Cobbs Era
It was once part of the larger Fairfield Plantation but the plantation grounds have mostly been developed with more houses since the 1960's. The main house was built in 1806 by Jack Andrew Cobbs, a wealthy cotton farmer from Atlanta. It was named Shady Acres, because the trees gave a cool shade to the normally humid climate. The house was merely made of wood planks and was 5 miles north of the main city in that era. Cobbs, son Mark, expanded the house in 1827-29, adding two bedrooms and a large indoor kitchen and bought 75 acres of land to the north and south, establishing Fairfield Plantation. The house was rebuilt again in 1840 with bricks and had seven bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, two sitting rooms, and a large smoking room with a library of 5,000 books. The house furnature was imported from Canada, Sweden, England, and Germany. The grounds had several cottages for the slaves, which numbered 65 in 1850. The plantation was wealthy, worth $2 million in 1852 alone and provided the tailors of Georgetown with much of their wool and cotton and also proudced produce for the towns markets.
[edit] Civil War History
The plantation was captured by Union officers on January 6, 1864 and the cottages and fields were burned. The then owner, James Cobb, was later killed in the fighting on May 7, 1864 and the house was used as a Civil War hospital and to house Union soilders. Nurse Anna Gabler is said to have died in the house of exhaustion on December 1, 1864 at the age of 26. When the war ended, the house and plantation was in ruins, the cottages burned, and the riches of the house had been looted. The house sat abandoned until 1867, when it was returned to the Cobb family. The family as nearly broke and sold the house to a banker, Robert Beade, in 1870 and the grounds was sold to Roberts brother, Jimmy.
[edit] The Beade Era
The Beade family restored the house in the 1870's and it was powered by gas lighting by 1873. The grounds were cultivated into a farming facility, and by 1877, a open air market occuping nine acres of ground was in operation on the fields. During the 1877, using water lines linked to a well the house had running water and flusing indoor toiles, a rarity for South Carolina in the 1870's. The farm, valued at $7 million by 1883, had over 15 paid workers. The houses interiors was mostly handmade American and Canada furnature, the origional European pieces had been stolen during the Civil War. Robert Beade died in 1889 from cancer at the age of 66 and the house as inherited by his only son, David Beade and his wife Sharon. In 1895, after the Horry Electric Company laid electric lines to Georgetown, the house was the second house in Georgetown to be wired for electricity. The house had city water line links by 1900 and a private Marconi wireless telegraph by 1902, making it one of the most modern houses of its age. The house had its first telephone installed in 1905 and the house had two telephone lines by 1914, one for for the farm buisness and one for private use. In 1912, when David Beade died at the age of 95, Shady Acres was the "wonder house of Horry County" according to the Horry News issue of January 7, 1913. In 1915, during the ownership of Jacob Beade, the first Presidental guest had dinner at the house when Woodrow Wilson and his aide, Jason Harwood, dined at the house for dinner. Jacob Beade was a successful politican and elected Senator in 1917. During the 1920's, the farm prospered again but it fell from its status as the most luxurious house in the city. Many finer and much modern houses were built to rival Shady Acres. It never lost is history or fame, but its status as an attraction declined as the 1920's progressed. Margie Beade had four acres turned into a garden and small pond in 1923. In 1932, during the Great Depression, a large wrought iron fence was built around the grounds and gardens to prevent break ins and crime. The farm itself was fast loosing money and in 1955 it was closed for good. The Beade family sold most of the grounds, except for the garden and pond, in the early 1960's to be developed into houses. By 1970, the Fairfield Plantation was gone and only the Shady Acres house, the five acres of pond and garden, and a single acre of front lawn survived.
[edit] The Edge Era
In 1971, the last of the Beades, Norman Beade, died and his nephew, Josiah, sold the deed to the grounds to local buisnessman Walter Malcolm Edge and his wife Connie for $650,000 (the value was said to be over $1.7 million). The Edges mostly used the house as a summer retreat, as their main house (another former Civil War hospital and 200 year old house)and hotel buisness was in Conway, South Carolina, about 40 miles to the north. The Edges restored the bricks and concrete in the 1970's and redregged the pond from 4 feet to nearly 10 feet. They also restroed the indoors and replaced the oak staircases, with polished pine wood and carpeted the floors. They also had a Olymic size swimming pool installed on the acre large front lawn and the rest of the grass turned into a flower garden. The fence was replaced with solid concreate and raised to 12 feet high and a single soild iron gate was used as the entrance to the Shady Acres house and was only opened by a key. A 24 carat gold name plate bearing the name "Shady Acres: Home of Walter and Connie Edge" was placed over the gate in 1978. The Edges marriage ended in an amicable divorce in 1981, with Connie and their 11 year old daughter, Joyce, gaining the deed to their Conway house and Walter gaining the deed to Shady Acres in the settlement in July 1981. Walter, mostly rented an apartment in Conway and used Shady Acres as a retreat as normal until he married Glenda White in 1986 and the new Mr. and Mrs. Edge made Shady Acres their permenant home that same year. In 1990, South Carolina Educational Televison used the house for a documentary and interviewed Walter, Glenda, and Connie and a few descendants of the Beade family. The house was added to the Historic Registar in 1998. Glenda Edge died in November 2003 from cancer and Walter Edge sold the house to his cousins, Raymond and Charlotte Buckley and moved to an apartment in Conway. The Buckleys lived in the Georgetown house until they were sent to prison in 2010 for tax evasion.
[edit] Modern use
After the Buckleys went to prison in 2010, the house was managed by Joyce Martin, the daughter of Walter and Connie Edge. In July 2011, it was revelead that the house had been used to harbor Connie Edge, who had escaped from the Panorma Womens Prison in January 2010 after faking her death with the help of Joyce Martin. The house is currently part of the ongoing investigation of the disapperance of the Edges. Joyce Martin, her husband Robert, their four children, and Connie all vanished on July 10, 2011 from Conway, South Carolina and are believed to be hiding in Central America. The house is currently not lived in by anyone but is still owned by the Buckley couple.
