Hampton Plantation- the Sweetest Form of Lovely

Mention Hampton Plantation State Historic Site to anyone that has ever visited and their first words will be “Bring insect repellant.”  Their admonition will be followed by a woeful recontance of when they did not and the whelps they earned as a result of their fateful mistake.

Hampton Plantation is the former home of such prominent South Carolina families as the Horrys, the Pinckneys and the Rutledges.  At one time, the home was site to a large rice production which was both the fortune and the bane of its residents.  The wetlands that cradled the rice paddies and garnered wealth to the named families also allowed for the enslavement of African workers and served as nurseries to disease ridden mosquitos that plagued those first residents.

We had sense enough to visit the grounds of Hampton on a cool day.  The mosquitos were quieted by the low mercury of the thermostat which also served to keep the grounds free from other park visitors.

I won’t lie.  It was cold but we layered on sweatshirts and socks and were off.

Today we were here to geocache.  It seemed fitting to be looking for hidden treasure at Hampton Plantation in front of the grand columns amid stately magnolias.  We followed our coordinates across the bridge and into the wood.  I watched the children chasing each other across the expanse yelling, “I’m gonna find it!”   I loved those images: the children teasing each other and declaring that they had found the trove when they hadn’t, the laughter, my daughter’s hair coming out of her ponytail and whisping out onto her face.  Wetfoot was running now determined to find the treasure first.  The boys hung together, walking, running, playing their own version of tag.  We all caught up to one another and found the hidden cache.  We logged the visit and exchanged our token, a miniscule pink rubber ducky for another similar bauble.  We felt accomplished and fulfilled at the success of our hunt.

The children celebrated by exploring the wood and climbing up a ladder like limb that seemed to have been put there by nature for that purpose.  As Anchor supervised, encouraged and photographed, I surrendered to the pull of the otherwise quiet grounds.  I drifted towards the great trees that accentuated Hampton.  They enraptured with their massive breadth.   I could hear my family playing of the gentle limb in the wood but I was fixed here in the spell of my own mighty tree.  I was held in captivity under its bare canopy.  Looking up and around and noting my own still smallness.  I had found the tree every little girl dreams of.  I’m sure that somewhere on the bark or among the limbs lay an entranceway to some fairy land or other.

My fancy gave way as I became aware of my husband and children racing to meet me in this magic portal.  It was comical to see them- to see us- ragtag in sweatshirts and jeans, hair askance, dirty from our treasure hunt, shivering with the cold and sweating from running throughout the grounds.  I bet those first families never could have dreamed that my family would be having such fun in their yard.  How could they?  The scene was ludicrous and laughable…and the sweetest form of lovely imaginable.