Outside Charleston, 65 acres of gardens have been growing since before the U.S. existed

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They’ve been growing since 1741

Fifteen miles northwest of Charleston, a 110-acre property sits along the Ashley River with gardens that were already 35 years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed.

Middleton Place is a National Historic Landmark, and the gardens that spread across 65 of those acres are the oldest landscaped gardens in the United States.

History here runs in every direction, and not all of it is comfortable. That’s part of why it matters.

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A family at the center of American independence

Henry Middleton acquired this property in 1741 when he married Mary Williams, whose father had built the original house a few years earlier…

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