day 34 Lady's of the Mansions

HAT A SMALL WORLD...

 I've been brushing up on the local history of the town I live in.  I was not born here but off and on have spent most of my life here.

Needless to say the history is bloody, shameful, and in some cases just plain outrageous.  But I discovered an eye opening fact today...

SO MANY years ago, when I was a young teen we moved to a place called Bramblewood.  Now this place has a history that I have had trouble pinning down but I know at some point it was the DeSassure Plantation. And then it was known as the Lang Place, but I need to go to the archives or the hall of deeds and find out WHO actually owned it  how big was it etc. 

When we lived there it was about 300 acres...all that was left was a few barns and an old farm house most certainly not the plantation house but many of the plantations in those days were only for the purpose of growing and selling and not the actual home of the wealthy owner like they may have lived  in Charleston and owned more than one plantation...AND I suspect this is the case of Bramblewood.  I think that name even came later on...When we lived there the place was owned by Dr A.H. Ehrenclou and his wife.

So this story goes back....to the civil war.  Have you ever heard of Mary Boykin Chestnut? She wrote the book called A Diary of Dixie.  She wrote it as she witnessed the Civil War happen around her.  Her family owned a Plantation in my county called Mulberry.  Their main home was in Charleston and she traveled back and forth...I almost feel Gone With The Wind was based on some of this book.  Anyways Many years later, her Father in Law James Chestnut Sr had left in his will that Mulberry shall go to the Son of his Son James...but they had no children. So in 

 1873 Mary had a home built in town for herself on 50 acres of land and she called it Sarsfield.  It was located at the modern day address of 136 Chestnut street.  After the war and the death of her Her husband  James Jr, she lived at Sarsfield and she worked on her manuscripts getting only one chapter published.  Later after her death  the original manuscripts were found in 1949 and re edited eventually published by Van Woodward in 1981 and won a Pulitzer Prize in History (Mary Chestnut's Civil War). 
 During her widowed years she survived on the income she got from selling butter and eggs and at the time of her death at age 63 she had only 10 acres left of the 50 as she had to sell it off to survive.  What was left was willed to her nephew David Williams.  Mulberry had stood empty since 1873 and David Williams III had it refurbished.  

Mulberry ended up in the hands of Martha Williams Daniels wife of John Hancock Daniels who was an heir to the Archer Daniels Midland company a purchaser of grains and other raw ingredients  that go into food.  A huge operation worth $254.7 BILLION currently.  So he married Martha and she inherited Mulberry.  When I was in the Upholstery business I did all the re-upholstery of the Plantation home antiques and worked on many projects with Martha and a decorating firm who would find or have recreated authentic textiles from old photos of old samples...it was very UPPER Crust!  She was a delicate yet strong woman who had awesome poise...and she was a good horsewoman I was told...SO I've been in the Plantation home many times...its like stepping back in history..

She and her husband built a smaller more private home on some of the property just down the road from the plantation home.  Her husband passed away in 2006..and she passed in 2009.  They left many heirs to keep Mulberry in the family...

Back to Sarsfield...so when I was a young lass we moved to Bramblewood....a farmer leased the farm and the house on it from the Ehrenclou's who in 1936 purchased Sarsfield mansion and the 5 acres it was on.  Both the Ehrenclous were doctors from NYC...Park ave NYC.  She a psychiatrist and he a neurologists she from NY and he from London.  Many NY'rs bought summer homes in our Town...and so I imagine this is how they came to own Sarsfield but I don't know how they came to own Bramblewood.  I hope I can find out.  Maybe she bought it just for her horses.

When I was a girl  my sister and I were into riding horses. We had horses and this is how we ended up at Bramblewood, the farmer was, as part of his lease, to take care of the retired horses at Bramblewood...so when  he met me and my sister he talked my mom into renting the house at Bramblewood and in exchange for board for our horses we would take care of Ben and Jess the 2 retired hunters...that belonged to Ms Ehrenclou.

And my sis would ride Ben but he was lame, and needed a surgery.  We had the vet come and look and he told us Ben could benefit from a surgery called a nerve block...So we went to Sarsfield to ask the Lady Cora Ehrenclou would she pay for the surgery...

She offered us cookies and she heard us out and she agreed to the surgery...so as a young girl I stood in the home of Mary Boykin Chestnut right in the study where she worked on her books and raised the big window to speak to visitors who never got down out of the buggies when they can calling. 

So this is how My life crossed paths and interacted with The Mulberry and Sarsfield, and the Ladies of the Mansions.