Japonica Hall, built in 1896-97 in the Beaux Arts style by South Carolina architect Charles Coker Wilson, was the home of Maj. James Jonathan Lucas (1831-1914). An earlier house on the site burned in 1892 and had been the home of Dr. Thomas Smith, who died in 1875, and who married the widow of Judge Samuel Wilds. Lucas served Charleston District as a state representative from 1856 to 1862. In 1862, a Citadel graduate, he organized and became major of Lucas' Battalion of Heavy Artillery, which spent most of the Civil War on James Island near Charleston. He moved to Society Hill in 1865 and later served as a director of the Cheraw & Darlington RR and Atlantic Coast Line RR. Japonica Hall was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.