Chely the Beaufort bear: Touring our history
Follow Chely the Beaufort bear as she makes her way around the Beaufort area visiting a different local historical site each week, showing us parts of the 300 years of history and culture that has helped shape Beaufort today.
Today, Chely visits Tabby Manse.
One of the finest early houses in Beaufort, the Tabby Manse was constructed in 1786-1788 as the residence of prominent local planter Thomas Fuller. It is considered an important influence in the establishment of distinctive architecture of the city, and one of the earliest surviving houses in Beaufort.
Local tradition suggests the house was built as a doubtlessly well-recieved wedding present for his bride Elizabeth Middleton.
Author Francis Griswold wrote Sea Island Lady (published 1939) while staying at Tabby Manse.
The land, overlooking the Beaufort Bay, boasts majestic oaks draped in moss adding to the wonderful southern charm that we all adore so much. The house itself contains eight perfectly proportioned rooms and two-foot thick exterior walls made of tabby. The name comes from the construction of the home. Tabby is a mixture of lime made from oyster shells cooked down to ash, fine clean sand and water mixed together to form a slurry poured over whole oyster shells and formed into blocks. Manse, by definition, is the residence of a minister. Thomas Fuller had a son named Richard Fuller that was a mid-nineteenth century Baptist preacher that helped in the construction of the home, hence the word manse. Located at 1211 Bay Street, Tabby Manse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.