10 Facts: The Charles Pinckney National Historic Site at Snee Farm

The Charles Pinckney National Historic Site contains a portion of the historic Snee Farm that was the plantation or country seat of Charles Pinckney (1757-1824), a principal author and signer of the United States Constitution. Learn more about Pinckney’s homesite and Snee Farm.

#1: Colonel Charles Pinckney purchased the Snee Farm in 1754 and granted it to his son Charles Pinckney in 1782.

The land that became Snee Farm was originally part of a royal grant to Nathaniel Law* in 1698. It underwent several ownership changes before Colonel Charles Pinckney (1731-1782) purchased it from John and Ann Savage in 1754. When Colonel Charles Pinckney died in 1782, he left the Snee Farm and his Charleston properties to his son Charles Pinckney. Today, the Charles Pinckney National Historic Homesite can be found within the township of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

#2: The Snee Farm was a working plantation of almost 1,000 acres.

From the late 1690s through the 1940s, Snee Farm existed as a working plantation of 700 to 1000 acres. Charles’ father had developed it into a typical Lowcountry plantation on which he raised cattle, indigo, rice, and a variety of foodstuffs. Later owners planted cotton, which, by the 1840s, replaced rice as the principal cash crop.

#3: Charles Pinckney’s aunt helped make its indigo crops a success.

One of the principal crops grown at the Snee Farm was indigo. Indigo was an important product that allowed the production of its eponymous blue dye. But indigo was not a viable crop until Charles’ aunt, Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793), determined how best to cultivate and process the plant through persistent experimentation. Indigo would remain a key crop until the American Revolution destroyed its market.

#4: Despite owning the Snee Farm for over 30 years, Charles Pinckney rarely used this site as a residence.

He did not spend the warm months at Snee Farm because of the malaria attacks brought on there. Instead, he moved to Shell Hall, a summer house he maintained in Mt. Pleasant, where the sea breeze reduced the mosquito hazard.

#5: Between 40 and 60 enslaved people worked at the Snee Farm.

The Pinckneys kept between 40 and 60 enslaved people at Snee Farm. This population included skilled artisans such as wheelwrights, coopers, sawyers, carpenters, and gardeners. Many of the members of this enslaved community had the necessary experience with rice and indigo cultivation—essential skills that contributed to Snee Farm’s commercial success.

Charles Pinckney was one of four South Carolina representatives to the Constitutional Convention. When the issue of slavery arose during the constitutional deliberations, Delegate Pinckney stood among his fellow Southerners in defense of the institution. He openly questioned the assertion that slavery was wrong, stating: “If slavery be wrong, it is justified by the example of all the world. In all ages, one-half of mankind have been slaves.” Pinckney and the other Southern delegates voted for the Constitution only after a compromise that protected the institution of slavery was inserted into the document.

#6: Charles Pinckney’s Snee Farm and home was saved by the actions of his father during the Revolutionary War.

Charles Pinckney served during the Revolution as a lieutenant in his father’s militia regiment, taking part in the failed Franco-American attempt to retake Savannah, Ga., from the British in 1779. He participated in the defense of Charleston during the British siege in 1780 and was captured when the city was surrendered. Charles and his father were arrested and imprisoned by the British, along with other American officers. Charles remained confined until June 1781. His father, however, was freed after swearing allegiance to the British Crown, an action that saved the Pinckney estate, including Snee Farm, from confiscation.

#7: During the Revolutionary War, the British used Pinckney’s Snee Farm home to house important American officers captured in the war.

After the capture of Charleston in 1780, the British took possession of the Snee Farm. The Snee Farm and Pinckney’s Shell Hall home at Haddrell’s Point were used as internment camps for significant American officers, including Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Gen. William Moultrie.

#8: The Snee Farm’s success suffered while Charles Pinckney was away on government service.

After the United States gained its independence from Great Britain and ratified the new Constitution, Charles Pinckney was frequently away from the Snee Farm while serving the state of South Carolina and his new nation. Pinckney served four terms as South Carolina’s governor and was later President Thomas Jefferson’s Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain (1801-1805). While serving in these many government roles, the management of Snee Farm suffered. By the time he returned to Charleston in January 1806, he had significant financial problems, and in 1817, his trustees sold the Snee Farm and other unproductive properties to help settle his debts.

#9: Archeological efforts at the Charles Pinckney Homesite have been vital in understanding the site.

The Charles Pinckney Historic Homesite constitutes only a small remnant of the Snee Farm property, and no standing structures remain from the colonial era. Most of Pinckney’s papers were destroyed in the Charleston fire of 1861, therefore, what we know about the family’s years at Snee Farm has come mainly through the science of archeology. Archeologists have found that the house stands on the site of the Pinckney plantation house. They have also identified the location of ponds and fields used for growing indigo, rice, and cotton, the Pinckney well, the plantation kitchen, two slave cabins, and a slightly later (circa 1825) structure near the kitchen that possibly served as an overseer’s house or servants’ quarters.

The kitchen and well areas disclosed an extensive collection of 18th—and early 19th-century artifacts, including Chinese porcelain and French and English tableware, along with more common ceramics and slave-made pottery called “Colonoware.” Wine and liquor bottles, cutlery, British and American coins, and the remains of domestic and game animals that comprised part of the residents’ diet were also recovered.

#10: The Friends of Historic Snee Farm deeded 28 acres to the National Park Service in 1990.

By the 1930s, farming was no longer a source of income for Snee Farm’s owner, and much of the original plantation began to disappear as lands were sold off to developers. As a result of the growth of Charleston’s suburbs, most of the original 715-acre Pinckney estate is now occupied by residential housing and a golf course.

In 1990, the Friends of Historic Snee Farm, a local preservation group, deeded 28 acres of land—the only undeveloped portion of the original 1754 Pinckney purchase—to the National Park Service to create a memorial to one of the drafters and signers of the U. S. Constitution. Today, more than 150,000 artifacts have been removed from the site, but additional research and archeological work are still needed to thoroughly understand the role this Lowcountry plantation played in shaping one of our nation’s early leaders. Any newly discovered information will be incorporated into exhibits and programs at the site to keep visitors fully informed about Charles Pinckney, his family, and his land.