A few weeks ago, a friend told me about a story he read pertaining to a plantation on the Jefferson/Burke County line. He said the plantation was adjacent to Old Town Plantation and another unnamed plantation on the other side. My mind went into high gear. I was running all that area through my mind trying to figure out where it could have been.
It had been named Erin Place Plantation and encompassed around 3,000 acres. It had a cotton gin, a grist mill and a rock quarry during the late 1800’s. I called another friend who is a landowner in close proximity to the aforementioned area. He drew a blank. So, there I was, with my mind racing at warp speed and still no answers.
Later on that night, the first friend that I had talked to, sent me a text. He had been searching trying to find out something as well. The text contained a picture of a map. On the map it showed the grist mill at Old Town Plantation. The map also showed the grist mill and rock quarry that was located on the Erin Place just north of Old Town. The mill and quarry were both located on Spring Creek.
The lights started flashing in my mind as I realized exactly where Erin Place Plantation had once been. It was located just north of what is now Highway 17. The Erin Place joined Old Town and on the other side was joined with Magruder Plantation. I was incredulous! I have lived here my whole life and never had a clue a plantation was once there.
I have never heard anybody talk about it. Not one single time. As much history as I have learned in my life there is obviously still more to learn. Even now it blows my mind knowing what I have learned about this area. That county line area has been my stomping grounds for most of life, and I simply did not know.
Forty-some-odd years ago when this land was owned by Union Camp, I hunted and fished all over those 3,000 acres without an inkling that it had once been a plantation. It was paper company land, planted in pine trees and managed for pulpwood production. Maybe I was just too young back then to think it could have ever been anything but timber land.
The Rhodes Tract is what I have always known it to be called, not Erin Place Plantation. Back in the late 1980’s, you could buy a permit from the Union Camp office for $26 and have unlimited access to those 3,000 acres. We quail hunted all over it and fished the creek and wet weather ponds for bream. It was a hotbed for stumpknockers! We found a good number of quail on that tract as well.
Even now, as I type out these words my mind is scanning all over that piece of land trying to remember something that links it to its former glory. I talked with yet another friend this morning and was telling him about what I had learned about this piece of land. He looked right at me and described exactly where the remnants of the grist mill are located on the creek.
I knew right where he was talking about, but forty years have passed since I was in that spot on the creek. It is all settled in my mind now and I know without a doubt that The Rhodes Tract was once Erin Place Plantation. I will continue to research all I can to further my understanding of a place that once was.
All these years it has been a forgotten place. It existed 150 years ago and was somehow lost. I think back to former cotton fields, cornmeal being ground on the creek, but mostly my mind harkens to the people who lived and died there. A piece of land has always had lives connected to it and that is what makes it even more valuable.
As always, I long for those days of old, when Erin Place Plantation was in full swing, but I’m thankful for what I've learned thus far. Now, it is no longer a forgotten place and more importantly, the people that were tied to it are no longer forgotten either.
