Tag Archives: Anderson County

Morris Street Slave Dwellings-Anderson, South Carolina

Located in Anderson, South Carolina, are likely the last standing slave houses in an upstate South Carolina town. Four houses sit along an alleyway in the Anderson Historic District. Architectural historians determined three houses are antebellum, with the other one built after the Civil War.

These houses were up for demolition in 2009 when The Palmetto Trust for Historic Preservation stepped in and purchased them. According to the newspaper searches, people lived in these houses until 2008. They were condemned after complaints to the city.

It is suspected that the slave alley was tied to an in-town estate, likely the Caldwell-Johnson-Morris Cottage. According to the 1860 Slave Census, Margaret Morris enslaved two women. Her house is on the same street and one block down from the slave alley.

Below is the 1918 Sanborn map, which shows the four houses in a row. Unfortunately, previous Sanborn maps do not go east enough to show the houses.

In 2011, Joseph McGill of the Slave Dwelling Project stayed in one of the houses.

Hubbard-McFall-King House-Anderson, South Carolina

Hubbard-McFall-King House was built after the honeymoon trip of John and Lavina Hubbard, where they fell in love with similarly styled homes along the Hudson River in New York City. This style, Chinese Chippendale, is a relatively rare type of Queen Anne. It’s scarce in the South. There are four homes in the greater Anderson area that were built in this style. Two are in town. The other two are inaccessible. There is one that was up for sale a few years ago. You can see it here.

Chinese Chippendale architecture refers to specific banister styles influenced by the cabinetmaker and furniture designer Thomas Chippendale.