Fort Hill Plantation

Fort Hill, South Carolina

Fort Hill, the antebellum plantation of John C. Calhoun, South Carolina’s pre-eminent 19th century statesman, started as a four-room Clergy Hall. Through a succession of Calhoun-Clemson women, Fort Hill would come into Thomas Green Clemson’s possession. In 1888, Clemson bequeathed three-fourths of the Fort Hill plantation and $80,000 to the state of South Carolina for the establishment of a public scientific and agricultural college. He willed that Fort Hill “shall always be open for the inspection of visitors."