgar and Bailey. Biographical Directory of the South Carolina House of Representatives, Volume II, The Commons House of Assembly 1692-1775. University of SC Press. 1974. pp. 480-481.
  6. ^ Lossing, Benson John The Pictorial Field-book of the Revolution, Harper Brothers, 1860
  7. ^ Dunkerly, Robert; Boland, Irene (2017). Eutaw Springs. Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press. p. 26. ISBN 9781611177589.
  8. ^ Obstinate and Strong: The History and Archeology of the Siege of Fort Motte. Steven D. Smith, et al., SC Institute of Archeology and Anthropology, U. of South Carolina, Columbia, SC. 2007. p. 18
  9. ^ Letter, Sumter to Greene, May 2nd 1781. Greene Papers, Volume III. p. 193
  10. ^ Letter, Lord Rawdon to Cornwallis, May 24th 1781 in R. W. Gibbes. Documentary History of the American Revolution in 1781 and 1782. Appleton and Co. 1855. p. 79.
  11. ^ Margaret Hayne Harrison. A Charleston Album. Richard R. Smith Publishers. 1953. pp 36-43.
  12. ^ Elise Pinckney. "Letters of Eliza Lucas Pinckney, 1768-1782," South Carolina Historical Magazine (76). 1975. pp. 145, 165; accessed 29 December 2016 via JSTOR.
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