Old Brick Remains, Need Help Identifying

Could I get some of our more educated ATS members in the area of history and archaeology to look at this video and see if I can get an educated guess as to the age of these remains?

Information about the video: I took these yesterday while our scout group was camping at Dreher Island State Park in South Carolina. I can't find much history of the area other than what the wikipedia lists about Lake Murray

The chimney remains and a little bit of foundation are slightly off the beaten track of the nature trail that is there. There is no marker, and the area is over grown. We asked a park ranger later about it, and most of them had no clue, however an older one mentioned that it may have been part of the old Dreher homestead.
I did find a post on the internet were some people had been doing some Geocaching, and claimed that Billy Dreher lived in that house until 1938. I can't find any confirmation of that, and I find that claim hard to believe as if the house were still standing in 1938, it would not have reduced to what we'd seen (we discounted fire as there had not been a history of fire there, nor did any of the stones there show any kind of scorching outside of the fire place).

We'd just like to get an estimate of how old the site might be. Unfortunately, none of us adults are history majors.

Here is the video:

I have no idea what it is/was - but I find these types of buildings on my treks through the woods sometimes.. This was probably an old house. If you really are interested I would go to a library in that county and try to get old land surveys, old property records, public records of the town it is in or nearest to.. Once these things are publicly forgotten they can be hard to dig up information on.

If you have the means, might be a great place to take a metal detector. That might also shed some light on what it is. Cool find. =]

Maybe campers used the wood parts of the dilapidated structure for campfire fuel over the years. It probably wasn't a very big house.

reply to post by TinkerHaus


Hehehe. Park rangers would be a bit upset if me and the guys went up there and started digging holes.



Be a bit hard to do that as the ground all through the part is littered with huge chunks of white marble and granite. Farming was done down in the lower areas (now flooded when they dammed the Saluda River back in the 1920's). Sonar pictures still show some really cool things down in the lake however:

The Wyse Ferry Bridge before the dam went up


Sonar picture of the bridge down at the bottom of the lake:


I most likely could chase this down better by doing research at a local library in the area, but don't really have that time free to do so, and was hoping a experience eye here might be able to tell me (not to mention I'd have to drive back up there, hehehe).

Yeah, sorry.. I thought you wanted to know what it is.

Hard to tell with some pictures of an old chimney and no investigation of the surrounding area. You've been there, you have more to work with than anyone else..

Originally posted by TinkerHaus
Yeah, sorry.. I thought you wanted to know what it is.

Hard to tell with some pictures of an old chimney and no investigation of the surrounding area. You've been there, you have more to work with than anyone else..

'Tis okay. We have others in our group looking into it too, some live closer and when they get a chance they'll look into it locally as you suggested (and more likely the answer is there). I just thought I'd ask here just in case anyone had been there or knows the area.

The video is not that great, heheh, I'd just gone about halfway on a 2.1 mile hike and didn't think to take better pictures of it. Wish I had now.

Originally posted by TinkerHaus
I have no idea what it is/was - but I find these types of buildings on my treks through the woods sometimes.. This was probably an old house. If you really are interested I would go to a library in that county and try to get old land surveys, old property records, public records of the town it is in or nearest to.. Once these things are publicly forgotten they can be hard to dig up information on.

If you have the means, might be a great place to take a metal detector. That might also shed some light on what it is. Cool find.

Good advice about checking the surveys, etc.

Bad advice abut the metal detector. Could well be that looting a site is forbidden in state parks. Either way, you'd be wrecking the scene for any professionals trying to answer the questions you are asking.