History of the DeWitt-Evans House
The original home on this site was built before the Revolution by Capt. William DeWitt. This home was burned by the British and rebuilt about 1785.
DeWitt was married to Mary Devonald, and their daughter, Dorothea DeWitt Evans, married Josiah James Evans of Marlborough District on Christmas Day 1813.
Josiah Evans graduated in the third class (1808) of South Carolina College and served as a trustee for that institution for many years.
He studied law under his brother-in-law Enoch Hanford and was admitted to the Bar in 1811. At the time of his admission, he was an advocate for constitutional reform and universal suffrage, and at age 25, was elected as the first Democratic representative from Marlborough District to defeat a member of the Federal Party.
In 1816, he was elected to the Legislature from Darlington County, and the following year was elected solicitor of the Northern Circuit. In 1829, he became a circuit judge, and sat on the Court of Appeals from 1836-52, when he was elected to the U.S. Senate. He served there until his death in 1858.
Like many in the Society Hill area, Evans was not a disunionist at heart, writing in 1854: “I love the Union, and hope it will be perpetual, but at the same time I love our little State, as I know you do, and will stand by its rights when invaded with my last breath.”
As senator, he chaired the Committee of Revolutionary Soldiers, resurrecting after nearly 80 years a government contract promising half-pay for life to those who had served until the end of the war.
He was caught up in the great debates in the U.S. Senate in the 1850s with Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, carefully and thoroughly defending the state’s record of Revolutionary War service and overall contributions from Sumner’s attacks.
He closed that speech by saying, “Sir, there never was nobler set of men on Earth than those who led the destinies of this country in Massachusetts, South Carolina, Virginia and every other state at that time.”
The DeWitt-Evans House is said to be the oldest remaining in Society Hill.
It boasts numerous distinctive details, including carved wooden cornices on the porch and supporting columns, as well as distinctive masonry chimneys and decorative woodwork on the gables.
An interior closet door shows a handwritten record of weather conditions and river levels over a period of several years in the mid-19th century.
Known as Cedar Farm or Magnolia Hall, the farm and the house were purchased from DeWitt/Evans descendants in 1924 by Frank Burn and has remained in that family since then.
Nearby are an antebellum barn and a brick building known as “The Dairy.”