Lots of Summer Local History Reading Program Suggestions for Adults!

Local history is the BDC's thing - so, of course, I have many local history related reading suggestions for you to consider for the Library's Summer Reading Program. Anyone - all ages -- babies to advanced seniors - can join in the fun. And it's sooooooo easy. Read text - any text -- to yourself or out loud to another sentient being -- for 20 minutes per day for 36 of the 60 days in the program -- and you'll be eligible to enter the grand prize drawings for grown-ups and teens.

Summer Reading Program details are available on the Library's website and there's a link on every page of the Library's website to the Summer @ Your Library literacy campaign.

I encourage all to increase your knowledge of local history 20 minutes at a time - and win hotel stays, restaurant dinners or even free dance lessons as part of the Summer Reading Program. Here are some suggestions to get you started:

If you want to pick up a bit of knowledge so that you can hold your own at a social event with adult beverages, I'd say that you should start with Historic Beaufort County: An Illustrated History by Michael C. Taylor. It was sponsored by the Beaufort County Historical Society in 2005 and the book introduces you to the broad sweep of the County's past in under 100 pages.

If you're interested in military history, I suggest Parris Island: The "Cradle of the Corps" by Eugene Alvarez. Heat, sand gnats, and rigorous training turn a few patriotic boys - and girls - into fighting men and women willing to defend the United States Constitution against all enemies foreign or domestic. The Navy and its subdivision, the Marine Corps, saved Beaufort County economically speaking in the early days of the 20th century.

The best pictorial history about the impact of the Marine Corps here in Beaufort County is 100 Years of Making Marines at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina, 2015 published to celebrate the MCRD Centennial. (It's online as a pdf as well.)

The fullest study of the tragedy of Ribbon Creek, 1956 is Court-martial at Parris Island: The Ribbon Creek Incident by John C. Stevens III, University of South Carolina Press, 2007.

When it comes to biographies and memoirs, you have loads of choices for entertaining and informative titles. Among my personal favorites are: High Sheriff of the Low Country by Sheriff Ed McTeer and Coffin Point: The Strange Cases of Ed McTeer, Witchdoctor Sheriff by Baynard Woods. 
Last Ferry to Beaufort by Charles Wersler and Little Geech: A Shrimper's Story by H.H. "Bubba" Von Harten, Jr. tell parts of Beaufort's late 19th and 20th century maritime history.  Learn about A Black Woman's Civil War Memoirs: Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops, late 1st South Carolina Volunteers in Susie King Taylor's book; about Robert Barnwell Rhett's life and times in A Fire-Eater Remembers; about religious transformation in Memoirs of the Prodigal Son : Fifteen Years in Prison and Beyond by John Dortch; about life on Hilton Head Island Before the Bridge with Kay Moore and as Paradise with Nelle and Ora Smith. Doctor K is Dr. Herbert Keyserling's memoir about practicing medicine here. His wife's memoir about her time serving as a State Representative, Against the Tide, is enlightening as well.  The Other Mother by Teresa Bruce is an award-winning memoir of her life and relationship with Byrne Miller, dance teacher and arts mentor extraordinaire. And don't forget that you can read about personal accounts of survival and death during the Great Sea Island Hurricane in The Storm Swept Coast of South Carolina compiled by Rachel C. Mather on the Lowcountry Digital Library website courtesy of the Library's long partnership with that institution. Author Pierre McGowan can really spin some tales in Gullah Mailman and Tales of the Barrier Islands.


Northern Money, Southern Land: The Low Country Plantation Sketches of Chlotilde R. Martin edited and brought into the 21st century by Robert B. Cuthbert and Stephen G. Hoffius remains one of the University of South Carolina Press's biggest sellers. If you'd like to explore how antebellum plantations were transformed into big housing developments the go-to books are A New Plantation World: Sporting Estates in the South Carolina Lowcountry by Daniel Vivian and Profits and Politics in Paradise: The Development of Hilton Head Island by Michael N. Danielson. There are plenty of copies of Daufuskie Island by Jenny Hersch and Sallie Ann Robinson to check out as well as a number of copies of the Longer Short History of Bluffton, South Carolina and Its Environs, No. II by the Bluffton Historical Preservation Society. 

Does a walk in the woods, river banks or along the beach appeal to you? Then I recommend Tideland Treasure by naturalist Todd Ballantine as the ideal book to bring along. It is replete with his drawings of typically observed plants and animals of the beach and salt marshes. His companion book, Woodland Walks, is an introduction to the ecology of the Southeastern coastal region.

Recent local history programs have featured Charlotte Forten, the Battle of Port Royal Sound, Yamasee Indians, Harriet Tubman and the Combahee Raid, Lowcountry Plantations, Crime and Law Enforcement,  - and there are multiple lists of links and materials on our BDCBCL WordPress blog about these topics and more. All in all, there are 84 published lists about the people, places, events and themes in Beaufort District's long and storied history from which to choose. Chronologically speaking those 84 lists can be grouped into 3 major time frames and one across all periods category:

Before 1800: Native Americans; Jean Ribaut & Charlesfort; Henry Woodward; Pirates; Jean-Pierre Purry & the Purysburgh Settlement; John Barnwell; Yamasee War; Rice Culture; Beaufort District's Role in Framing and Adopting the US Constitution; Paul Hamilton; Thomas Heyward, Jr.

1800 - 1899: Robert Smalls, post #1 and post #2; Charlotte Forten Grimké; Battle of Port Royal Sound; R.L. Johnson Medical Record Book; Mid-19th Century Medicine; Railroads; Robert Woodward Barnwell; Reconstruction Period post and webpage; Phosphate Mining; Harriet Tubman; Mitchelville; Storm of 1893 Death List; Sea Island Hurricane of 1893; US Colored Troops; Clara Barton; Rachel Mather; Laura Towne; Missionary Teachers to the Freedmen; Penn School; William John Grayson; Robert Barnwell Rhett; Stephen Elliott; Abbie Holmes Christensen; James Reeve Stuart; William Elliott, III

After 1900: Joe Frazier; Fire of 1907 (9 posts); Frogmore Stew; Ribbon Creek Incident; Sheriff McTeer; Dr. Buzzard; Harriet Keyserling; Abbie Holmes Christensen; Sam Doyle; Leon Hirsch Keyserling; Chlotilde Martin; John Trask, Sr.

Across all periods:  Gullah culture; Sweetgrass baskets; Praise houses; Rootwork; Lowcountry Plantations; Ghost Stories (7 entries); Daufuskie Island; Hoppin' John and Greens; Benne Seed recipes; Beaufort District Area Cemeteries; History of Hilton Head Island; History of Bluffton



The BDC also produces flyers of select materials about some of these topics that will be with the BDC's Grace.Note e-newsletter for June, July, and August to all those who have subscribed to receive it. (If you haven't signed up yet, please do so on the Subscribe page. There's a competition until May 31st that the BDC staff would really like to win and new registrations count!) Here's an example of one of those flyers below - condensed from our WordPress blog post of links and materials about Charlotte Forten --  in case you'd like to check at your branch library or the bookmobiles for copies of the titles to check out.

As I hope that you can see, I could go on ... and on ... and on.  The Library has lots of materials for you to check out from one of our branch libraries or from Hoopla or from Cloud Library to expand your knowledge of Beaufort District's long and storied people, places, events, and experience through the past. Surely, surely, you'll find something to interest you on one or more of the lists! And if you're really serious about learning more, visit our Research Room Mondays through Fridays, 9 AM to 5 PM where staff can point you to even more educational, illuminating, and enlightening resources.

A reminder: Because the BDC Staff is so small in number, sometimes we experience staff shortages. One such shortage is coming soon. If another of the 1.5 staff has to be away or becomes ill, the Research Room may have to be closed to customers. Though we try to minimize disruptions to our usual and customary schedule, and Library Administration will do its best to keep disruptions in BDC operations to a minimum, occasionally the Research Room may be closed to customers with little advance notice over the next month or so. What's most likely to happen is a lunchtime closure for hourly staff to get her Federal mandated work break. Please monitor the Beaufort County Library's website and Facebook page for such notices during June and July 2019.


Looking ahead: All units of the Library system will be closed Thursday, July 4th. Regular hours resume Friday, July 5th.

Happy Summer Reading!