The Kershaw-Cornwallis house was reconstructed in 1977 on the home’s original foundations in Historic Camden. Two hundred years earlier town founder Joseph Kershaw built the Georgian-style home for himself. Kershaw came to the area he named for Lord Camden in 1758 from Yorkshire, England. He became a successful merchant who made the town a central trading hub for the colony by 1768.

In 1780, during the Revolutionary War, Lord Charles Cornwallis marched to Camden with 2,500 British troops as part of the British War Office’s plan to take control of the southern colonies. After Major General Henry Clinton succeeded in overtaking Charleston in May of 1780, he sent Lord Cornwallis to secure Camden, which he did handily. Kershaw’s home was seized by Cornwallis and used as a supply post, and the British troops remained for 11 months. Lord Francis Rawdon continued occupation of the home the following year, using it for his headquarters.

After the war, the home was used as a school for orphans before once again being occupied by the enemy when Union troops used it as their headquarters towards the end of the Civil War. The troops burned the home along with most of the town’s structures in 1865. An archaeological dig conducted in 1968 revealed the home’s original brick foundations, and it was rebuilt with historical accuracy in 1977.

Today the home serves as the centerpiece of Historic Camden, a 107-acre living history site where the annual Revolutionary War Field Days reenactment is held. The site also features many smaller homes set up as miniature museums.

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