Kensington Mansion

The Kensington Mansion is located at the Headquarters Plantation by the Wateree River in Richland County, South Carolina. The mansion was built in 1854 through the efforts of Matthew Richard Singleton. The mansion was placed across the Singleton family's property in the county of Sumter.

Kensington Mansion was designed by Francis D. Lee and Edward C. Jones architects based in Charleston County. The mansion boasts 12,000 square feet of space and 29 spacious rooms. The basement is home to a cistern, which once contained 10,000 gallons of water for the mansion's residents.

In 1910, Robert Pickett Hamer obtained the Kensington Mansion. Robert Cochrane Hamer, his son, thrived in the mansion until 1941, until the U.S. government acquired the mansion. The government sold the Kensington mansion after the Second World War. It was then transformed into a dairy farm.

In 1981, Union Camp, which is now known as the International Paper, purchased the main in 1891. International Paper restored the mansion and adorned it with relics from the Scarborough and Hamer families.

Kensington Mansion served as the backdrop of Jacob Stroyer's life as a slave during the antebellum era. His chronicles as a slave were published in his 1879 book, "My Life in the South."