Botany Bay Plantation Heritage Preserve/Wildlife Management Area is a state preserve on Edisto Island, South Carolina.Botany Bay Plantation was formed in the 1930s from the merger of the Colonial-era Sea Cloud Plantation and Bleak Hall Plantation. In 1977, it was bequeathed to the state as a wildlife preserve; it was opened to the public in 2008.The preserve includes a number of registered historic sites, including two listed in the National Register of Historic Places: a set of three surviving 1840s outbuildings from Bleak Hall Plantation, and the prehistoric Fig Island shell rings.HistorySea Cloud PlantationIn 1695, Christopher Hinkley received a grant of on Edisto Island. In 1727, the property was acquired by Paul Hamilton Sr.; in 1748, by Paul Hamilton Jr. At some time after the Revolutionary War, a 21acre parcel adjoining the Hamilton property was acquired by Normand McLeod. At some point, the property was acquired by Ephraim Mikell Seabrook; in about 1825, he built a house there. It has been suggested that the name "Sea Cloud Plantation" was bestowed after the marriage of a Seabrook to a McLeod.Bleak Hall PlantationIn the late 1790s, Daniel Townsend III began developing Bleak Hall Plantation. In 1799, his first son, John Townsend, was born at the plantation. His wife was Hephzibah Jenkins Townsend. In about 1805, a mansion was built; in about 1842, John Townsend inherited the property. At some point in the 1840s, he acquired the Sea Cloud Plantation as well.John Townsend was noted as an agriculturist and political leader in 19th century South Carolina. He was one of the state's largest planters of Sea Island cotton; his cotton commanded a high price from lace-makers in Belgium and France, and won several prizes, for both its quality and its length. Between 1822 and 1858, Townsend served several terms in the South Carolina General Assembly; in the early 1860s, he was a delegate to the state's Secession Convention, and a signer of the Ordinance of Secession, whereby South Carolina withdrew from the United States, part of a chain of events leading to the American Civil War.
