The Accidental Birth of Swan Lake

At 822 W. Liberty St., a pond sits on land older than Swan Lake Iris Gardens. Before Hamilton Carr Bland arrived, Richard Bradford had established a sawmill there, and the site already included a mill pond. In 1927, Bland bought the property and began developing it as a fishing retreat and garden.

Nearly a century later, the reason to revisit the story is not the next bloom season but the city’s history pages, which still give different accounts of when the gardens became public.

The familiar story begins with Japanese iris that would not bloom. According to the City of Sumter, Bland was landscaping his home while also developing 30 acres of swamp at First Mill. After consulting horticulturists, he ordered his gardener to dig up the struggling plants and dump them at the swamp. The following spring, the iris bloomed, and the city calls the result an “accidental garden.”

But the earliest account located for this story puts a different fact first: Bland was planning a garden.

An archival reconstruction published by The Sumter Item, by archivist Sammy Way, cites an August 1927 newspaper report saying Bland had planted Japanese iris and flowering trees that he “planned to convert into an aquatic garden.” The report described the lake and surrounding garden as a 21-acre beauty spot. The complication is that Way’s later reconstruction also repeats the dumping story. It says Bland, after failing to grow Japanese iris near his Hampton Avenue home, “threw the bulbs away near the pond as trash, and they flourished ever since.” The contrast is not Way against the city. It is the contemporaneous 1927 newspaper account against the story as it was retold afterward, including in Way’s later account.

*The old pond and the planned garden*

The 1941 guidebook “South Carolina: A Guide to the Palmetto State,” compiled by the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration, lists Bland Town Garden at Hampton Avenue and Purdy Street among the beauty spots H.C. Bland developed for public enjoyment. It calls Swan Lake Garden “Bland’s other gift” and describes it as a Sumter businessman’s hobby, mentioning water and bog plants, Japanese iris and swans.

What the guide leaves out matters. It does not repeat the story about failed iris being thrown into the swamp and unexpectedly becoming a garden. That omission does not disprove the later version, but it gives us a 1941 reference point for a deliberate project.

Way’s Item Impact reconstruction says Richard Bradford established a sawmill on the site and identifies the waterway serving First Mill and Blanding Pond as Shot Pouch. The same article says Bland purchased a “landfill” from F.M. Cain. Later, in a passage drawn from Mary Cuttino Snyder, Bland is described as having purchased a fish pond known as First Mill. The source does not explain the difference.

That makes the phrase “he created a lake” misleading. The evidence shows Bland acquired a landscape that already included a pond and then developed the gardens around it.

Clemson Cooperative Extension says Japanese iris grow well in moist conditions and can handle wet soils. They prefer acidic soil, benefit from organic matter and need roughly six hours of full sun for good flowering. Clemson also identifies iris as rhizomatous plants rather than true bulbs.

That distinction matters because the City of Sumter’s history page says Bland ordered his gardener to dig up the iris “bulbs.” The terminology does not disprove the story, but it shows how repeated accounts can lose precision.

And the plants themselves make the pond story easier to understand. Japanese iris can struggle in one garden and flourish in another when the soil, moisture and sunlight are different. The swamp did not need to perform a miracle; it needed to provide conditions the iris could use. The striking blooms that followed make more sense when the ground beneath them is part of the story.

*How the legend hardened*

The ownership question becomes complicated once the gardens move from private project to public institution.

The City of Sumter’s main history page says A.T. Heath Sr. deeded additional acreage on the south side of Liberty Street to the city in 1938, with Bland developing that part of the gardens, and that Bland deeded the Bland Gardens to the city in 1949. The Gardens FAQ says the Heath family commissioned Bland to design the Heath Gardens and then donated both gardens to the city in 1938.

A 2015 City of Sumter brochure adds a third account, calling the gardens a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton Carr Bland in 1927. City publications therefore put 1927, 1938 and 1949 into circulation without reconciling them.

The acreage is similarly unsettled. The 1927 newspaper gives 21 acres. The city history page refers to 30 acres of swamp, then says the park encompasses 150 acres while the Heath Gardens covers most of its 120 acres. A 38-acre figure also appears in the later Item account. These may describe different boundaries or periods of expansion, but without deeds and surveys, no single figure can be treated as final.

The City of Sumter and USC Sumter say Swan Lake is the only public park in the United States with all eight swan species, but neither city page identifies a source for the exclusivity claim. A 2023 Southern Living article repeats it, while Cornell Lab of Ornithology identifies Bewick’s swan as a Eurasian subspecies of the Tundra Swan.

There is at least one dated trail for the “lovely mistake” wording. The City of Sumter attributes the phrase to Southern Living, and Southern Living reported in 2023 that its May 1998 issue covered Bland’s “lovely mistake.” That does not establish the story’s first appearance in print, but it documents the legend in a magazine by 1998.

What the records do not settle is part of the story. I did not find a deed that resolves the transfer dates, could not independently verify the 38-acre figure or confirm the eight-species exclusivity claim from a primary source.

The evidence does support a narrower story: Bland was working at First Mill in 1927; an existing pond was part of the landscape; he was intentionally planting for an aquatic garden; Japanese iris later thrived there; and the gardens became an institution that expanded beyond the original property.

Local stories last because they are easy to remember. A businessman throws struggling flowers into a swamp, and the next spring they bloom. It is a story made for retelling. But history asks a different question: What can the record actually support?

The method is simple: Start with the account from the time, compare it with the earliest professional guide, check official histories against each other and look for deeds, surveys and original newspaper pages.

Anne King Gregorie’s 1954 “History of Sumter County” offers a fitting next step. The Sumter County Library Board commissioned her to produce an “authoritative, verifiable account” and told her to disregard “traditions and current legends not susceptible of proof.” The Sumter County Genealogical Center still lists the book and later reprints.

Swan Lake means more to me than a tourism page. As a child, I walked across the wooden bridge, sat down to read and watched cars drive underneath.

Reporting note: I reviewed the City of Sumter’s Swan Lake history and Gardens FAQ, the 2015 brochure, the 1941 guide and the 2010 historic resources survey, and searched the National Register index; I also reviewed Clemson iris guidance, USC Sumter, The Sumter Item reconstruction and the Sumter County Genealogical Center, while the 1927 Sumter Daily Item is not digitized, so its earliest account reaches this story through The Sumter Item.

For readers who want to continue the reporting, the Sumter County Library is the next door: Ask for Gregorie’s 1954 history and see what it says about Bland, the gardens and the documents behind it.

References

1. City of Sumter. “Swan Lake Iris Gardens.” Current history, acreage and ownership information. sumtersc.gov/tourism/things-do/parks-trails/swan-lake-iris-gardens

2. City of Sumter. “Gardens FAQ.” Current information about the gardens, including the 1938 ownership account. sumtersc.gov/discover-sumter/things-do/parks-trails/swan-lake-iris-gardens/gardens-faq

3. City of Sumter. “History of the Iris Festival.” History of the festival and the commonly repeated iris-origin story. sumtersc.gov/discover-sumter/things-do/parks-trails/swan-lake-iris-gardens/iris-festival/history-iris-festival

4. City of Sumter. “Swan Lake Iris Gardens” brochure, 2015. Includes the brochure’s 1927 gift statement and garden history.

5. Way, Sammy. “The Origin of Bland’s Pond.” The Sumter Item, Impact, April/May 2025. Includes the 1927 Sumter Daily Item account and later historical material from Mary Cuttino Snyder. eta.creativecirclecdn.com/sumter/files/20250417-172500-294-AprilMay25Impact.pdf

6. Writers’ Program, Work Projects Administration. “South Carolina: A Guide to the Palmetto State.” Oxford University Press, 1941, pp. 267, 269, 371. Internet Archive. archive.org/details/southcarolinagui00inwrit

7. Clemson Cooperative Extension, Home & Garden Information Center. “Iris,” HGIC 1165, by Karen Russ and Robert F. Polomski Information on Japanese iris growing conditions and rhizomes. hgic.clemson.edu/factsheet/iris/

8. Southern Living. “This South Carolina Park Is The Only Spot In The U.S. To See All Eight Species Of Swans.” June 17, 2023. The article identifies its May 1998 issue as the earlier coverage of Bland’s “lovely mistake.”

9. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “Tundra Swan.” Taxonomic information on the Tundra Swan and Bewick’s swan. allaboutbirds.org/guide/Tundra_Swan/overview

10. USC Sumter. “Swan Lake Iris Gardens.” Institutional page repeating the eight-swan-species claim. sc.edu/about/system_and_campuses/sumter/community/swan_lake_gardens/index.php

11. South Carolina Department of Archives and History. “City of Sumter Historic Resources Survey,” 2010, p. 27. scdah.sc.gov/sites/scdah/files/Documents/Historic%20Preservation%20(SHPO)/Research/HC43001.pdf

12. Sumter County Genealogical Center. “History of Sumter County” by Anne King Gregorie, 1954. Information on the book’s commission and research standard. sumtercountygenealogicalcenter.org/product/history-of-sumter-county/