Embankment at Site

(Mt. Joseph Plantation) Fort Motte was militarily significant as the principal depot of British convoys between Charleston and Camden during the American Revolution. Built in 1767, Fort Motte was actually a country farm and the center of Mount Joseph Plantation, the Motte family’s up-country estate. Located near the junction of the Congaree and Wateree Rivers, the plantation was a strategic point on the British supply route between Camden and Charleston. The fort was described as a “new mansion house…situated on a high commanding hill…surrounded with a trench.” General Francis Marion and Colonel Henry Lee ordered the fort be burned and fired upon the British, and consequently, Captain McPherson surrendered. The British surrender of the fort alarmed Lord Rawdon and hastened his retreat from Camden to Charleston. Also of historical interest was the exemplary patriotism that Mrs. Rebecca Motte exhibited in agreeing to sacrifice her home for the cause of American independence. Rebecca Motte’s brother, Miles Brewton, gave her the East Indian arrows designed to ignite upon impact that she provided to Marion and Lee in order to force the British troops to surrender the fort and battlefield. In turning over these arrows, Rebecca Motte sacrificed her own home, and thus the fort burned causing the British to surrender. Listed in the National Register November 9, 1972.

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