Brooks-Tompkins House. This house was built circa 1818 by Whitfield Brooks (1790-1851), a prominent lawyer and Commissioner of Equity of the Edgefield District. His eldest child, Preston S. Brooks, who became Congressman and who attained national fame in 1856 when he caned Sen. Charles Sumner on the floor of the U.S. Senate, was born here. After his parents retired to their country plantation in 1849, Preston moved back into the house with his family. The home was later purchased by Rev. Luther Gwaltney, the well-known Baptist minister, who lived there for some years. Around the turn of the 20th century, the house was purchased by Dr. James Glover Tompkins, a prominent local physician, whose family has continued to own it until the present time. In 1924 the house was partially burned, but was rebuilt by Dr. Tompkins, using many of the architectural adornments of the original house, including mantelpieces, wainscotings and fanlights. The elaborate carvings are of an unusual style in Edgefield, only found in one other house, Holmewood.