Deed Restrictions Damn Yankees Plantation Owner Says Northerners ‘Worse Than Fire Ants,’ Won’t Sell To Them

More than a century after Gen. William T. Sherman’s troops burned every building on the property, Henry Ingram Jr. has vowed never to let his plantation fall into Yankee hands again.

Ingram went down to the courthouse Wednesday and filed deed restrictions barring the sale of the land to anyone from north of the Mason-Dixon Line and anyone named Sherman.

Ingram did not return phone calls to his home on Friday, but he told The Beaufort Gazette: “This is the prettiest piece of land in the county, and I want to keep it that way. I want to make sure no one has access to it that I don’t want to be there.”

The deed restrictions he filed at the Jasper County courthouse prohibit the “Yankee race” - those who were born above the Mason-Dixon Line or who have lived there for a year or more - from owning any part of the 1,688 acres.

Also, anyone named Sherman can’t even set foot on the property. In fact, Northerners who aren’t named Sherman but whose names can be spelled from its letters had better stay out, too.

The property, mostly wetlands and tall pines, is five miles north of Savannah, Ga. Ingram said he wants to put a motel, convenience store and restaurant there, along with homes for himself and family members.

South Carolina banker Langdon Cheves established the plantation in 1829 and it quickly became one of the largest rice operations in the area. It was destroyed in January 1865 as Sherman’s troops crossed the Savannah River into South Carolina.

Ingram, who owns several video gambling parlors in the area, bought the property last month for $1.2 million. He lives on Hilton Head Island, a luxury resort area popular with Yankees.

“Slowly but surely they have taken over Hilton Head, they’ve taken over Beaufort County. They’re infiltrating Jasper County,” Ingram told the Savannah (Ga.) Morning News. “They’re worse than fire ants.”

Ingram said he and his son came up with the language and had a lawyer review it.

Bill McElveen, a Columbia real estate attorney, chuckled when told of the restrictions but said they might stand up. “I’d hate to be judge, though. I don’t think you can win with this one,” he said.

Federal laws prevent discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, handicap, marital status or national origin, but say nothing about geography within the United States.

“Someone would have to show (Yankees are) a class of people entitled to some type of protection under discrimination laws,” McElveen said.

Ingram’s deed restrictions say they should not be interpreted as discrimination against “Southern persons of African descent,” and any Southern black can buy the property at a 10 percent discount.

That might invite some sort of reverse-discrimination challenge, said Charles Hedgepath, an assistant vice president with First American Title Insurance Co. in Columbia, but he otherwise agreed with McElveen.