Person:Elias Vanderhorst (1)

Research notes

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Upon Arnoldus' death in 1815, Kiawah was passed to his son, Elias Vanderhorst, who in 1821 married Ann Morris. Elias and Ann divided their time between Kiawah, their Charleston townhouse, and a summer retreat on Sullivan's Island. By 1830 they were also spending time at a house on Edisto Island's Eddings Bay.

Letters from the 1840s and 1850s present Kiawah as a rather forlorn island that produced few subsistence crops and even less cotton. Elias wrote in one letter that, "everything goes wrong here - no less than four prime hands [slaves] in the houses for life - two with snake bites, one with dropsy and the other with chronic sore throat." Later he would write that Kiawah "must be considered the Botany Bay," a reference to the Australian penal colony that the British government abandoned as unlivable. This may explain why the number of Kiawah slaves dropped from 115 in 1820 to only 46 in 1840.

At the outbreak of the Civil War Elias removed his slaves from Kiawah, sending them to his Ashepoo plantation, Round-O. In March of 1864 Elias was notified by his factor that he had a $31,754 credit on their books. Six days later he purchased $34,500 of Confederate War Bonds – a tragic mistake that would damage the Vanderhorst fortunes well into the next century.