On January 5, 1856, Governor James H. Hammond and eleven other farmers of this area organized the Beech Island Agricultural Club for the diffusion of agricultural knowledge and the regulation of illegal slave traffic. Monthly meetings and barbecues have been held almost without interruption since the club's founding. In 1883 E. Spann Hammond donated to the Beech Island Agricultural Club a four-acre circular tract of land located less than a mile north of this site. The original clubhouse was destroyed by fire on August 7, 1967. The new club house was dedicated in June 1968.