After driving by the plantation ruins at Old Tabby Links (above), you can view a model of the way the home looked (below) before it was destroyed in the Civil War. The view of the marsh beyond the model is precisely what the plantation's occupants would have enjoyed.
I played Old Tabby Links at the Spring Island golf community in South Carolina yesterday. After the 9th hole, the cart path takes you by the ruins of the old Edwards Plantation house. Mr. Edwards, a cotton baron in the 19th Century, built the home out of tabby material, a combination of sand, water and burnt oyster shells. The plantation was burned to the ground by Union troops near the end of the Civil War, although historians dispute a popular local story that General William Tecumseh Sherman was responsible.
The parts of the house still standing provide a good idea of how grand the structure once was, and what a great view its occupants had of the marsh and Colleton River beyond. It is a view that anyone privileged to play a round at the secluded and private Old Tabby can enjoy today.
I will be writing about the beautiful Spring Island community and Arnold Palmer's Old Tabby links in the coming days.
