Magnolia Plantation

Magnolia Plantation is known for it's beautiful gardens, approximately 30 acres of them. The same family has been in charge of the gardens since before the Civil War. Then they did the work as slaves. Today, they are employees. We spent the afternoon today touring the gardens and the plantation house.

The gardens have been designed to have blooms all year long. Even though we are here in between the spring blooms, like azaleas, and the summer blooms, there was still a lot of color to be seen.

The house is the third one to be built here by the Drayton family. The first one was built before the Revolutionary War. It burned accidentally. The second house was a casualty of the Civil War. Although the current house is not as grand as the earlier ones, the 18th and 19th century furniture was pretty impressive. There were also many nature illustrations by John James Audebon, who was a close friend of the Drayton family. A lot of these illustrations were done while he was a guest at the plantation.







An added treat was that, as we toured the grounds, we could see some of the acrobatic flying by the Air Force Thunderbirds. They were performing in an air show at the nearby Charleston A.F. Base. It reminded us of a time, more than 20 years ago, when the Halter family saw the Thunderbirds at Mount Rushmore. We happened to be there when they were taking some promotional films and pictures with the famous sculpture as the background.