Fort Hill: National Historic Landmark — Attraction in South Carolina

“He [John C. Calhoun] was an overall great person.” This was said to the group I was touring with. While touring the house the lady was consistently praising a man who was a slave owner and Vice President to a man who kicked thousands of native off their land, an idea that John C. Calhoun originally proposed. She never talked about the experiences of the people they had enslaved on their land until I was forced to speak up and ask. My question was more a statement if I’m being honest, “Didn’t he believe slavery was a positive good?” The lady then attempted to sympathize with his statements towards slavery and I would say tried to justify as well. She barely answered my question and then proceeded to go on a tangent about the “good experiences” the enslaved people had ignoring the other 50 or so who faced horrible conditions in the fields. Some of the things she said were not even historically accurate. As the daughter of a historian, this was a disappointment to say the least. This lady made everybody in the tour group uncomfortable. She should be fired or educated and I hope she does not reflect the rest of the staff and the teaching at...

The site is beautiful, and the outside of the home looks great. But the inside of the house is a mess. Stuff everywhere. The student on site (docent?) was very friendly and pleasant. And sort of knowledgeable. The signage was poor, and was hard to read in the low light in most rooms. There are a lot of historic pieces in the rooms, but their presentation is hodgepodge, and lacks much context. Significant spaces in the house are off-limits to the public, being used instead as storage or work space. Some others shown in the brochure are not mentioned at all.

Additionally, and this may be an unavoidable problem due to the site being in the middle of a large college campus, but there is NO parking available at the house site. It actually took longer to find a spot and walk to the site than it did to tour the house. And the Clemson campus police officer I made the mistake of asking for help, was about the snottiest "public servant" I've come across in a long time. She was...

Amazing hidden gem! We were visiting the Botanical Gardens and the guide there suggested Fort Hill. So glad we took the time to take in this amazing piece of history. We are history buffs and have visited many home in the Carolina area but none have truly had original furnishings-more than 90% of what we saw were original to this home and the family. Thank you so very much to the guide (a fellow Minnesotan I might add) for your vast amount of knowledge and clarifying historical facts for us. You were amazingly enthusiastic and we greatly appreciated your time...