Chicora Wood originated in several grants to John Allson in 1732, 1734, and later, and by 1806 it was owned by his grandson Benjamin, Jr., of Brookgreen. The property passed first to Benjamin's widow Charlotte and then after her death in 1824 to her son Robert F.W. Allston (1801-1864), a rice planter who served as a state representative and senator from 1828 to 1856 and as governor from 1856 to 1858. The house was completed in 1838 by Robert F.W. Allston and his wife Adele Petigru. Their daughter Elizabeth Allston Pringle (1845-1921) continued planting rice here for 40 years after her father died in 1864 and wrote of life at Chicora Wood in A Woman Rice Planter (1913) and Chronicles of Chicora Wood (1922). She died here in 1921.