Overview | Location and Hours | Offerings
Walnut Grove Plantation - Overview
Charles and Mary Moore began Walnut Grove Plantation after receiving a land grant for the property from King George III. The Moores, who were Scots Irish immigrants, raised ten children in the house they built about 1765 and lived in for the next 40 years. Revolutionary War heroine Kate Moore Barry, who served as a scout for Gen. Daniel Morgan prior to the Battle of Cowpens, numbered among those ten sons and daughters. In late 1781, Loyalist William Cunningham, called "Bloody Bill" by the Patriots, killed three Patriot soldiers at the plantation and sparked a small skirmish with local militia, which is reenacted each year in early October.
Along with the house, the site preserves Rocky Spring Academy, one of the first schools in the area; a separate kitchen; a blacksmith's forge; a smoke house; a barn sheltering a Conestoga-type wagon; a well house with its dry cooling-cellar; and the reconstructed office of Dr. Andrew Barry Moore, the county's first college-trained physician. The original family cemetery is on-site as well as a nature trail.
Tours of the restored historic buildings and special events on the plantation grounds offer visitors a glimpse into the daily lives of the people--both free and enslaved--who settled the South Carolina Backcountry, engaged British and Loyalist forces in the American Revolution, and played an important role in shaping the new nation.
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