Plainsfield Plantation

Front: Plainsfield Plantation, on this site, and Pawletts Plantation, nearby, were established ca. 1690 by Joseph Blake (1663-1700), one of Carolina’s Lords Proprietors and governor of the colony 1694 and 1696-1700. Blake, who had come to the colony ca. 1685 and was soon a member of the Grand Council, named his plantations for locales in his native Somersetshire, England. Reverse: Blake was governor when he purchased Sir John Berkeley’s proprietary share in 1694. Blake, a Dissenter who supported religious liberty and citizenship for French Huguenots and other non-English settlers, died in office. The “Goose Creek Men,” planters who opposed his and the Proprietors’ policies on settlers and Indian trade, took control of the government after Blake’s death.