Lydia Plantation

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010.

From the record

“The Lydia Plantation, also known as the Benjamin Sydney Josey Farm, in Lydia, South Carolina is a historic plantation and house. The house was designed by Charles Coker Wilson and his firm Wilson, Sompayrac & Urquhart.”
Wikipedia article Lydia Plantation, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 52 National Register listings published here for Darlington County · listed in 2010 · category: District.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. 703 W Lydia Hwy (US HWY 15/SC HWY 34), Lydia, 29550
When was it listed? May 2010
Category. district
Census division. Hartsville
Architect. Wilson, Sompayrac & Urquhart
National Register reference number. 10000299 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

306 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 306 fires within 5 miles of Lydia Plantation between 1992 and 2020, burning about 1,422 acres in total. 4 started naturally. 52 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	117
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	99
Arson/incendiarism	52
Misuse of fire by a minor	13
Equipment and vehicle use	12
Smoking	6
Natural	4
Other causes	1
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Recreation and ceremony	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
29 September 2019	Natural	3.0 acres	South Carolina Forestry Commission	not named
27 September 1996	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	South Carolina Forestry Commission	not named
22 September 2020	Equipment and vehicle use	2.0 acres	South Carolina Forestry Commission	not named
21 September 2006	Debris and open burning	under an acre	South Carolina Forestry Commission	not named
20 September 2010	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	South Carolina Forestry Commission	not named
19 September 2011	Debris and open burning	under an acre	South Carolina Forestry Commission	not named
16 September 1998	Debris and open burning	2.0 acres	South Carolina Forestry Commission	not named
15 September 2009	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	South Carolina Forestry Commission	not named

Every fire recorded in Darlington County

Storms near this property

11 since 2008

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Lydia, the town this property stands in, in 11 storm reports between 2008 and 2024: 10 thunderstorm wind, 1 hail. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
April 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Lydia	$1,000	Multiple trees down at Hwy 15 and Tomahawk Road.
March 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Lydia	$1,000	A tree was reported down on W Lydia Hwy near the Lydia Fire Department. The time was estimated based on radar data.
July 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Lydia	$1,000	A tree was reported down near the railroad tracks on Wesley Chapel Rd. The time was estimated based on radar data.
July 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Lydia	$1,000	A tree was reported down on U.S. 15. The time was estimated based on radar data.
July 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Lydia	$1,000	A tree was reported down near the intersection of W Lydia Hwy. and Wesley Chapel Rd. The time was estimated based on radar data.
April 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Lydia	$1,000	A large tree was reported down across High Point Road near the Lee County line.
January 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Lydia	-	Wind gust of 65 mph estimated in the town of Lydia.
May 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Lydia	-	Large tree down at corner of Galloway Town Road and Indian Branch Road causing two traffic accidents with no injuries reported.
May 2024	Hail	Lydia	-	Darlington County Agricultural Extension Services reported a corn field was damaged by quarter sized hail near the intersection of Highway 15 and Indian Branch Road.
April 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Lydia	-	Tree down in the vicinity of the intersection of Indian Branch Road and Wesley Chapel Road.
June 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Lydia	-	An antenna, sixty feet high, was blown down. There was substantial damage to several large oak trees, and one tree was toppled. The trees were estimated to be one hundred years old. Darlington County Emergency Management surveyed the damage and determined that it was the result of straight-line winds.

Every storm recorded in Darlington County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Jacob Kelley House	4.8 miles	1971
Magnolia Cemetery	5.2 miles	1994
Robert R. Coker House	5.3 miles	1994
Hart, Thomas E., House, and Kalmia Gardens	5.4 miles	1991
Hartsville Armory	5.6 miles	1994
Coker Experimental Farms	5.6 miles	1966

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 10000299 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Darlington County	All 52 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.