Preservation
The Dataw Historic Foundation collaborated with South Carolina and the Federal government to get the Sams Tabby Complex recorded as South Carolina archaeological site 38BU581 on the National Register of Historic Places. The main complex contains the ruins of a plantation house and ancillary buildings. Away from the main site, there are ruins of a cotton barn and a small chapel beside the family cemetery. At the far north end of the island are the limited ruins of a second plantation house generally covered by the tides. All of these are made of tabby or resting on tabby foundations.
Dataw Island and especially the location of the B.B.Sam’s ruins have been settled since the late 1700s. The fact that the island was a cotton plantation until the Civil War and then reverted to small subsistence and truck farming until the mid-1980s meant that the early tabby buildings were allowed to deteriorate but were not obliterated by development. By the time ALCOA began developing today’s residential community in 1983, it was still possible to define many of the original structures.
Early efforts of ALCOA, coupled with those of various local historical groups, were focused on the archaeological investigations of the island. By the early 1990s, the decision was made that the prime effort would be to preserve the ruins as they then existed, and nothing would be attempted in the way of restoration. From then until now, work in support of that objective has been ongoing under DHF management. We have worked in consultation with professional archaeological and architectural preservation specialists. The actual work has taken two courses. First, there has been an effort to apply timber bracing to standing walls and wood framing to the few window openings still existing. The very rare tabby roof of the dairy building has a crack through it being monitored weekly; additional stress gauges are to be installed. The second significant effort has been to add a protective “concrete” cap to all exposed horizontal walls and deteriorating foundation surfaces.
The link below takes you to an extensive set of photographs and descriptions of 19th Century artifacts found on Dataw Island. Some of these items even date back to the natives who lived here thousands of years ago.
