Plainsfield Plantation on this site and nearby Pawletts Plantation were established about 1690 by Joseph Blake, one of Carolina’s Lords Proprietors and governor of the colony in 1694 and 1696-1700. Blake, who had come to the colony about 1685 and soon became a member of the Grand Council, named his plantations for locales in his native Somersetshire, England. He was governor when he purchased Sir John Berkeley’s proprietary share in 1694. A Dissenter, he supported religious liberty and citizenship for French Huguenots and other non-English settlers, and he died in office. After his death, the Goose Creek Men, planters who opposed his and the Proprietors’ policies on settlers and Indian trade, took control of the government.