The Pickens-Salley House has been moved twice on the University of South Carolina Aiken campus, but its place in South Carolina history is secure.
The home is named in honor of two women - Lucy Holcombe Pickens and Eulalie Chafee Salley - who once were the ladies of the house.
"They were women kind of ahead of their time," said Deidre Martin, the USC Aiken vice chancellor for university advancement.
Mrs. Pickens was the third wife of Francis W. Pickens, an ambassador to Russia and the governor of South Carolina when the state seceded from the Union.
"She was someone who had aspirations of her own to be politically active," Dr. Martin said.
Mr. Pickens built the house, originally called Edgewood, in Edgefield in 1829. The plantation home was a center of antebellum social activity.
"They lost most everything after the war except their land," Dr. Martin said.
They were, however, able to hold onto the house because Mrs. Pickens sold some of the jewelry she received as gifts while she and her family lived in Russia.
She lived in the house until her death in 1899, Dr. Martin said, but rumor has it that her ghost still roams the house.
Mrs. Salley was an Aiken real estate broker and the president of the South Carolina Equal Suffrage League. She and her husband, Julian, bought the abandoned house, which had fallen into disrepair, in 1929 and moved it board by board to Kalmia Hill in Aiken.
Jim Farmer, the USC Aiken associate professor of history, said he was surprised the house had survived.
"It was abandoned and not lived in for perhaps 20 to 25 years," he said. "There are so many houses that have been lost over the years."
He said Mrs. Salley saw potential in the house, an example of late Federal architecture in the Upcountry, after she attended an event there.
"The Upcountry houses usually didn't compare very favorably with the grand residences of the Lowcountry," Dr. Farmer said.
Mrs. Salley originally offered the house to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, but the organization could not fund the restoration.
"When the house sat empty in Edgefield," Dr. Martin said, "molding, mantels were taken out of the house."
Mrs. Salley bought new moldings and fireplace mantels for the home from other parts of the South, Dr. Martin said.
According to a USC Aiken magazine article, Women of the House, by Jamie Culbertson, the home has two crystal chandeliers that were given to Mrs. Pickens by the czar and czarina of Russia.
Mrs. Salley lived in the house until she died in 1975.
In 1986 Ronny Bolton, an Aiken developer, bought the house and donated it to USC Aiken. The home was moved to the university campus in three sections and reconstructed. The chancellor, development and alumni offices are in the house.
"We're a modern campus, and certainly, the building is a striking contrast with our other buildings," Dr. Farmer said. "I think it's a wonderful asset for our campus."
Reach Betsy Gilliland at (803) 648-1395, ext. 113, or betsy.gilliland@augustachronicle.com.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2012 Morris Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Back
