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Difference between revisions of "Ashley Hall"

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'''Ashley Hall''', a plantation on the Ashley River near Charleston, was home to the politically prominent Bull family for two hundred years. Its elaborate landscape and gardens were developed by successive generations of the family.
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{{Place
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|Established Present=No
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==Overview==
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|Established Date=1675
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'''Site Dates''': 1675-1865 <br>
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|Established Circa=No
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'''Site Owner''': Stephen Bull; William Bull; William Bull II; William Stephen Bull; William Izard Bull<br>
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|Established Concurrence=Exact
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'''Site Designer(s)''':  Stephen Bull, Mark Catesby, William Bull, II <br>
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|Established Questionable=No
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'''Location''': Ashley River, West Ashley, St. Andrew's Parish, Charleston <br>
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|Established HasEndDate=No
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[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ashley+Hall+Plantation/@32.816317,-80.029263,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x88fe7c8a90e4a30d:0x655b14a5aa8e2a00.
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View on Google Maps]
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|Established Circa End=No
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|Through Concurrence=Exact
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|Through Present End=No
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|Through Questionable End=No
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|Location=West Ashley, South Carolina
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|Coordinates=32.82003, -80.02825
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|Geolocation link=coordinates
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|Condition=Altered
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|Site owners={{Site owner
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|Name=Stephen Bull
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|Owned Present=No
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|Owned Circa=No
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}}{{Site owner
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|Name=William Bull
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|Owned Present=No
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|Owned Date=1683
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|Owned Circa=No
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|Owned Concurrence=Exact
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|Owned Questionable=No
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|Owned Present End=No
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|Owned Date End=1755
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}}{{Site owner
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|Name=William Bull II
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|Owned Present=No
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|Owned Date=1710
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|Owned Circa=No
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|Owned Concurrence=Exact
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|Owned Questionable=No
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|Owned Present End=No
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|Owned Date End=1791
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|Owned Circa End=No
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|Owned Questionable End=No
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}}{{Site owner
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|Name=William Stephen Bull
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|Owned Present=No
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|Owned Date=1784
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|Owned Circa=No
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|Owned Concurrence=Exact
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|Owned Questionable=No
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|Owned Present End=No
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|Owned Date End=1818
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|Owned Circa End=No
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|Owned Concurrence End=Exact
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|Owned Questionable End=No
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}}{{Site owner
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|Name=William Izard Bull
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|Owned Present=No
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|Owned Date=1813
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|Owned Date End=1894
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|Owned Circa End=No
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|Owned Concurrence End=Exact
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|Owned Questionable End=No
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}}
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|Associated people={{Associated person
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|Name=Mark Catesby
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|Role=Naturalist
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|From Present=No
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|From Date=1683
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|End Present=No
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|End Date=1749
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}}
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}}
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'''[[Ashley Hall]]''', a [[plantation]] on the Ashley River near Charleston, was home to the politically prominent Bull family for two hundred years. Its landscape and gardens were developed by successive generations of the family.
  
 
==History==
 
==History==
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[[File:0223.jpg|thumb|Fig. 1, Charles Fraser, ''Ashley Hall'', 1803.]]
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[[File:0507.jpg|thumb|Fig. 2, Charles Fraser, ''Another View of the Same'' (Ashley Hall), 1803.]]
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The origins of Ashley Hall date from 1670, when Stephen Bull (d. 1706) arrived in Carolina with the intention of trading British millinery goods with Native Americans.<ref>Geraldine M. Meroney, ''Inseparable Loyalty: A Biography of William Bull'' (Norcross, GA: The Harrison Company, 1991), 6—8, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ZDU4XXDA view on Zotero].</ref> He also served as deputy to Lord Ashley (1621—1683), one of the eight Lords Proprietor of the Province of Carolina. Among the earliest English settlers in the colony, Bull assisted in selecting the site of Charles Town (later, Charleston), and helped found the first permanent European settlement there.<ref>Michael O. Hartley, ''The Ashley River: A Survey of Seventeenth Century Sites'', Research Manuscript Series, Book 184 (Columbia, SC: South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, 1984), 57, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/KD3GH3QU view on Zotero].</ref> Appointed surveyor of South Carolina in 1673, he laid out new fortification lines around Charleston in 1674 and was appointed surveyor general ten years later.<ref>B. H. Levy, “Savannah’s Bull Street: The Man Behind Its Name,” ''Georgia Historical Quarterly'' 71 (Summer 1987): 287–88, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/V9AZ8XTT view on Zotero]; ''Ashley Hall Plantation'' (Columbia, SC: United States Department of the Interior National Park Service, 1975), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/QTGI37VX view on Zotero]; Thomas Gamble, “Colonel William Bull—His Part in the Founding of Savannah,” ''Georgia Historical Quarterly'' 17 (June 1933): 113, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/4PNMDVGW view on Zotero].</ref> Bull played a prominent role in many aspects of Carolina government and military affairs, establishing a precedent followed by subsequent generations of his family. He also paved the way for them in his enthusiastic pursuit of science, engineering, agriculture, exploration, and diplomatic relations with the Indian population.<ref>Kinloch Bull Jr., ''The Oligarchs in Colonial and Revolutionary Charleston: Lieutenant Governor William Bull II and His Family'' (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1991), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/8BF8SNPN view on Zotero]; Levy 1987, 286–96, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/V9AZ8XTT view on Zotero]; Walter B. Edgar and N. Louise Bailey, ''Biographical Directory of the South Carolina House of Representatives'', 5 vols. (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1977), 2: 115–16, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/G89DVTV3 view on Zotero]; Gamble 1933, 112–13, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/4PNMDVGW view on Zotero].</ref>
  
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The origins of Ashley Hall date to 1670, when Stephen Bull (d. 1706) arrived in America to serve as deputy to Lord Ashley (1621-1683), one of the eight Lords Proprietor of the Province of Carolina. Among the earliest English settlers in the colony, Bull assisted in selecting the site of Charles Town (later, Charleston), and helped found the first permanent European settlement there. Appointed surveyor of South Carolina in 1673, he laid out new fortification lines around Charleston in 1674 and was appointed surveyor general in 1684. <ref> B. H. Levy, "Savannah’s Bull Street: The Man Behind Its Name," ''The Georgia Historical Quarterly,'' 71 (summer 1987): 287-88, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/V9AZ8XTT view on Zotero]; ''Ashley Hall Plantation'' (Columbia, S.C.: United States Department of the Interior National Park Service, 1975), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/QTGI37VX view on Zotero]; Thomas Gamble, "Colonel William Bull--His Part in the Founding of Savannah," ''The Georgia Historical Quarterly'', 17 (June 1933): 113, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/4PNMDVGW view on Zotero]. </ref> In 1676 Bull received a grant of 400 acres of land a few miles miles west of peninsular Charleston along a wide river, later named the Ashley. He received an additional 100 acres of adjoining property in 1694. <ref> Bull's son, William Bull, would acquire an additional 500 acres in 1707, as well as properties in nearby Granville County, which yielded his principal source of income. See Henry A. M. Smith, "The Upper Ashley; and the Mutations of Families," ''The South Carolina Historical and Geneaological Magazine'', 20 (July 1919): 193, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/MIFTQ36J view on Zotero]; Henry DeSaussure Bull, "Ashley Hall Plantation," ''The South Carolina Historical Magazine'', 53 (April 1952): 61, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/VIMR65QVA view on Zotero]. S. Salley, Jr., "The Bull Family of South Carolina," ''The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine'', 1 (January 1900): 76-77, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/UMNXUMGU view on Zotero]. </ref> A pioneer in the cultivation of rice, Bull developed a highly lucrative rice plantation, and also conducted some of the earliest agricultural experiments in growing tobacco, indigo, ginger, and potatoes. <ref> "Ashley Hall," 1975, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/QTGI37VX view on Zotero]. </ref> The small, one-story, tabby-walled house that he built on the property ca. 1675 &mdash; one of the oldest extant buildings in South Carolina &mdash; was superseded in 1704 by a larger, two-story brick house. <ref> Bull, 1952: 61-62 [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/SPT8JW7G view on Zotero]; "Ashley Hall," 1975, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/QTGI37VX view on Zotero]. </ref> Bull was prominent in many aspects of Carolina government and military affairs, establishing a precedent followed by subsequent generations of his family. He also paved the way for them in his enthusiastic pursuit of science, engineering, agriculture, exploration, and diplomacy with the native Indian population. <ref> Kinloch Bull, Jr., ''The Oligarchs in Colonial and Revolutionary Charleston: Lieutenant Governor William Bull II and His Family'' (Columbia, S. C. : University of South Carolina Press, 1991), passim, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/8BF8SNPN view on Zotero]; Levy, 1987: 286-96, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/V9AZ8XTT view on Zotero]; Gamble, 1933: 112-13, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/4PNMDVGW view on Zotero]. </ref>
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Bull settled on land a few miles west of peninsular Charleston along a wide river, later named the Ashley. In 1676 he received a formal grant of 400 acres there, and an additional 100 acres of adjoining property in 1694.<ref>Bull’s son William would acquire an additional 500 acres in 1707, as well as properties in nearby Granville County, which yielded his principal source of income. See Henry A. M. Smith, “The Upper Ashley; and the Mutations of Families,” ''South Carolina Historical and Geneaological Magazine'' 20 (July 1919): 193, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/MIFTQ36J view on Zotero]; Henry DeSaussure Bull, “Ashley Hall Plantation,” ''South Carolina Historical Magazine'' 53 (April 1952): 61, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/SPT8JW7G view on Zotero]. S. Salley Jr., “The Bull Family of South Carolina,” ''South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine'' 1 (January 1900): 76—77, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/UMNXUMGU view on Zotero].</ref> Bull pioneered the cultivation of rice on his [[plantation]], and also conducted some of Carolina’s earliest agricultural experiments in growing tobacco, indigo, ginger, and potatoes.<ref>''Ashley Hall'' 1975, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/QTGI37VX view on Zotero].</ref> The small, one-story, tabby-walled house that he built c. 1675—one of the oldest extant buildings in South Carolina—was succeeded in 1704 by a larger, but still quite modest two-story brick house, built for his son, William (1683—1755) [Fig. 1].<ref>Meroney 1991, 2 and 11, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ZDU4XXDA view on Zotero]; Bull 1952, 61—62, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/SPT8JW7G view on Zotero]; ''Ashley Hall'' 1975, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/QTGI37VX view on Zotero].</ref> William Bull’s activities resembled those of his father in that the younger Bull served in a number of important official capacities, including Lord Proprietor’s deputy (1719), Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1721), and lieutenant governor (1737—1755). A trained surveyor, he assisted General James Edward Oglethorpe (1696—1784) in settling Georgia and selecting the site of Savannah.<ref>Edgar and Bailey 1977, 2: 120–22, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/G89DVTV3 view on Zotero]; Salley 1900, 77—78, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/UMNXUMGU view on Zotero].</ref>  
  
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Bull’s son William (1683-1755) resembled his father in serving in a number of important official capacities, including Lord Proprietor’s deputy, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and lieutenant governor from 1737 to 1755. A trained surveyor, he assisted General James Edward Oglethorpe (1696 -1784) in settling Georgia and selecting the site of Savannah. <ref> Salley, 1900: 77-78 [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/UMNXUMGU view on Zotero].</ref> In 1722 the English naturalist [[Mark Catesby]] visited him at Ashley Hall, and, according to the Charleston artist [[Charles Fraser]], [[Mark Catesby|Catesby]] “planted by his hand” an [[avenue]] of live oaks leading up to the house. <ref> Charles Fraser, ''Reminiscences of Charleston'' (Charleston, S.C.: J. Russell, 1854), 68, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/VTRNRRX8 view on Zotero] </ref> In the first volume of his ''Natural History'', Catesby illustrated the evergreen dahoon holly (''illex Cassine L.''), which he described as “a very uncommon Plant in ''Carolina'', I having never seen it but at Col. ''Bull’s'' Plantation on ''Ashley'' River, where it grows in a Bog.” <ref> Mark Laird, "From Callicarpa to Catalpa: The Impact of Mark Catesby’s Plant Introductions on English Gardens of the Eighteenth Century," in ''Empire’s Vision: Mark Catesby's New World Vision'', ed. Amy R. W. Meyers and Margaret Beck Pritchard (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 207, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/VIMR65QV view on Zotero]. </ref>  
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[[File:2093.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 3, Mark Catesby, “''Ilex cassine L. dahoon'',” in ''The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands'' (1754), vol. 1, pl. 31.]]
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In 1722 English naturalist Mark Catesby visited him at Ashley Hall, and, according to the Charleston artist [[Charles Fraser]], Catesby “planted by his hand” an [[avenue]] of live oaks leading from an [[orchard]] of pear trees to the house [Fig. 2].<ref>Charles Fraser, ''Reminiscences of Charleston'' (Charleston, SC: J. Russell, 1854), 68, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/VTRNRRX8 view on Zotero]; Hartley 1984, 59, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/KD3GH3QU view on Zotero].</ref> In the first volume of his ''Natural History'', Catesby illustrated the evergreen dahoon holly (''illex Cassine L.''), which he described as “a very uncommon Plant in ''Carolina'', I having never seen it but at Col. ''Bull’s'' Plantation on ''Ashley'' River, where it grows in a Bog” [Fig. 3].<ref>Mark Laird, “From Callicarpa to Catalpa: The Impact of Mark Catesby’s Plant Introductions on English Gardens of the Eighteenth Century,” in ''Empire’s Vision: Mark Catesby’s New World Vision'', ed. Amy R. W. Meyers and Margaret Beck Pritchard (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 207, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/VIMR65QV view on Zotero].</ref> Fifteen years later, the Anglican divine John Wesley noted other rarities at Ashley Hall. <span id="Wesley_cite"></span>Declaring the estate “the pleasantest place I have yet seen in America,” he observed that the [[orchard]] and garden abounded with “those sorts of trees and plants and flowers which are esteemed in England,” but which American colonists rarely took the trouble to cultivate ([[#Wesley|view text]]).
  
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In 1770 William Bull’s son, William Bull II (1710-1719), laid out formal gardens at Ashley Hall. [[Mark Catesby|Catesby’s]] oak-lined [[avenue]] now led from a pear [[orchard]] through an extensive [[lawn]] to the [[plantation]] house. Gardens laced with serpentine paths framed a second [[avenue]] at the back of the house affording a [[view/vista|vista]] of the river and city of Charleston beyond. A long [[lake/pond|lake]] with a pool surrounded by cypress trees lay to one side of the house, abutting an open [[park]] and elk and [[deer park]]s. The property also featured a [[statue]] of Diana atop a prehistoric Indian [[mound/mount|mound]]. <ref> Bull, 1952: 62, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/VIMR65QV view on Zotero]; Loutrel Winslow Briggs, ''Charleston Gardens'' (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1951), ___, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/A3NA59DZ view on Zotero] </ref> William Bull II probably developed his keen interest in plants and gardens in Europe. In the early 1730s he had studied at Leiden with the Dutch botanist and physician Herman Boerhave (1668-1738), becoming the first native-born American to graduate with a medical degree from the university in 1735. <ref> James Raven, ''London Booksellers and American Customers: Transatlantic Literary Community and the Charleston Library Society, 1748-1811'' (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 2002), 172, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/V2XH7UDP view on Zotero]. </ref> Thereafter, Bull corresponded with the English botanist and plant and seed merchant [[Peter Collinson]], and amassed a substantial personal library of books on botany and natural history. He introduced the works of Linnaeus to the Scottish physician Dr. [[Alexander Garden]] in 1752, lending him ''Classes plantarum'' and ''Fundamenta Botanica'', as well as John Clayton’s ''Flora Virginica''. Bull also helped familiarize [[Alexander Garden|Garden]] with plants local to South Carolina. <ref> Edmund Berkeley and Dorothy Smith Berkeley, ''Dr. Alexander Garden of Charles Town'' (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), 35, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ZFR499TP view on Zotero]; Raven, 2002, 73, 223, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/V2XH7UDP view on Zotero]. </ref> For many years Bull served as president of the Charles Town Library Society, a group notable for its enthusiasm for natural history as well as its extravagant purchases of rare and luxurious botanical folios. <ref> Raven, 2002, 73, 169-70,[https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/V2XH7UDP view on Zotero]. </ref> In 1773 he proposed the formation of a special committee "for collecting materials for promoting a Natural History of this Province," which resulted in the establishment of the Charleston Museum, one of the earliest museums in America. <ref> Albert E. Sanders and William Dewey Anderson, Jr., ''Natural History Investigations in South Carolina: From Colonial Times to the Present'' (Columbia, S. C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1999), 18-19, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JPZGUUSQ view on Zotero]. </ref>  
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[[File:0552.jpg|thumb|right|Fig. 4, Charles Fraser, ''Monument of Lieutenant Governor Bull'' (Ashley Hall), c. 1800.]]
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In 1742 William Bull transferred much of the Ashley Hall property (including the two houses) to his son, [[William Bull II]], who in 1770 laid out gardens interlaced with serpentine paths between the house and the water’s edge.<ref>Meroney 1991, 2 and 11, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ZDU4XXDA view on Zotero].</ref> A long, straight [[avenue]] bisected the garden, affording an uninterrupted [[vista]] of the Ashley river and the city of Charleston beyond. It may have been at this time that broad [[lawn]]s were planted on either side of Catesby’s oak-lined [[avenue]]. A [[lake]] bounded by cypress trees lay to one side of the house, abutting an open [[park]] and elk and [[deer park]]s. The property also featured a pool encircled by cypress trees and a [[statue]] of Diana atop a prehistoric Indian [[mound]].<ref>For a reconstruction of the garden, based on “considerable data and a few sketches,” see Loutrel Winslow Briggs, ''Charleston Gardens'' (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1951), 106–7, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/A3NA59DZ view on Zotero]. See also Bull 1952, 62, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/SPT8JW7G view on Zotero].</ref> Following [[William Bull II|Bull’s]] death in 1791, his widow erected a monumental [[obelisk]] in his memory on the grounds [Fig. 4].<ref>Bull 1952, 66, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/SPT8JW7G view on Zotero].</ref>  
  
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William Bull II was the last Royal governor of South Carolina, serving as lieutenant-governor from 1759 to 1775, and as acting governor on five separate occasions between 1760 and 1775. An ardent Loyalist, he fled to England in 1777 and was still there two years later when errant British troops "plundered and greatly damaged" his plantation at Ashley Hall, destroying a fish dam, scattering Bull’s private papers “over the pasture and garden,” and smashing his “china glass & other crockray.” In addition, he reported, "my library was scattered and mostly carried away." <ref> Bull, 1952: 63,[https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/SPT8JW7G view on Zotero]; Stephen Conway, ''A Short History of the American Revolutionary War'' (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2013), 126, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/HMAEMEM4 view on Zotero]. </ref> In March 1782 Ashley Hall served as the headquarters of the Continental Army general Nathaneal Greene (1742-1786). <ref>  Henry Lumpkin, ''From Savannah to Yorktown: The American Revolution in the South'' (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1981), 56, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/F9H2RMSF view on Zotero]; C. Harrison Dwight, "Count Rumford: His Majesty’s Colonel in Carolina," ''The South Carolina Historical Magazine'', 57 (January 1956): 27, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/BMZ8FVF7 view on Zotero]. </ref> William Bull had returned to Charleston in February 1781, but made a final departure for England with evacuating British troops in 1782. <ref> Geraldine M. Meroney, "William Bull’s First Exile from South Carolina, 1777-1781," ''The South Carolina Historical Magazine'', 80 (April 1979): 91-104, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/F3DT2VK8 view on Zotero]. </ref> Following his death in London in 1791, Bull’s widow, Hannah Beale Bull, erected an [[obelisk]] honoring his memory on the grounds of Ashley Hall. The monument bears a portrait of the governor in relief and a commemorative plaque with a lengthy inscription reading in part: "This [[obelisk]] was erected, sacred to his virtues and her grief, with duty and affection by his disconsolate widow." <ref> Bull, 1952: 66, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/SPT8JW7G view on Zotero]. </ref>
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Ashley Hall’s strategic riverine location exposed it to abuse during the Revolutionary War. Errant British troops “plundered and greatly damaged” the property in June 1777. Five years later, the Continental Army general Nathaneal Greene (1742—1786) commandeered Ashley Hall as his headquarters.<ref>Geraldine M. Meroney, “William Bull’s First Exile from South Carolina, 1777—1781,” ''South Carolina Historical Magazine'' 80 (April 1979): 91—104, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/F3DT2VK8 view on Zotero]; Henry Lumpkin, ''From Savannah to Yorktown: The American Revolution in the South'' (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1981), 56, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/F9H2RMSF view on Zotero]; C. Harrison Dwight, “Count Rumford: His Majesty’s Colonel in Carolina,” ''South Carolina Historical Magazine'' 57 (January 1956): 27, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/BMZ8FVF7 view on Zotero].</ref> The last member of the Bull family to own Ashley Hall, Col. William Izard Bull, added a [[piazza]] and circular red stone steps to the house in 1853.<ref>''Ashley Hall'' 1975, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/QTGI37VX view on Zotero].</ref> An English visitor reported spending “a delightful day” with Col. Bull at Ashley Hall in 1863, “roaming over cotton-fields and rice [[plantation]]s, [[woods]], and ‘[[park]]-like [[meadow]]s,’ studded with the most magnificent live oaks,” and sampling the indigenous Scuppernong grapes that grew in the garden.<ref>Fitzgerald Ross, “A Visit to the Cities and Camps of the Confederate States, 1863—65,” ''Blackwood’s Magazine'' 97 (January 1865): 31, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/3JI6MXMR view on Zotero].</ref> Bull intentionally set the house on fire during the winter of 1865, destroying the building and all of its contents, rather than allow his ancestral home to be desecrated by approaching Union troops.<ref>Bull 1952, 66, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/SPT8JW7G view on Zotero].</ref>  
  
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The last member of the Bull family to own Ashley Hall plantation, Col. William Izard Bull, added a [[piazza]] and circular red stone steps to the house in 1853. <ref> ”Ashley Hall”, 1975, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/QTGI37VX view on Zotero]. </ref> An English visitor reported spending “a delightful day” with Col. Bull at Ashley Hall in 1863, “roaming over cotton-fields and rice plantations, [[wood/woods|woods]], and '[[park]]-like [[meadows]],' studded with the most magnificent live oaks,” and sampling the indigenous Scuppernong grapes that grew in the garden. <ref> Fitzgerald Ross, "A Visit to the Cities and Camps of the Confederate States, 1863-65," ''Blackwood’s Magazine'', 97 (January 1865): 31, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/3JI6MXMR view on Zotero]. </ref> Bull intentionally set the house on fire during the winter of 1865, destroying the building and all of its contents, rather than allow his ancestral home to be ransacked by approaching Union troops. <ref> Bull, 1952: 66, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/SPT8JW7G view on Zotero]. </ref>
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—''Robyn Asleson''
  
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--''Robyn Asleson''
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<hr>
  
 
==Texts==
 
==Texts==
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* <div id="Wesley"></div>Wesley, John, April 15, 1737, journal entry (1909: 1:348)<ref> John Wesley, ''The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., Sometime Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford,'' ed. Nehemiah Curnock, 8 vols. (New York/Chicago: Eaton & Mains/Jennings & Graham, 1909), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/XGDQ7CPK view on Zotero].</ref>
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:“I walked over to Ashley Ferry, twelve miles from Charlestown, and thence, . . . to Colonel Bull’s [[seat]], two miles farther. This is the pleasantest place I have yet seen in America; the [[orchard]] and garden being full of most of those sorts of trees and plants and flowers which are esteemed in England, but which the laziness of the Americans seldom suffers them to raise.”  [[#Wesley_cite|back up to History]]
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*[[Charles Fraser|Fraser, Charles]], ''Reminiscences of Charleston,'' 1853 (1854: 68)<ref> Fraser 1854, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/VTRNRRX8 view on Zotero].</ref>
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:“[William Bull], the first Governor, had entertained Catesby, the celebrated naturalist, at the family [[seat]], at Ashley river, where there is now a majestic [[avenue]] of oaks, said to have been planted by his hand.”
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<hr>
  
 
==Images==  
 
==Images==  
 
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7">
 
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7">
  
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Image:0552.jpg|Charles Fraser, ''Monument of Lieutenant Governor Bull'' (Ashley Hall), c. 1800.
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Image:0223.jpg|Charles Fraser, ''Ashley Hall'', 1803.
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Image:0507.jpg|Charles Fraser, ''Another [[View]] of the Same'' (Ashley Hall), 1803.
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Image:2015.jpg|Henrietta Augusta Drayton, “Ashley Hall,” rear [[view]] and outbuildings, c. 1820.
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Image:2016.jpg|Henrietta Augusta Drayton, ''Ashley Hall'', river side with [[obelisk]] in [[yard]], c. 1820.
  
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Image:2093.jpg|Mark Catesby, “Ilex cassine L. dahoon,” in ''The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands'' (1754), vol. 1, pl. 31.
 
</gallery>
 
</gallery>
  
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==References==
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==Other Resources==
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[http://south-carolina-plantations.com/charleston/ashley-hall.html South Carolina Plantations]
  
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[http://www.nationalregister.sc.gov/charleston/S10817710091/ South Carolina Department of Archives and History]
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[http://www.halseymap.com/Flash/gov-detail.asp?polID=97 Alfred O. Halsey Map Preservation Research Project, Preservation Society of Charleston]
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[http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=%22ashley%20hall%22 Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Online Collection]
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<hr>
  
 
==Notes==
 
==Notes==
 
<references/>
 
<references/>
  
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[[Category:Sites]]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:____}}
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[[Category:Places]]

Latest revision as of 22:13, July 21, 2021

Overview

Site Dates: 1675–1865

Site Owner(s): Stephen Bull; William Bull 1683–1755; William Bull II 1710–1791; William Stephen Bull 1784–1818; William Izard Bull 1813–1894;

Associated People: Mark Catesby 1683–1749, naturalist;

Location: West Ashley, South Carolina · 32° 49' 12.11" N, 80° 1' 41.70" W

Condition: Altered

Ashley Hall, a plantation on the Ashley River near Charleston, was home to the politically prominent Bull family for two hundred years. Its landscape and gardens were developed by successive generations of the family.

History

Fig. 1, Charles Fraser, Ashley Hall, 1803.
Fig. 2, Charles Fraser, Another View of the Same (Ashley Hall), 1803.

The origins of Ashley Hall date from 1670, when Stephen Bull (d. 1706) arrived in Carolina with the intention of trading British millinery goods with Native Americans.[1] He also served as deputy to Lord Ashley (1621—1683), one of the eight Lords Proprietor of the Province of Carolina. Among the earliest English settlers in the colony, Bull assisted in selecting the site of Charles Town (later, Charleston), and helped found the first permanent European settlement there.[2] Appointed surveyor of South Carolina in 1673, he laid out new fortification lines around Charleston in 1674 and was appointed surveyor general ten years later.[3] Bull played a prominent role in many aspects of Carolina government and military affairs, establishing a precedent followed by subsequent generations of his family. He also paved the way for them in his enthusiastic pursuit of science, engineering, agriculture, exploration, and diplomatic relations with the Indian population.[4]

Bull settled on land a few miles west of peninsular Charleston along a wide river, later named the Ashley. In 1676 he received a formal grant of 400 acres there, and an additional 100 acres of adjoining property in 1694.[5] Bull pioneered the cultivation of rice on his plantation, and also conducted some of Carolina’s earliest agricultural experiments in growing tobacco, indigo, ginger, and potatoes.[6] The small, one-story, tabby-walled house that he built c. 1675—one of the oldest extant buildings in South Carolina—was succeeded in 1704 by a larger, but still quite modest two-story brick house, built for his son, William (1683—1755) [Fig. 1].[7] William Bull’s activities resembled those of his father in that the younger Bull served in a number of important official capacities, including Lord Proprietor’s deputy (1719), Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1721), and lieutenant governor (1737—1755). A trained surveyor, he assisted General James Edward Oglethorpe (1696—1784) in settling Georgia and selecting the site of Savannah.[8]

Fig. 3, Mark Catesby, “Ilex cassine L. dahoon,” in The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands (1754), vol. 1, pl. 31.

In 1722 English naturalist Mark Catesby visited him at Ashley Hall, and, according to the Charleston artist Charles Fraser, Catesby “planted by his hand” an avenue of live oaks leading from an orchard of pear trees to the house [Fig. 2].[9] In the first volume of his Natural History, Catesby illustrated the evergreen dahoon holly (illex Cassine L.), which he described as “a very uncommon Plant in Carolina, I having never seen it but at Col. Bull’s Plantation on Ashley River, where it grows in a Bog” [Fig. 3].[10] Fifteen years later, the Anglican divine John Wesley noted other rarities at Ashley Hall. Declaring the estate “the pleasantest place I have yet seen in America,” he observed that the orchard and garden abounded with “those sorts of trees and plants and flowers which are esteemed in England,” but which American colonists rarely took the trouble to cultivate (view text).

Fig. 4, Charles Fraser, Monument of Lieutenant Governor Bull (Ashley Hall), c. 1800.

In 1742 William Bull transferred much of the Ashley Hall property (including the two houses) to his son, William Bull II, who in 1770 laid out gardens interlaced with serpentine paths between the house and the water’s edge.[11] A long, straight avenue bisected the garden, affording an uninterrupted vista of the Ashley river and the city of Charleston beyond. It may have been at this time that broad lawns were planted on either side of Catesby’s oak-lined avenue. A lake bounded by cypress trees lay to one side of the house, abutting an open park and elk and deer parks. The property also featured a pool encircled by cypress trees and a statue of Diana atop a prehistoric Indian mound.[12] Following Bull’s death in 1791, his widow erected a monumental obelisk in his memory on the grounds [Fig. 4].[13]

Ashley Hall’s strategic riverine location exposed it to abuse during the Revolutionary War. Errant British troops “plundered and greatly damaged” the property in June 1777. Five years later, the Continental Army general Nathaneal Greene (1742—1786) commandeered Ashley Hall as his headquarters.[14] The last member of the Bull family to own Ashley Hall, Col. William Izard Bull, added a piazza and circular red stone steps to the house in 1853.[15] An English visitor reported spending “a delightful day” with Col. Bull at Ashley Hall in 1863, “roaming over cotton-fields and rice plantations, woods, and ‘park-like meadows,’ studded with the most magnificent live oaks,” and sampling the indigenous Scuppernong grapes that grew in the garden.[16] Bull intentionally set the house on fire during the winter of 1865, destroying the building and all of its contents, rather than allow his ancestral home to be desecrated by approaching Union troops.[17]

—Robyn Asleson

Texts

  • Wesley, John, April 15, 1737, journal entry (1909: 1:348)[18]
“I walked over to Ashley Ferry, twelve miles from Charlestown, and thence, . . . to Colonel Bull’s seat, two miles farther. This is the pleasantest place I have yet seen in America; the orchard and garden being full of most of those sorts of trees and plants and flowers which are esteemed in England, but which the laziness of the Americans seldom suffers them to raise.” back up to History


“[William Bull], the first Governor, had entertained Catesby, the celebrated naturalist, at the family seat, at Ashley river, where there is now a majestic avenue of oaks, said to have been planted by his hand.”

Images

  • Charles Fraser, Monument of Lieutenant Governor Bull (Ashley Hall), c. 1800.

  • Charles Fraser, Ashley Hall, 1803.

  • Charles Fraser, Another View of the Same (Ashley Hall), 1803.

  • Henrietta Augusta Drayton, “Ashley Hall,” rear view and outbuildings, c. 1820.

  • Henrietta Augusta Drayton, Ashley Hall, river side with obelisk in yard, c. 1820.

  • Mark Catesby, “Ilex cassine L. dahoon,” in The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands (1754), vol. 1, pl. 31.

Other Resources

South Carolina Plantations

South Carolina Department of Archives and History

Alfred O. Halsey Map Preservation Research Project, Preservation Society of Charleston

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Online Collection

Notes

  1. ↑ Geraldine M. Meroney, Inseparable Loyalty: A Biography of William Bull (Norcross, GA: The Harrison Company, 1991), 6—8, view on Zotero.
  2. ↑ Michael O. Hartley, The Ashley River: A Survey of Seventeenth Century Sites, Research Manuscript Series, Book 184 (Columbia, SC: South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, 1984), 57, view on Zotero.
  3. ↑ B. H. Levy, “Savannah’s Bull Street: The Man Behind Its Name,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 71 (Summer 1987): 287–88, view on Zotero; Ashley Hall Plantation (Columbia, SC: United States Department of the Interior National Park Service, 1975), view on Zotero; Thomas Gamble, “Colonel William Bull—His Part in the Founding of Savannah,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 17 (June 1933): 113, view on Zotero.
  4. ↑ Kinloch Bull Jr., The Oligarchs in Colonial and Revolutionary Charleston: Lieutenant Governor William Bull II and His Family (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1991), view on Zotero; Levy 1987, 286–96, view on Zotero; Walter B. Edgar and N. Louise Bailey, Biographical Directory of the South Carolina House of Representatives, 5 vols. (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1977), 2: 115–16, view on Zotero; Gamble 1933, 112–13, view on Zotero.
  5. ↑ Bull’s son William would acquire an additional 500 acres in 1707, as well as properties in nearby Granville County, which yielded his principal source of income. See Henry A. M. Smith, “The Upper Ashley; and the Mutations of Families,” South Carolina Historical and Geneaological Magazine 20 (July 1919): 193, view on Zotero; Henry DeSaussure Bull, “Ashley Hall Plantation,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 53 (April 1952): 61, view on Zotero. S. Salley Jr., “The Bull Family of South Carolina,” South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 1 (January 1900): 76—77, view on Zotero.
  6. ↑ Ashley Hall 1975, view on Zotero.
  7. ↑ Meroney 1991, 2 and 11, view on Zotero; Bull 1952, 61—62, view on Zotero; Ashley Hall 1975, view on Zotero.
  8. ↑ Edgar and Bailey 1977, 2: 120–22, view on Zotero; Salley 1900, 77—78, view on Zotero.
  9. ↑ Charles Fraser, Reminiscences of Charleston (Charleston, SC: J. Russell, 1854), 68, view on Zotero; Hartley 1984, 59, view on Zotero.
  10. ↑ Mark Laird, “From Callicarpa to Catalpa: The Impact of Mark Catesby’s Plant Introductions on English Gardens of the Eighteenth Century,” in Empire’s Vision: Mark Catesby’s New World Vision, ed. Amy R. W. Meyers and Margaret Beck Pritchard (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 207, view on Zotero.
  11. ↑ Meroney 1991, 2 and 11, view on Zotero.
  12. ↑ For a reconstruction of the garden, based on “considerable data and a few sketches,” see Loutrel Winslow Briggs, Charleston Gardens (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1951), 106–7, view on Zotero. See also Bull 1952, 62, view on Zotero.
  13. ↑ Bull 1952, 66, view on Zotero.
  14. ↑ Geraldine M. Meroney, “William Bull’s First Exile from South Carolina, 1777—1781,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 80 (April 1979): 91—104, view on Zotero; Henry Lumpkin, From Savannah to Yorktown: The American Revolution in the South (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1981), 56, view on Zotero; C. Harrison Dwight, “Count Rumford: His Majesty’s Colonel in Carolina,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 57 (January 1956): 27, view on Zotero.
  15. ↑ Ashley Hall 1975, view on Zotero.
  16. ↑ Fitzgerald Ross, “A Visit to the Cities and Camps of the Confederate States, 1863—65,” Blackwood’s Magazine 97 (January 1865): 31, view on Zotero.
  17. ↑ Bull 1952, 66, view on Zotero.
  18. ↑ John Wesley, The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., Sometime Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, ed. Nehemiah Curnock, 8 vols. (New York/Chicago: Eaton & Mains/Jennings & Graham, 1909), view on Zotero.
  19. ↑ Fraser 1854, view on Zotero.

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History of Early American Landscape Design contributors, "Ashley Hall," History of Early American Landscape Design, , https://heald.nga.gov/mediawiki/index.php?title=Ashley_Hall&oldid=41068 (accessed December 23, 2024).

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