Culclasure-Geiger Farmstead
National Register Listing
Street Address:
1250 Great Circle Drive, St. Matthews vicinity, SC (Calhoun County)
Alternate Name:
Relief Farm
NRHP Nomination
Record Number:
S10817709018
Description and Narrative:
The Culclasure-Geiger Farmstead is an agricultural complex on a 64.6-acre tract near St. Matthews. The complex’s main residence is a one-and-a-half-story Tidewater or “Carolina Cottage.” Included also are a small wood-frame, side-gabled tenant house built c. 1920, various agricultural outbuildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a 19th century family cemetery, and an abandoned 1829 segment of the State Road. The main house, built c.1830, features a full-width engaged front porch and rear shed room extension with an in antis porch set between the two rooms of the rear extension. When built it was the center of a working plantation with enslaved African American labor; however, much of the acreage was subdivided over the years and/or sold by heirs. Its current A-frame appearance along its side elevations was achieved shortly after initial construction (c. 1835) when both ends of the front porch were enclosed. The enclosures feature entry doors opening directly from the porch and were likely used initially as “stranger rooms” to house travelers. The farm is accessed by a long, unpaved driveway, shaded by an informal mature tree canopy. The property is significant for the architecture of the main house, as well as for important associations with local agricultural and transportation history. Originally a cotton plantation owned by Rev. Nathan Christian David Culclasure, the farmstead continued to evolve over a century of use and after the Civil War transitioned from an enslaved labor force to tenant farming. The property stands today as an excellent local example of an evolving nineteenth-to-twentieth-century rural farm complex in the midlands of South Carolina. Listed in the National Register June 2, 2023.
Period of Significance:
1829 – 1930
Level of Significance:
Local
Area of Significance:
Agriculture;Transportation;Architecture
National Register Determination:
listed
Date of Certification:
June 2 2023
