Boone Hall started as a brick producer

"Boone Hall Plantation," by Michelle Adams, is part of Arcadia Publishing's Images of America series. It became available for purchase in August and can be found at Boone Hall Plantation and area bookstores.

With all the fresh produce found at Boone Hall, people might be surprised to learn that the farm east of the Cooper started out producing bricks.

Michelle Adams, the author of "Boone Hall Plantation," said it wasn't the stereotypical rice and cotton plantation of the Lowcountry.

"It was a brickyard, a brick-producing plantation," she said, producing more bricks than any other after the Civil War.

Adams' book, published by Arcadia, was derived from 10 years of research that began when she worked as a tour guide at the plantation while studying history at the College of Charleston in the late 1990s.

Adams writes that Boone Hall bricks were used to build several Charleston homes as well as Fort Sumter. Much of the 127 pages are photographs Adams found at the S.C. Historical Society appearing with a scrapbook compiled by Thomas Stone, who purchased the plantation during the Depression.

"It's very entertaining to read," Adams said of the scrapbook.

Adams pitched the book to Arcadia after reading about a similar book about Daniel Island. Arcadia's formula requires more photos than words, which meant that Adams left out some stories, such as Prince Dmitri Djordjaze's relationship to Russian nobility. The prince was an owner of Boone Hall.

But perhaps that can be part of a future project.

Adams, a Summerville resident, has finished a second book, "Sarah Boone of the Lowcountry" a historical fiction based on the plantation. The main character is an 11-year-old girl living at Boone Hall during the Revolutionary War. That book is due out next spring.

Reach Jessica Johnson at 937-5921 or jjohnson@postandcourier.com.