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2 Oo The Only Real Place on Earth Though only in his midthirties, Bernard Baruch was a multimillionaire who had always believed that a man needed periods of quiet contemplation . After a major endeavor, he liked to isolate himself and reflect on events to determine what led to their success or failure. He searched for a getaway. Baruch had always maintained his southern ties, and in 1904, the year his daughter Renee was born, he was invited to visit Sidney and Harold Donaldson at Friendfield Plantation on the Waccamaw Neck in Georgetown County, South Carolina. Baruch was an avid hunter, and the shooting at Friendfield was unparalleled in his experience. He was fascinated with the stories of the original barony and dreamed of recreating the original land grant. Hobcaw, as the Indians called the area, means “between the waters.” The barony was bounded on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by the Waccamaw River, and on the south by Winyah Bay, wherein empty the waters of the Sampit, Black, Waccamaw, and Great and Little Pee Dee Rivers. The Indians used it as their hunting and fishing grounds. Some historians believe that Hobcaw may be the site of the first ill-fated Spanish settlement in 1526. Until the eighteenth century, the Indians maintained dominion. Then came the English. John Locke’s famous “Grand Model” divided the Carolina colony among the eight lords proprietors in deference to their service to the crown.1 In 1718 King George I of England granted a barony to John, Lord Carteret, later Earl of Granville. The original property of over twelve thousand acres consisted of maritime and upland forests, cypress swamps, freshwater ponds, oceanfront, and five thousand acres of salt marsh. Baroness of Hobcaw 10 Looking at a map of his holdings, Lord Carteret was not impressed, thinking that too much of the land was under water and not tillable. Unaware of the possibilities of rice culture, he sold the barony to John Roberts in 1730. Subsequently , the property was divided, subdivided, sold, and resold several times until eventually rice plantations were established under fourteen different names: Clifton, Forlorn Hope, Rose Hill, Alderly, Annandale, Youngville, Belle- field, Marietta, Friendfield, Strawberry Hill (or Belle Voir), Calais, and Michau. (At one point, William Algernon Alston [1782–1860] split off the seashore tracts of Annandale and Youngville and renamed them Crab Hall. The balance of Annandale became Oryzantia.) Between 1785 and 1900 the plantations of Hobcaw Barony shared in the era of the great “Rice Princes,” when the rice produced in Georgetown County supplied much of Europe and the new colonies of America. William Algernon Alston owned and cultivated several of the plantations that made up the original barony and at one point produced 1.8 million pounds of rice. For over one hundred years the rice plantations flourished, and Georgetown County was one of the wealthiest regions in America. Then came the Civil War and Reconstruction, plus competition from other newly settled states where rice could be grown without the expensive and laborintensive system of floodgates and canals required in South Carolina’s lowcountry . Hard times fell on the people of the Waccamaw Neck, and by the beginning of the twentieth century, little but memories remained of the days when the rice culture reigned in the lowcountry. Enter Bernard Baruch, who shocked his hosts with an offer to buy Friend- field. The property of Friendfield Plantation that the Donaldsons owned incorporated the former plantations of Marietta, the original Friendfield, Strawberry Hill, Calais, Michau, and Cogdell. All of it had been renamed Friendfield Plantation. Friendfield House, the primary residence, was near the southern tip of the barony on a bluff overlooking Winyah Bay. It was sited on the only piece of property that appears not to have been part of the original barony. In 1711 Alexander Widdicom purchased two hundred acres in what was then Craven County from William Rhett, receiver general of the lords proprietors. Because of its location, it logically would have been part of the barony awarded to Lord Carteret in 1718 had it not already been sold.2 What eventually became Cogdell Plantation was near the tip of Waccamaw Neck where an old Indian path reached Winyah Bay. Historians and researchers speculate that Widdicom and/or Rhett chose the isolated tract to trade with either the Indians or the pirates who plied the nearby waters.3 [3.144.42.196] Project MUSE (2024-04...

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