For Immediate Release:
March 19, 2024 Contact:
Marie Cheek
Community Relations Coordinator
Culture & Heritage Museums
www.chmuseums.org
803.909.7312 mcheek@chmuseums.org
Culture & Heritage Museums is a 2024 recipient of Americana Corner’s Preserving America Grant Program
Funds help defray the costs of replacing the roof on original frame outbuilding at Historic Brattonsville
McCONNELLS, S.C. – Americana Corner Grant Program, a resource dedicated to telling the story of America from its founding era through its first century as a nation, has awarded Culture & Heritage Museums funds to help provide a new roof on an original frame outbuilding at Historic Brattonsville. CHM plans to replace the outbuilding’s existing corroded, warped, and historically inaccurate crimp metal roof with cedar shakes. Evidence of wood shakes was found in the outbuilding’s attic by Brattonsville’s preservation team, supporting the determination that the roof was historically a shake roof.
The outbuilding is a small, one room timber-framed structure with a floored attic level. Constructed in the early to mid-nineteenth century, the building is in close proximity to the recently restored Brick House and was likely used in the operation of the Bratton Store, circa 1843-1885. Once the roof is replaced, Historic Brattonsville will open the frame structure to the public with interpretation in conjunction with the Brick House.
In their press release dated Feb. 22, 2024, Americana Corner announced the names of 121 organizations who will receive funds and expressed commitment to “help fund a diverse range of projects, including restoring historical sites, structures and objects; creating educational displays to enhance the visitor experience; and implementing strategies to increase visibility and reach of historical sites.”
“Historic structures, such as this original outbuilding, serve as physical links to our past. The construction and detailing of this outbuilding suggest it is an early nineteenth century structure. Unlike many of the surviving buildings from this era at Brattonsville, there is no written record suggesting its history. All of what we currently know about the early history of this outbuilding comes from the physical evidence of the building itself. Thanks to the generous funding provided by Americana Corner, this outbuilding can be preserved along with the historical information it contains.” — Zachary Lemhouse, Historian and Director of the Southern Revolutionary War Institute for Culture & Heritage Museums.
IMAGE: One of Historic Brattonsville’s original structures, the frame outbuilding as it looks today, in anticipation of a new, historically accurate wood shake roof. Courtesy of Culture & Heritage Museums. For high resolution images, please contact mcheek@chmuseums.org .
Want to visit Historic Brattonsville?
WHERE: 1444 Brattonsville Rd., McConnells, S.C. 29726
GENERAL ADMISSION: Adults $8; Seniors $7; Youth $5; Free for CHM Members & under 3.
WEBSITE: chmuseums.org
VISITORS SERVICES: 803.684.2327
About Historic Brattonsville:Historic Brattonsville features historic houses and structures built over the course of three generations of the Bratton family and the enslaved community. Award-winning exhibits and programs tell York County’s unique history from the American Revolution to the Reconstruction Era. The site spreads over 800 acres and includes farmed land with heritage breed animals, a Revolutionary War battlefield with interpretive trail, and a nature preserve with miles of walking trails. Seasonal events, reenactments, and living history programs interpret what life was like in the Carolina Piedmont during the 18th and 19th centuries.Historic Brattonsville is included in “The Green Book of South Carolina – A Travel Guide to S.C. African American Cultural Sites.”
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