Historic Little River

Vereen Memorial Historical Gardens

Highway 179 to Calabash – A 114 acre tract of woodlands and salt marsh one mile south of the South Carolina State line from Calabash, North Carolina, the beautiful Vereen Memorial Historical Gardens extends more than 1,000 feet in width, from U.S. 17 to the Little River and the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The Vereen Gardens is a small portion of a 400 acre plantation that has been in the Vereen family since the early 1800s. The land donor was Jackson Hiram "Jack" Vereen of Madarin, Florida, who was born in Little River in 1882, the son of Hartford Jennings Vereen and the former Florence C. Frink of Brunswick County, N.C. In 1972, Jack Vereen deeded the property to the Horry County Historical Commission. The Gardens include the historic Vereen Family Cemetery, which features Revolutionary war graves. The Vereens were instrumental in having the old family cemetery restored in the late 1950's.

The Vereen Gardens also includes the Kings Highway which was a part of the Atlantic Coastal Transportation system, in place, at least from the time of the earliest white settlement in the American colonies. It is said to have been traveled by Lafayette in 1777 and Washington in 1791. It is one of the few stretches of the Kings Highway to retain its unpaved original appearance.