New (and New To Us) Materials Received in July 2018

The task that I like most about managing the Beaufort District Collection is selecting materials for the Research Room. Here's a list of materials that arrived in our Research Room in July:

Beaufort: The Duke and His Duchess, 1657-1715 by Molly McClain (2001) is a biography of Henry Somerset, the First Duke of Beaufort and his wife, Mary Capel Somerset. Henry was a powerful and active member of Charles II's Privy Council while Mary distinguished herself in the field of botany. Together they navigated the cultural changes in England caused by the restoration of the Stuart kings to the throne. Their grandson, also Henry Somerset, became the 2nd Duke in 1700. (His father, Charles died in 1698, which made 14 year old Henry the heir to the dukedom when the 1st Duke died in 1700.) Beaufort, founded in 1711, is named after the 2nd Duke. The volume details the contentious relationship the 2nd Duke had with his grandmother who controlled the family's financial affairs. (Note: By the way, apparently his contemporaries did not think highly of Henry, the Younger. The 2nd Duke has been described as 'a weak man, vain and ... a drunkard.' Perhaps it is fitting that the his namesake town and county were recently declared South Carolina's drunkest.)
 
Catherine's Cross by Millie West (2013) is a novel about a suspicious death being investigated by a  Beaufort County detective with a little hoodoo thrown into the plot. Millie West is a Beaufort County resident.

Arcadia Press's first hardback book is Daufuskie Island (Images of America series) by Jenny Hersch and Sallie Ann Robinson (2018). The authors have done extensive research and gathered stories and photographs from island residents, visitors, libraries, and archives - including two from the Beaufort District Collection. The book is available in the Research Room, from the local history sections, as well as via Hoopla, the Library's e-book and streaming service. (Note: Hersch and Robinson did an Author Book Talk for us in July. Due to unexpected circumstances, the reprise at Hilton Head Island Branch is being rescheduled. Please stay alert for the new date.)  

Enlisted for the War: The Struggles of the Gallant 24th Regiment, South Carolina Volunteers, Infantry, 1861-1865 by Eugene W. Jones, Jr. (1997) is a solidly researched history of the struggles and assignments given to the 1,520 men from nine different farming communities in South Carolina who were the first state's first regiment to enlist for the duration of the Civil War. The unit defended the coast from Wilmington North Carolina down to our area. It later was relocated to the western theater in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee and ultimately surrendered with General Joseph E. Johnston in Durham, North Carolina on 26 April 1865. "Appendix I: Biographical Sketches and Roster" include some soldiers from the Beaufort District. This title joins a host of other regimental histories of Civil War units in the SCLENDS libraries.  (Shoot an e-mail to bdc@bcgov.net and receive a copy of our "How to Find Out More about Your Civil War Ancestor" brochure.)   

Fabric of Liberty: The Society of the Cincinnati of the State of South Carolina by Alexander Moore (2012) recounts the history of this fraternal heritage association of former Continental Line officers who had served under General George Washington, and their descendants and the role that its members have played in reconciling warring political and economic factions. (While I am on the subject of fraternal heritage associations, please pencil this into your calendars: "Lineage & Hereditary Societies: What Are They and How Do You Join Them?" with Bonnie Wade Mucia | Tuesday, November 13 | BDC@ St. Helena Branch, 6355 Jonathan Francis Sr. Road | 4:00 - 6:45 PM.)  

The Secret of the Gullah Treasure by Carl Linke (2017) is a novel that interweaves school integration, the Civil Rights movement, previously unknown works by Edgar Allan Poe and Gullah traditions to illustrate an African-American teen's resiliency in the mid-1960s. A unique feature of the novel are the QR codes in the book which link out to images of the places mentioned in the text, some of which belong to the BDC's Lucille Hasell Culp Collection hosted by the Lowcountry Digital Library. Linke was granted permission to use the images in his work. He has been a fulltime resident of Beaufort County since 2011.   

Left by the Side of the Road: Characters without a Novel by Carolyn Schriber (2012) offers reasons why hundreds of real people with whom Laura M. Towne came in contact during the early years of the Port Royal Experiment do not appear in The Road to Frogmore or Beyond All Price, her works of local historical fiction. The tipping point for Schriber was "Did this person help or hinder Towne in a significant way?" and in many cases, important people in other spheres, such as Robert Smalls, did not. The vignettes offered here, although written as historical fiction, flesh out real people in Beaufort District during the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. 
 

Lowcountry Time & Tide: The Fall of the South Carolina Rice Kingdom by James H. Tuten (2010) concentrates on the rice plantations of the Heyward, Middleton and Elliott families in Colleton and Beaufort to examine how former plantation owners and former enslaved people tried to revive rice production after the Civil War. Their attempts ultimately failed and rice cultivation on a commercial scale in South Carolina ended in the early 20th century. We also have Tuten's dissertation written for Emory University that was the basis for this book: Time and Tide: Cultural Changes and Continuities among the Rice Plantations of the Lowcountry, 1860 - 1930 on microfilm. 

(Note: On December 8, Dr. Edda Fields-Black of Carnegie Mellon University will share her research in a lecture "Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid and the Civil War Transformation of Gullah Geechee" in a BDC@ St. Helena Branch program beginning at 1 PM). 

Malachi by Scott Graber (2009) is a novel wherein a young transplanted lawyer discovers that the rural life of growing tomatoes and harvesting shrimp is being overcome by the desire of land developers to lure well-heeled Yankee retirees. He is happy with his genteel life until he discovers a secret about his law firm and about himself--a secret that will change his perceptions. Graber is a local attorney. We also have his novel Ten Days in Brazzaville in the Research Room.


The Name Game: From Oyster Point to Keowee by Claude and Irene Neuffer (1972) is an oldie-but-goodie children's book with charming illustrations about how surnames and place names came to be in South Carolina. It is similar to one of my favorite reference books, Correct Mispronunciations of Some South Carolina Names, also by the Neuffers. (Note: Speaking of Correct Mispronunications, meet me at Bluffton Branch on September 13th at 3:00 PM to learn how to speak South Carolinese.)

South Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times, vols. 1 (2009) & 2 (2010) edited by Marjorie Julian Spruill, Valinda W. Littlefield and Joan Marie Johnson is a collection of essays about the state's  significant women. Included are some women associated with Beaufort District: Angelina Grimke;  Laura Towne and Ellen Murray; and an enslaved woman known as Lavinia, who was owned by the Lawton Family in Upper St. Peter's Parish, Beaufort District.    



Stories and Poems of a Gullah Native Book II by Peppi Cool Breeze (AKA Elijah Heyward, Jr.) recounts events and people from his childhood and life as a teacher in the local schools. We also have a copy of his first volume (2012) as do several of the branch libraries. 

The Slave Ship: A Human History by Marcus Rediker (2007) is an "intimate human history of an inhuman institution" highly praised for "lighting up the darkest corners of the British and American slave ships of the eighteenth century .... [by] illuminating the lives of people who were thought to have left no trace."  


Kirkus Reviews called The Voyage of the Slave Ship Hare: A Journey into Captivity from Sierra Leone to South Carolina (2016) by Sean M. Kelley "an important book that not only shows how the slave trade operated, but also provides a clearer picture of the victims' origins, language, and methods of survival." It, however, concentrates more on the experiences of the newly arrived Africans than their lasting cultural impact upon their Gullah/Geechee descendants.

A Woman of Valor: Clara Barton and the Civil War by Stephen Oates (1994) is an accomplished biography of one of the greatest heroines of the mid-19th century who was once barred from the Union's Hilton Head and Beaufort area hospitals. Barton would return to the area to lead the Red Cross's first ever hurricane recovery effects in 1893-1894. (Note: The "Tide of Death" lecture about the Great Sea Island Hurricane at Coastal Discovery Museum on September 26th is already "sold out.")

Please note these upcoming schedule adjustments:
1) The Research Room will be closed from Noon to 1 pm on Wednesday, August 15th due to an anticipated staff shortage. Kristy will be on hand to assist customers 9 am to Noon and again from 1 pm to 5 pm that day.
2) All units of the Beaufort County Library will be closed on Monday, September 3rd for the Labor Day holiday