Photographs courtesy of Debora Hutchins, May 2017
The Yorkville Historical Society in partnership with the Culture & Heritage Museums have replaced the old Bratton House Site and Jefferson Davis’s Flight historical marker on S. Congress Street near the Rose Hotel at 27 South Congress St, York, SC 29745 with the newly repainted and refurbished marker.
Bratton House Site – Robert Clendinen, Yorkville lawyer and South Carolina Senator from York District (1816-30), purchased this land in 1813. The house which he built here before his death in 1830, was acquired in 1847 by Dr. James Rufus Bratton, a surgeon in the Confederate Army. It was razed in 1956.
Jefferson Davis’s Flight – Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, spent the night of April 27, 1865, in the home of Dr. James Rufus Bratton, which was located on this site. Davis, in danger of capture and arrest by Federal troops, was attempting to reach some remnant of the Confederate Army in the South or West with which he could find protection and continue the War.