A Conservation Year to Remember

Edisto’s greenspace grew last year by 1,027 acres, thanks to Edisto landowners who protected nine of their properties with conservation easements to EIOLT.  According to EIOLT Executive Director, Marian Brailsford, “These easements are not isolated tracts -- each connects with other conserved lands to expand Edisto’s green space and wildlife corridors.” Six of these tracts form a new conservation hub on Store Creek.
 This new hub started with the preservation of a key property -- Carroll Belser’s Sunny Side Plantation property totaling 62 acres. 

“Saving this centerpiece of historic Sunnyside Plantation created the momentum for three other family members to follow Carroll’s lead,” said Brailsford.  The adjacent Sunny Side Plantation properties, all along Peters Point Road, include Gale Belser Thompson’s  88 acres, Susalee Norris Sasser’s 83 acres, and Eleanor Rice Burns’ 55 acres.  

Directly opposite Sunny Side across Store Creek the Hastings protected 140 acres of historic Governor’s Bluff Plantation.  This heavily-wooded property has almost a mile of creek frontage, and the inland boundaries lie along historic Wescott Road and Highway 174. 

 

EIOLT Board Member, BoBo Lee said “This land has some of the densest waterfront maritime forest on the island and beautiful live oak canopy along both Highway 174 and Wescott Road. It’s wonderful to know it will always look the way it does today.”

The Store Creek conservation hub continued to grow in 2009 to encompass Pinkney Mikell’s 184-acre Peters Point Plantation property, which lies across Store Creek from preserved Bailey Island.  This land, which has been farmed for 300 years by the same family, contains maritime forest and expansive marshlands with several large  hammocks (an area of highland within the marsh).  

EIOLT President, Lex Crawford observed “The Mikell easement preserves a smorgasbord of wildlife habitats, in the vast dry marsh areas as well as in the woods and fields. Protecting the eco-system for wildlife is as much a part of our mission as protecting land.”

To the north along Shingle Creek, the Newton family eased their 150 acres, a part of historic Frogmore Plantation.  This heavily wooded property lies directly across Shingle Creek from protected Brookland Plantation.   Craig Aubry of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, who helped with the baseline surveys for all EIOLT’s 2009 easements, observed, “This property’s maritime forest has some of the largest magnolias and live oaks we’ve seen in this area, and its freshwater wetlands and saltwater marsh are also outstanding habitats.”

Adjoining the Newton property is a 46-acre tract, owned by the Bailey family, which was protected last year by Low Country Open Land Trust.

To the south, the Britton family placed a conservation easement on their 48 acre property, part of historic Jackdaw Hall Plantation.  The Britton land has frontage on Frampton Creek and on Botany Bay Road, and it adjoins Botany Bay Plantation and another eased property, the McCollum-Battle tract.  “The easement restrictions make this protected land a veritable extension of Botany Bay Plantation Wildlife Management Area,” said Brailsford.

Each of the conservation easements closed last year received funding from the Charleston County Greenbelt Bank.  In addition to EIOLT’s eight new easements, the Crawford family’s 217-acre Sand Creek Farm conservation easement, was transferred by TNC to EIOLT in December.

Brailsford said, “Thanks to Edisto’s conservation-minded landowners and to the loyal support of our members, the new year finds EIOLT very close to the goal of half of Edisto Island preserved.”  EIOLT President, Lex Crawford commented, “With the on-going and indispensable support of our members we will keep working toward our ‘Over the Top’ goal.” 

*******************

Edisto Island is wealthy in historic properties, many with their essential structures intact.  And, increasingly, these voices from a fascinating past are being permanently safeguarded through conservation easements. Plantations and the years when conservation easements were completed:

Oak Island Plantation (1995)   Seabrook Plantation (1997) Prospect Hill Plantation (2000) Windsor Plantation (1999, 2007) Gun Bluff Plantation (2007&2008) Peters Point Plantation (2009)	Brookland Plantation (2007) Botany Bay Plantation (via estate, 2007) Cassina Point Plantation (2008) Sunnyside Plantation (2009) Frogmore Plantation (2009) Governor's Bluff Plantation (2009)

Sand Creek Farms in the Spotlight

Some of the most scenic views from Edisto’s Highway 174 are of Sand Creek Farms, which stretches between Sand and Russell creeks.  Views of the cattle grazing in green pastures are interspersed with egrets perching in island-bound trees in the middle of the ponds and lazy alligators sunning on the banks.  This 200-plus-acre waterfront farm has been in the family for generations and has remained in agricultural production since Colonial times.

It is owned by EIOLT Board Vice President Lex Crawford and his wife Anne.

The Crawford family wanted to preserve this historic working farm nestled in a wildlife paradise as a legacy for future generations. So, in 2007 Sand Creek Farms was preserved by conservation easement via a collaborative effort between EIOLT and The Nature Conservancy.  TNC currently holds the easement, which will be transferred to EIOLT’s stewardship by
year end. 

Two conservation Easements on Edisto's Historic Thomas Seabrook Plantation

Late last year, EIOLT purchased conservation easements on two side-by-side farms using Charleston County Greenbelt Bank funds.

Nothing encapsulates Edisto’s past or defines Edisto’s future better than the
conservation of two historic farms: the Keefe Farm and the Polk Farm.

These two tracts, 140 acres total, front Highway 174 on the north and Milton Creek
on the south. They comprise a major portion of the historic Thomas Seabrook Plantation. The Keefes (Willia, Jimmy, Robert, Harrell, Mary, and Susan) and the Polks (Sarah and Larry) are 10th generation descendents of the family that has owned and
continuously farmed this land for over 300 years.

The earliest known owner of this land was Thomas Bannister Seabrook, whose circa 1740 plantation house was burned to the ground in 1940. It was one of about 60 Edisto plantations that cultivated Sea Island Cotton. Today, this land – which is home to King’s Farm Market, vegetable and flower fields, and Barnyard Bay recreation area – is a model for sustainability and the “eat local” trend.