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Home by the River
This is the story of Rutledge's return after 44 years to Hampton Plantation, his boyhood home. Built in 1730 the stately mansion and its extensive grounds and woodlands are now one of South Carolina's state parks, located 40 miles northeast of Charleston. The restoration of the house, and reminiscences of Rutledge's early years there captures the true spirit of Hampton.
- GenresMemoirSouthernNonfiction
167 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1941
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About the author
Archibald Rutledge
110 books9 followersArchibald Hamilton Rutledge (1883-1973) was a South Carolina poet laureate. He is remembered as one of America's best-loved outdoor writers. His short stories appeared in Outdoor Life and Field and Stream, plus he wrote more than 50 books including An American Hunter (1937), Old Plantation Days (1907) and Wild Life of the South (1935).
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
April 6, 2022
There's something relaxing about shopping at a library sale that I don't sense when I shop at a big book store. Part of it is price, I know. I can afford to gamble on a stack of books when they range from a quarter to five dollars, but that's not the case when I'm in an actual book store. There I'm less likely to pick up something just because it looks interesting.
This book is a good example. I stopped by a new thrift store and glanced at the titles on the quarter shelf. Home by the River was there, a dark green hardback without its paper cover so I didn't know what it was about. I gambled. When I got home, I searched the title on Goodreads and found a brief synopsis and a couple of reviews (comments really). I still didn't know I was in for a treat.
As soon as I started to read, Marjorie K Rawlings' Cross Creek came to mind, but this is set in South Carolina, not Florida. And Rutledge didn't purchase the land, his family acquired the property back in 1686. After an absence of 44 years, Rutledge returned to Hampton in 1937 where he set about restoring the stately plantation (which is now a state park).
Here we get a glimpse of what it must be like to restore an old home that was once elegant but has been empty for a good many years. I would have liked more detail, but his purpose wasn't to focus on the restoration. He wants the reader to appreciate not only the structure, but also the grounds, the wildlife, and the personalities of "his Negro workers" (the author is a product of his times). Rutledge's writing reflects his assumption of responsibility for his help as well as his admiration and appreciation of their skills. Chapters on the birds, the delta, and living with an ever-changing land reveal his passion for all things natural.
There are so many passages I could quote, but I'm including only a few of them.
• While digging a hole near the house, my spade grated on something. Carefully I investigated and at length uncovered neatly laid in a perfect row eleven ancient bottles, brilliant in reds and blues and opalines. They had been deep underground certainly for 150 years, and perhaps for much longer. ... I might add that in general cleaning up I have discovered more than 2000 antique bottles, just and jars.
..... Wouldn't that have been fun!
• Like most living things, turkeys hanker after the place where they were born, and unless greatly disturbed will commonly be found near their old hearthstone. I have known an unmolested flock to sleep night after night in the same trees, and sometimes on the same limbs.
..... He has a lot to say about turkeys and the other wildlife that inhabit the plantation. I must admit that the alligators and poisonous snakes would make me decidedly uneasy.
And he ends with one of his guiding beliefs:
• I realize that I am but a visitor here in this stately home. I am, therefore, trying to be a considerate guest.
This book is a good example. I stopped by a new thrift store and glanced at the titles on the quarter shelf. Home by the River was there, a dark green hardback without its paper cover so I didn't know what it was about. I gambled. When I got home, I searched the title on Goodreads and found a brief synopsis and a couple of reviews (comments really). I still didn't know I was in for a treat.
As soon as I started to read, Marjorie K Rawlings' Cross Creek came to mind, but this is set in South Carolina, not Florida. And Rutledge didn't purchase the land, his family acquired the property back in 1686. After an absence of 44 years, Rutledge returned to Hampton in 1937 where he set about restoring the stately plantation (which is now a state park).
Here we get a glimpse of what it must be like to restore an old home that was once elegant but has been empty for a good many years. I would have liked more detail, but his purpose wasn't to focus on the restoration. He wants the reader to appreciate not only the structure, but also the grounds, the wildlife, and the personalities of "his Negro workers" (the author is a product of his times). Rutledge's writing reflects his assumption of responsibility for his help as well as his admiration and appreciation of their skills. Chapters on the birds, the delta, and living with an ever-changing land reveal his passion for all things natural.
There are so many passages I could quote, but I'm including only a few of them.
• While digging a hole near the house, my spade grated on something. Carefully I investigated and at length uncovered neatly laid in a perfect row eleven ancient bottles, brilliant in reds and blues and opalines. They had been deep underground certainly for 150 years, and perhaps for much longer. ... I might add that in general cleaning up I have discovered more than 2000 antique bottles, just and jars.
..... Wouldn't that have been fun!
• Like most living things, turkeys hanker after the place where they were born, and unless greatly disturbed will commonly be found near their old hearthstone. I have known an unmolested flock to sleep night after night in the same trees, and sometimes on the same limbs.
..... He has a lot to say about turkeys and the other wildlife that inhabit the plantation. I must admit that the alligators and poisonous snakes would make me decidedly uneasy.
And he ends with one of his guiding beliefs:
• I realize that I am but a visitor here in this stately home. I am, therefore, trying to be a considerate guest.
September 13, 2016
I loved this book. Yes, there are attitudes towards African-Americans that are troubling for us but it was truly a different time and I feel about this book much the same way I feel about M.K. Rawling's Cross Creek, I can appreciate it for what it is in its place.
That being said, this is a beautiful book. There are many passages that bring to mind another book I love, A Tinker at Pilgrim Creek by Annie Dillard. It was fun to read of a place where so many of the people I consider heroes had visited but Mr. Rutledge's observations of nature are fascinating and lovely. I envy him this idyllic life he was able to choose for himself. His description of moonlight is the most glorious that I have ever read. Also, when he describes his library, my head explodes.
Some of my favourite passages:
"Whatever work had to be done at Hampton, I had to do largely myself. But perhaps half the fun in the venture has come from that very fact. I always liked the saying, 'The difficult is what can be done now; the impossible, what can be done soon.'"
"This is a haunted region, for there is no earthly loneliness like that created by man's abandonment of what he once loved, enjoyed, and considered secure and permanent."
"I never can understand why a romanticist thinks he is wholly right, nor why a realist thinks he is. Both are right and both are wrong. Life everywhere, in all ages, has its azaleas and has its razorbacks. But the moonlight of life is as authentic as its sunlight."
"I suppose that no clearer indication of the culture of a people can be found than that disclosed by an examination of their reading matter. There has always been at Hampton an unusual library, not so large as it is distinctive. The oldest book I have is Sir Edward Coke's Laws of England, printed in 1590. There are first editions of practically everything worth while in English from the time of Milton. There is a magnificent Johnson's edition of Shakespeare. One day I found an autographed copy of Florence Nightingale's Autobiography. Few people, I believe, know that she ever wrote one."
"Books on law, on religion, on politics, on history, poetry, drama, and fiction of the highest type - these constituted the reading of plantation families. And it was this sort of education, together, perhaps, with schooling in England, which enabled a young man like Thomas Lynch, Jr., to affix his signature to the Declaration of Independence when he was only twenty-six years old."
"Nor, in this swift and changing life, can a human being find a deeper and more innocent pleasure than in seeing the things that he has planted grow into strength and beauty. It can be done, but it takes virtue to do it: the virtue of care, of patience, of intelligence and, if you please, of love."
"It is a habit of my life always to be out of the house before daybreak. There are sights and sounds, there is a glory on the world then that it hardly wears at any other time. And I treasure the memories of things seen and heard then."
"Thus a favorite plantation prayer is, 'O Lord, prop me up in all my leaning places!'"
"This same dusky philosopher remarked, 'Unless a man is in trouble, his prayers ain't got no suction.'"
"Moonrise in the pinelands is the witching hour, when every scar is magically healed, when every object, however obscure and mean its aspect by day, is wrought to virginal marble by an all-forgiving wand, is statued in lily-white stone. The beauty of the moonlight has always seemed to me not so much a thing in itself as its transforming and transfiguring power. In that it is like love."
"The transition from day to night has the quiet majesty that we associate with the eternal cosmic processes. Day dies in beauty, and night awakes in loveliness. The effect of this immense serenity on the human spirit cannot but be beneficent. At such a time I feel the touch only of the things great and immemorial, only the mightier movements of nature, only the stars and the seasons, only winds and rivers and stately trees, only life and love and death. The pinelands at night reconcile me to all that has been or may be; there I become an intimate of eternity, a joyous living soul, a child of God once more. As the great forest composes itself to sleep, so the human spirit in that environment comes to a stillness of ecstasy, accepting life as a privilege to be in communion with beauty and with ancient order and with eternal rhythm of creation."
That being said, this is a beautiful book. There are many passages that bring to mind another book I love, A Tinker at Pilgrim Creek by Annie Dillard. It was fun to read of a place where so many of the people I consider heroes had visited but Mr. Rutledge's observations of nature are fascinating and lovely. I envy him this idyllic life he was able to choose for himself. His description of moonlight is the most glorious that I have ever read. Also, when he describes his library, my head explodes.
Some of my favourite passages:
"Whatever work had to be done at Hampton, I had to do largely myself. But perhaps half the fun in the venture has come from that very fact. I always liked the saying, 'The difficult is what can be done now; the impossible, what can be done soon.'"
"This is a haunted region, for there is no earthly loneliness like that created by man's abandonment of what he once loved, enjoyed, and considered secure and permanent."
"I never can understand why a romanticist thinks he is wholly right, nor why a realist thinks he is. Both are right and both are wrong. Life everywhere, in all ages, has its azaleas and has its razorbacks. But the moonlight of life is as authentic as its sunlight."
"I suppose that no clearer indication of the culture of a people can be found than that disclosed by an examination of their reading matter. There has always been at Hampton an unusual library, not so large as it is distinctive. The oldest book I have is Sir Edward Coke's Laws of England, printed in 1590. There are first editions of practically everything worth while in English from the time of Milton. There is a magnificent Johnson's edition of Shakespeare. One day I found an autographed copy of Florence Nightingale's Autobiography. Few people, I believe, know that she ever wrote one."
"Books on law, on religion, on politics, on history, poetry, drama, and fiction of the highest type - these constituted the reading of plantation families. And it was this sort of education, together, perhaps, with schooling in England, which enabled a young man like Thomas Lynch, Jr., to affix his signature to the Declaration of Independence when he was only twenty-six years old."
"Nor, in this swift and changing life, can a human being find a deeper and more innocent pleasure than in seeing the things that he has planted grow into strength and beauty. It can be done, but it takes virtue to do it: the virtue of care, of patience, of intelligence and, if you please, of love."
"It is a habit of my life always to be out of the house before daybreak. There are sights and sounds, there is a glory on the world then that it hardly wears at any other time. And I treasure the memories of things seen and heard then."
"Thus a favorite plantation prayer is, 'O Lord, prop me up in all my leaning places!'"
"This same dusky philosopher remarked, 'Unless a man is in trouble, his prayers ain't got no suction.'"
"Moonrise in the pinelands is the witching hour, when every scar is magically healed, when every object, however obscure and mean its aspect by day, is wrought to virginal marble by an all-forgiving wand, is statued in lily-white stone. The beauty of the moonlight has always seemed to me not so much a thing in itself as its transforming and transfiguring power. In that it is like love."
"The transition from day to night has the quiet majesty that we associate with the eternal cosmic processes. Day dies in beauty, and night awakes in loveliness. The effect of this immense serenity on the human spirit cannot but be beneficent. At such a time I feel the touch only of the things great and immemorial, only the mightier movements of nature, only the stars and the seasons, only winds and rivers and stately trees, only life and love and death. The pinelands at night reconcile me to all that has been or may be; there I become an intimate of eternity, a joyous living soul, a child of God once more. As the great forest composes itself to sleep, so the human spirit in that environment comes to a stillness of ecstasy, accepting life as a privilege to be in communion with beauty and with ancient order and with eternal rhythm of creation."
May 5, 2013
Poetic, beautifully written. Read this while on a recent trip to Myrtle Beach, not realizing that the historic home at the center of this story was extant and open to visitors under an hour away! My visit to Hampton Plantation was all the more magical for having read this evocative homage to a home, its history, and the people who built and resided in it for generations. Look forward to reading more of Rutledge's writing.
June 1, 2016
One of my favorite books! I love to sit on a porch swing outside and read it in the summer. How wonderful it would be if we all took time to sit and think deeply about life, enjoying simple things and learning from all the nature God provided around us.
January 12, 2024
Great insight into plantation culture, Carolina history, and Rutledge is of course a superb outdoor writer. The nature scenes and stories are great, but the treatment, stereotypes, and references to African Americans soured me on the work quite a bit.
April 17, 2019
Beautiful reflections on life and land in the coastal south in the previous century. Rutledge presents the legacy of a plantation with accounts both glorious and deeply troubling.
January 4, 2022
An endearing work about a plantation in the Lowcountry from ca 1940.
August 5, 2017
The author's thoughts center around his reclaiming of his boyhood home as an adult and his life there immediately following his return. The home, Hampton Plantation in the South Carolina Lowcountry, is notable due to its history and its present status as a state historic site. While I generally enjoyed the book, I found it's focus to be on the things I least enjoyed - the flora and fauna of the area, which was the author's passion - instead of things about which I wanted more information - the history of the property and his remodeling/preservation work over the years.
April 10, 2025
Book -In my library
December 29, 2016
Having recently moved to South Carolina's Low Country, in Mount Pleasant, just north of Charleston, I couldn't offer a volume that encapsulates the beauty--and the struggle--of this area better than this now "ancient" book, originally published in 1941.
South Carolina's first poet laureate, Archibald Rutledge, was a direct descendent of a governor of South Carolina, a chief justice of the Supreme Court and a signer of the Constitution. He grew up on Hampton Plantation on land owned by his family since the early-1700's--left it for 44 years, only to return in 1937 to restore the home and subsequently write about the home's history in "Home by the River."
While I struggled to get used to the seemingly blunt (although period "appropriate") language used in reference to African Americans, Rutledge is ultimately endearing and his writing is gorgeous.
South Carolina's first poet laureate, Archibald Rutledge, was a direct descendent of a governor of South Carolina, a chief justice of the Supreme Court and a signer of the Constitution. He grew up on Hampton Plantation on land owned by his family since the early-1700's--left it for 44 years, only to return in 1937 to restore the home and subsequently write about the home's history in "Home by the River."
While I struggled to get used to the seemingly blunt (although period "appropriate") language used in reference to African Americans, Rutledge is ultimately endearing and his writing is gorgeous.
Read
December 25, 2016Loved... Hampton Plantation tales. Read more of him.
December 1, 2008
Loved his passion for horticulture and generally a very interesting history read for anyone interested in the Georgetown county area of South Carolina.
January 11, 2012
Gives very interesting insight into the "South"
February 18, 2018
Had this book on the shelf for years.... This is my first book of anything by Archibald Rutledge. I must read more from this SC low country author, who's ancestors carved the Hampton out of what was then untamed frontier.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews