Historic Brattonsville
York County, South Carolina
This article appeared in the "Times" on August 12, 1993. It was written and researched by David Hume.
On the trail of the Ulster Scots emigrants to South Carolina
Off route 321 from York at a place called McConnells is historic Brattonsville. A beautiful plantation museum, Brattonsville features an early log cabin, female school, farm outbuildings, a 1930 general store, and the plantation home of Colonel William Bratton.
In one of the front rooms there was a magnificent Irish harp, while at the rear of the house once can stand in the dining room where the Colonel entertained his society guests from the area. Nearby are the slave dwellings where the servant who was overseer and his family lived and another where a slave tradesman had his home. Carpentry tools were set on the table in the latter, while a short distance away is a single gravestone:
Sacred
To the Memory of
Watt
Who died December 1837.
During the Revolutionary War
He served his Master
Faithfully, and his Children
With the same fidelity
Until his death.
Also
Polly, his Wife
Who died July 1838
Who served the same family
With equal faithfulness.
W.T. White
Ch. S.C.
[The slave cemetery has only one standing tombstone, that of
Watt,
a slave of Colonel William Bratton, although there are a number of visible
depressions.]
Slaves could not afford gravestones, but Watt and Polly were remembered by the Brattons. The white marble stone was carved in Charleston, then brought inland to McConnells. It is a touching tribute to a relationship between Master and Slave.
The leaflet outlining the history of the area, meanwhile, points out that Brattonsville was settled as part of the Mid-18th century migration of Ulster Scots from Virginia and upstate the of South Carolina.
William Bratton's house remains one of York County's oldest buildings, while the Colonel and his wife Martha were staunch patriots: on July 12 he commanded the American forces at a battle called Huck's Defeat near his home.
"During the late 19th century the importance of Brattonsville, as a local trade centre began to diminish. The railroads that brought goods to nearby towns usurped Brattonsville's ability to compete. In the late 1910s the third and the last generation of the Bratton family at Brattonsville moved to York, South Carolina." the leaflet states.
In the mid 1970s the York County Historical Commission began restoring two of the main buildings at the site, while later work restored the village that was Brattonsville.
Nowadays, the Commission says its efforts mark the legacy of interaction between "the American pioneer, patriot, slave, freedman and woman."
"The evolving story of historic Brattonsville from a single family log dwelling into a complex 8,100 acre plantation by 1843 makes it a composite of Southern history worthy of preservation." their leaflet says.
Brattonsville is something they have every right to be proud of.