James Henry Hammond purchased Dr. Milledge Galpin’s residence near Beech Island and named it Redcliffe Plantation. It is now a State Historic Site. Redcliffe Plantation in Beech Island near Aiken has a strange connection to Columbia and Forest Acres. James Henry Hammond (1807–1864) coined the phrase “Cotton is king” in a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate. He purchased 400–acre Redcliffe Plantation in 1855. The Greek Revival mansion that once commanded acres of cotton fields remains impressive, sitting high on a hill over the Savannah River.

Hammond’s grandson, also James Henry Hammond (1885–1970), was the developer of modern Quinine Hill and one of the founders of the City of Forest Acres. This latter J.H. Hammond was born in 1885 in Blackville, played football at The Citadel, and earned a law degree at USC in 1910. He practiced law and became a leader of the savings and loan associations in the South. He served in the S.C. House of Representatives and the S.C. Senate. Senator Hammond, a leading citizen of Richland County, was president of the Town Theater and the Columbia

There were originally four separate slave quarters at Redcliffe. This remaining one is a duplex style divided by a chimney with back–to– back fireplaces. It housed two slave families. Stage Society and a member of the sesquicentennial Commission in 1936.

The grandfather J.H. Hammond, however, was a scoundrel, a well–connected scoundrel. He married into the Hampton family and was uncle of the famous Governor Wade Hampton III who “saved” S.C. from the Radical Republicans and Reconstruction in 1877.

The first J.H. Hammond graduated from South Carolina College (USC) and became a successful teacher and newspaper man before studying law and entering politics. He was elected U.S. congressman, S.C. governor, and U.S. senator as a staunch states righter and defender of slavery.

Hammond became a wealthy cotton planter and slave owner. In an irony of that day among slave owners, Hammond had a negress mistress and fathered many children by her and her daughters. His appetites didn’t stop there. He also had “dalliances” with his four teenaged Hampton nieces. This sidelined his political career for a while and caused considerable family dissonance that was hushed up. His nieces never married.

The scoundrel’s grandson kept his vices to himself. His greatest “sin” was being a collector of strange items and an inverterate pack rat. He married Janie Marshall, had four children, and received an honorary doctor of law degree from The Citadel in 1969.

The scoundrel’s greatgrandson, John Shaw Billings (1898–1975), editor of Time & Life Magazines, restored Redcliffe Mansion in the 1930s. Billings donated the property to the State of South Carolina in 1973, and it was added the National Register of Historic Places. It is now a State Historic Site.