If you've gotten here via my Facebook post on March 30, 2020, welcome. All units of the Beaufort County Library remain temporarily closed until further notice due to efforts to flatten the curve of COVID-19 spread. Any changes to the schedule will be posted onto the Library's website. Read the news announcement.
" In this little book the writer has endeavored to portray some of the features of Southern life during the war time as it really was in her memories. Sensational happenings with which many of the stories of the period are so embellished will be conspicuous by their absence. No doubt there were horrors, but they were remote, and not in the experiences of the writer, who has endeavored to sketch the Southern home life with its many simple pleasures, the bravery with which the war time trials were met, and their after results just as they happened in many Southern families. The kindness of the conquerors as exhibited by the friendly stationmaster was not an isolated instance, and to her mind these memories are more pleasant to dwell upon than the unpleasant incidents which have grown almost characteristic of the Southern novel."Sarah Gardner places Seabrook's story firmly within the realm of "Lost Cause" literature reflecting the times in which it was written in both language and portrayal of Black characters, enslaved and as freed people. The novel opens with an intersectional marriage: a Southron man to a Yankee woman. Neither the white Southerners nor the enslaved could embrace the Master's young New England wife nor could his wife adapt appropriately to southern ways. For Seabrook's main character, the very idea of intersectional marriage was laughable. It was simply foolish to think otherwise! (1)
"La Belle Porte" stands in for the village of Beaufort and "The Point" refers not to the "Point" in downtown Beaufort but to "Bay Point". The plot centers on who will win the heart and hand of Di Marmion - God forbid that he's a Yankee! - as she learns how to adapt to her new circumstances.
Phoebe Catharine Hamilton was born on July 12, 1853 in Beaufort to Col. Paul and Catharine Hamilton, one of their eight children and the last to survive. She spent much of her youth in Virginia but married an older man from a prominent planter family, Joseph Whaley Seabrook (born 1835), in 1871 and moved to Edisto Island.
Seabrook also came from a large family. Ephraim Mikell Seabrook (1797-1846) and his wife Elizabeth Mary Hanahan (1802 - 1888) had seven children. Joseph was the fourth son in the family of five boys and two girls. Ephraim died in 1846 a wealthy planter with four plantations and personal property worth $69,000, 175 slaves and at least 50 bags of cotton ready for market. Joseph's older brother Edward inherited Laurel Hill plantation and oversaw the planting of Brookland Plantation where his mother retained a life interest after which youngest son Henry was to take possession. In 1874 Brookland was sold to cover Henry's debt. (2)
Phoebe's domestic situation is unclear. She had two children with Seabrook: Henry Hamilton Seabrook and Catharine Hamilton Seabrook. (3)
At some point she moved from Edisto leaving her husband (alive) on the Island and returned to Beaufort where she had her first experiences teaching school in the Beaufort Female Seminary with her sister, Miss Mary S. Hamilton. She remained in Beaufort until her own children went off to Virginia and Maryland to school. She held teaching positions at Fauquier Institute of Warrenton (VA), Hannah More of Reistertown (MD), and became head of the St. Agatha's School in Springfield (IL) under Bishop Seymour. In 1902 the sisters opened the Hamilton School on Lafayette Square in Washington, DC and continued under Phoebe's management until her health forced her into retirement. She then moved to Riverton, N. J. to be closer to her adult children and and two grandsons, Henry Hamilton Seabrook, Jr. and Archibald Fauntleroy Seabrook. (3)
Her husband died on January 24, 1906 in Charleston. The Palmetto Post newspaper published an obituary for him in its February 1, 1906 issue (4):
Seabrook is buried in the Trinity Episcopal Church cemetery on Edisto Island. (5)
Phoebe died in Riverton, N. J. twenty one years later on Saturday, February 19, 1927. The Beaufort Gazette obituary says of her: "To few people has been granted more charm of personality and attractiveness, combined with a deeply religious nature which showed itself in wonderful fortitude and patience throughout many vicissitudes and a long illness."(3)
Her body arrived via the train on February 23rd where it was met by the Rev. Manard Marshall and immediately taken to the St. Helena Church for funeral services. She was carried by pall bearers J.S. Foster, H.G. Burckmyer, Leith Paul, J.S. Walpole, Dr. M. G. Elliott, B.E. deTreville, C.E. McLeod and Neils Christensen to the church. (3) She was buried in plot A-8 of the churchyard. (6)
Hathitrust has a full view of A Daughter of the Confederacy posted online for anyone with internet access to read. It's something you can do for entertainment during the COVID-19 pandemic to keep yourself occupied and social distanced.
Sources:
1. Blood & Irony: Southern White Women's Narratives of the Civil War, 1861 - 1937 by Sarah E. Gardner, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, pp. 181 - 186.
2. The Story of Sea
Island Cotton by Richard Dwight Porcher and Sarah Fick, Wyrick & Company, 2005 has a section on the Seabrooks at Brookland Plantation, pp. 451 - 453 and a wonderful Appendix III: Plantation Families including Properties and their residents and genealogies on pp. 491 - 502.
3. Published obituary of Phoebe Hamilton (Mrs. Joseph W.) Seabrook, Beaufort Gazette, March 3, 1927, p. 1.
4. Published obituary of Joseph Whaley Seabrook, Palmetto Post, February 1, 1906, p. 3.
5. Joseph Whaley Seabrook (1835 - 1906), Find-A-Grave website, accessed 17 March 2020
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