HCF Archives - Richland County

1616 Blanding Street – Historic Ainsley Hall

A National Register Property

The Rock Hill Herald reported on May 4, 1873 – “Columbia Theological Seminary will hold graduation next Sunday in First Pres. Church in Columbia and seven young men will receive diplomas. The Pres. is Rev. Thornton Whaling.”

The Yorkville Enquirer contained an ad on Sept. 5, 1878 – “for the Columbia Female College, which announced the session will open on Sept. 19. The college had a faculty of twelve member and seven languages were taught. The president is J.L. Jones.”

On June 20, 1888 the Yorkville Enquirer reported – “A competitive exam will be held at each county courthouse on July 3, to select students to receive scholarships to attend Winthrop Training School. The value is equivalent to $150. for the nine month session. Students will board with private families for fees between $15-18.00 per month. Graduates of the school will be entitled to teach in any public school in S.C.”

The Rock Hill Herald reported on Sept. 20, 1888 – “Rev. N.M. Wood of Columbia was in Rock Hill seeking funds for the establishment of a Presbyterian seminary in Columbia. He secured about $1,600. in Rock Hill and Ebenezer.”

The Yorkville Enquirer reported on Sept. 26, 1888 – “The Winthrop Training School for teachers opened in Columbia last Monday. The term will be for nine months. Every county in the state is represented among the students. Ms. Mary W. Brown is the student from York County.”

The Yorkville Enquirer reported on June 19, 1889 – “Commencement exercises of the WTS at Columbia were held last week. Ms. Mary Brown the student from York County became ill during the term and was unable to complete the course.”

The Yorkville Enquirer of Oct. 8, 1890 reported – “Attendance at the Winthrop Training School is greater than it was during the last session. Every county in the state is represented by at least one student.”

City Directories and History: The Ainsley Hall House preserves architecture that is of national importance because of the period it represents, the quality and type of its design, the excellence of its

restoration, and the fame of its architect. Its designer, Robert Mills (1781-1855), was a native South Carolina architect and engineer who studied under Hoban and Latrobe and became the first American-trained Federal architect, serving under 7 Presidents. He was the designer of the Washington Monument and was responsible, in great measure, for the national capital’s early trend toward the classical style in its public buildings. Of the few Mills residences remaining in the United States, the Ainsley Hall House is considered one of the superior examples. Since Ainsley Hall, an English-born wealthy merchant in Columbia, died before the house was completed and it was never occupied or completely finished as a residence, it is more closely associated with the architect. The house was

Ainsley Hall Mansion, Blanding Street, Columbia, Richland County, SC (2)

Images(s) and information from: The Library of Congress – HABS Photo Collection

Ainsley Hall Mansion, Blanding Street, Columbia, Richland County, SC occupied for many years by the Columbia Theological Seminary. Winthrop, the South Carolina College for Women, was founded in the house in 1886. It became the home of the Columbia Bible College from late 1920s to 1962. Built in 1823 in the center of an entire city block of four acres, the Classical Revival style brick mansion is two-storied on an elevated basement. The front façade has an Ionic-temple portico with four massive columns rising from a raised brick arcade. The rear, or garden, entrance has a seven-bay arched porch. Three outbuildings have been reconstructed. Listed in the National Register July 16, 1970; Designated a National Historic Landmark November 7, 1973. [Courtesy of the SC Dept. of Archives and History]

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R&R Notes: Minister, author, and theological professor, William Swan Plumer (1802-80) was one of Princeton Theological Seminary’s most well-known students. Born in Griersburg, Pennsylvania, Plumer would graduate from Washington College in Virginia in 1825. Following a year of study at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1826, Plumer began a very active and diverse ministerial career.

During the first several years of Plumer’s ministry he helped organize and found churches in Danville, Virginia and Warrenton, North Carolina. After several years of itinerant preaching ministry, he served as a resident pastor in Petersburg, Virginia from 1831 to 1834, and in Richmond, Virginia between the years of 1835 and 1846. During his Richmond pastorate, Plumer founded a religious weekly, the Watchman of the South, and an institution to assist the deaf, dumb, and blind.

In 1847, Plumer accepted a pastoral call to Baltimore, Maryland. After eight years of ministry with the congregation there, Plumer became pastor of a church in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, where he also served as a professor at Western Theological Seminary. Plumer relocated to the Philadelphia area in the mid-1860s. He assisted a congregation in Pottsville, 1865-66, at which time he received appointment to serve as Professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina. He served in this position until 1875, when he was transferred to the chair of Historic, Casuistic, and Pastoral Theology. He held this position until shortly before his death.

Plumer was a prolific author and active churchman. His published works include commentaries, biblical studies, articles, essays, sermons, and a volume on pastoral theology. His writings, while profoundly theological in nature, are very practical in focus. A number of his books have remained in print; they represent a high point in the theological-devotional literature produced of nineteenth century American Presbyterianism.

As a churchman, Plumer had the rare distinction of serving as Moderator of the General Assembly of the undivided Presbyterian denomination (1838) and of its southern branch (1871). In his life and work, William S. Plumer embodied Princeton Theological Seminary’s vision for an intelligent and informed piety that rested on the theological foundations of Scripture and the Westminster Standards. (Information furnished from https://banneroftruth.org)

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R&R HISTORY LINK: ROBT MILLS ALSO DESIGNED – LANDSFORD CANAL

R&R HISTORY LINK: ROBT MILLS ALSO DESIGNED – BETHESDA PRES CHURCH IN CAMDEN SC

R&R HISTORY LINK: TEXT – NATIONAL REGISTER

R&R HISTORY LINK: NATIONAL REGISTER – IMAGE(S)

Please enjoy this structure and all those listed in Roots and Recall. But remember each is private property. So view them from a distance or from a public area such as the sidewalk or public road.

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1615 Blanding Street or Hampton – Preston House

Image courtesy of photographer Ann L. Helms – 2018

The Yorkville Enquirer of Jan. 23, 1873 reported – “The Preston Place in Columbia, better known as Hampton Gardens has been sold through agents Sibles and Ezell to Gov. Moses for $40,000.”

The Yorkville Enquirer reported on May 29, 1889 – “The old Preston Place in Columbia has been sold and will be converted into a Presbyterian Female College. It is one of the finest properties in the state and sold for $30,000. It has been used by the Catholics as a convent which will be moved to another location.”

A National Register Property

City Directories and History: The Hampton-Preston House (Ainsley Hall House), is a handsome city mansion that was built in 1818 by Ainsley Hall, a Columbia merchant. Robert Yates was the contractor and Zachariah Philips served in the capacity of architect. Hall sold the house to the first Wade Hampton, fighter in the American Revolution and general in the War of 1812, planter, businessman, developer of the American West. His son, Wade Hampton II, lived in the house as did Wade Hampton III, the Civil War general, and state governor. The house is also associated with leading South Carolinian and state senator, John S. Preston. The South Carolina Presbyterian Institute for Young Ladies, later Chicora College, acquired the mansion in 1890. The house is of a post-Colonial, Classical Revival style, having a broad veranda across the front with Doric columns and a fanlight above. Inside is a sweeping circular stairway with mahogany rails. A crystal chandelier hangs in the middle of the hall. The rooms are spacious, and one is adorned with a white marble mantel by the sculptor Hiram Powers. The gardens covered a city block and were known throughout the state, but have been plowed under and felled, later becoming a parking lot. Listed in the National Register July 29, 1969. [Courtesy of the SC Dept. of Archives and History]

Click here to enjoy learning more about this site and the Columbia Hist. District, #2.

Also see link to #56: Richland County Historic Sites and Structures Report for additional information.

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Please enjoy this structure and all those listed in Roots and Recall. But remember each is private property. So view them from a distance or from a public area such as the sidewalk or public road.

Thanks!

1601 Richland Street – Seibles House

City Directories and History: Possibly the oldest house in Columbia, the Seibels House was built entirely of hand-hewn timber by A. M. Hale on a portion of the Thomas Taylor Plantation. Due to loss of state and local records by fire, the exact date of the house cannot be determined. However, there is record of the date 1796 carved on one of the hand-hewn timbers in the basement. The house was later purchased by Captain Benjamin Elmore, who then sold it to Mr. John Jacob Seibels. It is two-and-one-half-stories with Georgian lines. The first story, with wide doorway and sidelights, is of brick with four large shuttered windows. The second story is clapboard with six unshuttered windows. Piazzas on the front and the west sides of the house are supported by slender Doric columns. Piazzas formerly extended on three sides; east piazza replaced ca. 1900 by the addition of a sun porch on the first floor and a room on the second floor. Other additions include extensions enlarging the first and second story rooms on the back northeast corner of the house. Mantel pieces are believed to be original. Listed in the National Register May 6, 1971. [Courtesy of the SC Dept. of Archives and History]

As for Columbia houses in the National Register, possibly the oldest are the Hale-Elmore-Seibels House (popularly known in recent years as Picriccorn — taking its name from its location at PICkcns and RIChland CORner– and, even more recently, as Hudson’s for the proprietor of the gourmet restaurant located there) and the Horry-Guignard House, which has stood at its Senate Street location three blocks west of the State House since 1813. Peter Horry — a Colonel in the Revolution and a Brigadier General in the South Carolina Militia — is credited with building the latter house, which later became the home of John Gabriel Guignard. Surveyor General of South Carolina from 1798 to 1802, Guignard laid out the new capital city’s symmetrical grid of streets, a careful street plan which is a Columbia heritage dating back to 1787. Picriccorn, which tradition says may have been built as early as 1796, although no firm dates are known, has been in the family of the present owner, George R.P. Walker, since its acquisition in the early 1850’s by a member of the Seibels family.

(Information from: Names in South Carolina by C.H. Neuffer, Published by the S.C. Dept. of English, USC)

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NATIONAL REGISTER – IMAGE(S)

Please enjoy this structure and all those listed in Roots and Recall. But remember each is private property. So view them from a distance or from a public area such as the sidewalk or public road.

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Mann – Simons Cottage

1403 Richland Street

City Directories and History: The Mann-Simons Cottage, built ca. 1850, is an important site that illustrates a wide range of African American history. As the antebellum home of a substantial free black Columbia family, it is the prototype survivor of a cluster of houses belonging to a significant group in Columbia’s population before the Civil War. The cottage is a reminder that, during the antebellum period, free blacks lived and associated with the white community a great deal more than has heretofore been realized. Celia Mann, the earliest known owner of the house, was instrumental in establishing an early, post-Civil War, black church in the city. The First Calvary Baptist Church was organized in the Simons Cottage, with religious services held in the basement. Her daughter, Agnes Jackson, married Bill Simons, a free black musician who played with the local Joe Randal Band. The home is a one-and-one-half story cottage style house with a raised basement and a gabled roof with two corbel-capped chimneys. The façade has a porch that is supported by four brick posts. The porch roof is supported by four Tuscan columns and is enclosed by a balustrade. Listed in the National Register April 23, 1973. [Courtesy of the SC Dept. of Archives and History]

Click here to enjoy learning more about this site and the Columbia Hist. District, #2.

See #78: Richland County Historic Sites and Structures Report for additional information.

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TEXT – NATIONAL REGISTER

NATIONAL REGISTER – IMAGE(S)

Please enjoy this structure and all those listed in Roots and Recall. But remember each is private property. So view them from a distance or from a public area such as the sidewalk or public road.

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1403 Richland Street

From the Porch

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