The story
Magnolia Plantation and Gardens lies on the Ashley River outside Charleston, South Carolina, held by the Drayton family since the 1670s and opened to visitors in 1870, which its stewards call the oldest public gardens in America — azalea and camellia plantings in the romantic style threading black-water swamps, with a post-Civil War main house, the third on the site, at their heart. The estate's wealth was produced by enslaved Africans and their descendants across two centuries, and Magnolia's preserved cabin row and 'From Slavery to Freedom' interpretation now centre those lives — the history that must lead any account, told plainly. Its ghost lore is the garden-romantic kind, kept firmly secondary: visitors and staff describe figures in period dress on the garden paths and bridges at dusk, a woman near the house, voices along the river walk, and unease by the old cabin row — telling without documentation, and the record frames reports near the cabins with particular care and respect. Hours, tours and cabin-programme details from the plantation's official site.