1678 Lone Star Road
City Directories and History: William Russell Thomson (1761-1807) built the original Midway Plantation, probably ca. 1785, although little of this structure remains. Midway was so named because it was located between Belleville, the family home of William Russell Thomson, and Bellbroughton, owned by Mrs. Thomson’s father. After Thomson’s death the
Image courtesy of photographer Bill Segars.
plantation became the property of his son, Charles Robert Thompson. While the house was built much earlier, the present façade was not added until later, ca. 1859. The present Midway is a two-story antebellum frame building with both Greek Revival and Federal influences. The front façade features a pediment and a two-tiered portico with four Tuscan columns on both levels. Each level features a central entranceway with three-paneled sidelights, semi-circular fanlights, and flanking pilasters topped by an entablature. The rear wing and porch were added around 1900. The vestiges of a landscaped garden featuring camellias, magnolias, and cedars surround Midway Plantation. This site is also significant as having been the past residence of prominent figures, particularly from the prominent Thomson family, in the military, political and social history of South Carolina and both Calhoun and Orangeburg counties for more than 170 years. Listed in the National Register May 28, 1976.
(Courtesy of South Carolina Department of Archives and History) Click here for the National Register site.
Following the Civil War, this became the home of Phillip Washington Fairey (1835 – 1889) and his wife, Elizabeth Rebecca Risher (1832 – 1893), (the Civil War widow of George W. Griffith) and remained in the Fairey family for nearly one-hundred years. In 2015, it is used not as a cotton farm but as a elegant equestrian estate.
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