DeBordieu is one of the oldest beachside communities on the east coast. According to local legend, the name 'DeBordieu' was given to this area by the Marquis de Lafayette. After navigating secretly for 54 days in order to avoid being captured by the British fleet, Lafayette landed his ship Victory on June 13, 1777, and exclaimed 'This land is so beautiful, it must the borderland of God!' (D'aborde Dieu). Our southern pronunciation 'Debidue' comes from the local Gullah dialect.
During the American colonial and antebellum periods, DeBordieu was at the center of the South Carolina Rice empire. Georgetown was the largest rice producing region in the United States and, in 1850, was the second largest rice producing region in the entire world. The Waccamaw Neck was then a long line of riverside rice plantations whose properties typically ran from the Waccamaw River to the Atlantic Ocean. Waccamaw Neck rice planters were among the most affluent and influential Americans of their day.
In the Spring of each year during the plantation era, area rice planters and their families would vacate their palatial homes to escape the mysterious fever which sickened and killed so many South Carolinians in those days. (Eventually, the 'fever' would be traced to the Anopheles mosquito which produced malaria and would be eradicated by pesticides.) Although many families would go to the mountains or to the North during 'fever season', others would stay closer to home by moving to the beach. Perhaps the largest and most popular beach community during the era of the rice empire was at DeBordieu.
Many of the most prominent rice planters traveled to DeBordieu to reside at their beach homes. They enjoyed DeBordieu's warm ocean breezes, natural beauty and healthy climate. Among the prominent planters who owned beach homes at DeBordieu were South Carolina Governor Joseph Alston and his beautiful, famous wife, Theodosia Burr Alston, the daughter of Thomas Jefferson's Vice President, Aaron Burr. So popular was the beach community at DeBordieu that a school was also erected, pastored by the Reverent Alexander Glennie, a prominent South Carolina clergyman during the colonial and early national periods.
British plats from the colonial period refer to the DeBordieu area as 'Yahaney' and indicate a degree of seasonal activity in the community. The Mills map of 1825 shows a beach village on the southern end of DeBordieu with a companion settlement across the inlet on North Island. It was on nearby North Island in 1777 that the Marquis de Lafayette and the famous Prussian freedom fighter, Baron DeKalb, made their American landfall en route to provide leadership of George Washington's Continental Army during the American Revolution.
During the War Between the States, DeBordieu was the site of a skirmish between Confederate Cavalry (the 21st Georgia) and United States seamen from Federal warships sent to destroy the steamer Dan, a Southern blockade runner which had beached on DeBordieu while under pursuit by the warships.
The planter's beach colony disappeared after the collapse of the rice empire following the War Between the States, but among local residents DeBordieu retained its reputation for spectacular natural beauty.
At the end of the 19th century, many of the former rice plantations in the area were purchased by wealthy Northern businessmen who bought the once famous land for use as winter retreats and hunting sites. In 1906 Dr. Isaac Emerson, the 'Bromo-Seltzer King' and the man who invented that famous medicinal aid, began to acquire property on the Waccamaw Neck. By the time his purchase was completed, he owned seven former rice plantations- Bannockburn, Oak Hill, Prospect Hill, Clifton, Forlorn Hope, Rose Hill and Fairfield. Dr. Emerson made his home in the riverside manor house at Prospect Hill.
Dr. Emerson called his estate Arcadia. He amassed a remarkable collection of 18th and 19th century horse drawn carriages and lived the life of a rice planter. In 1936 Arcadia passed in the hands of Dr. Emerson's grandson, George Vanderbilt. DeBordieu remained in the Vanderbilt family until the early 1970's when it was sold by Lucille Vanderbilt, heir to the Emerson/Vanderbilt legacy, to Wallace Pate, who began its development.
In the 21st Century, the intervening years have not diminished the beauty that LaFayette found so captivating. With only 1250 homesites on 2700 acres, and hundreds of acres established as a wildlife preserve in perpetuity, DeBordieu will delight residents and guests for generations to come.
