Latest update: 14 September 2023
Well, I am a little embarrassed to learn that it has been such a long time since I made a post highlighting incoming materials to the Research Room. Here's what we added to the Research Room over the past 6 months:
The Means of Grace: A History of the Robertville Baptist Church by Eric W. Plaag (Boone, NC: Charley House Press, 2021) is the first comprehensive history of the church's past, drawing on research materials held by state and county governments, church archives, and special collections in the Carolinas, including our own Beaufort District Collection. I concur with the author that "The history of the Black Swamp Baptist and Robertville Baptist Churches is fascinating, filled with all of the complexities one might expect of a community that was often rich in diversity of ethnicity, wealth, education, social standing, and experiences of the world." Watch the video of his Author Book Talk on the Library's YouTube Channel.
Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina, from the Colonial Period to about 1820 by Paul Heinegg, 6th edition, 3 volumes (2021) has over 1500 pages worth of detailed genealogies of hundreds of free black families. The compiler has spent more than 40 years researching colonial and early national period tax records, colonial parish registers, 1790 - 1810 census records, wills, deeds, Revolutionary War pension files, newspapers and more to document these people. We also have the 5th edition that was published in 2005.
1. The Debate Over the Constitution in South Carolina, 29 September 1787 - 11 January 1788
2. The South Carolina General Assembly Calls a Convention, 8 January - 29 February 1788
3. The Debate over the Constitution in South Carolina, 19 January - 2 June 1788
4. Election of Convention Delegates, 17 March - 10 May 1788
5. The South Carolina Convention, 12 - 24 May 1788
6. The Aftermath of Ratification in South Carolina, 23 May - 27 November 1788
I particularly like that letters to the newspapers and between family members or associates about the proposed Constitution are included in the volume. Among the Beaufort District names that I recognized are Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Pierce Butler, Henry W. DeSaussure, and John Kean. A few more are new to me: Richard Adams, Daniel John Greene, and Peter Youngblood. This volume is a nice compliment to Journal of the Convention of South Carolina which ratified the Constitution of the United States, May 23, 1788 (1988). There are more sources for "Beaufort District's Role in Forming and Adopting the US Constitution" in the BDCBCL: Links, Lists & Finding Aids WordPress blog.
Voices of Black South Carolina: Legend & Legacy by Damon L. Fordham includes the stories of some of the Palmetto State's most significant residents, including Beaufort's own Robert Smalls. We have a copy in the Research Room for permanent retention but you can borrow a print copy from SCLENDS.
T.D. Johnston is a part-time Beaufort resident and award winning short story writer. We purchased a copy of Weeding for Eisenhower: Stories a collection of 18 stand alone tales that one reviewer called "oral storytelling written down with an honesty and urgency of a writer at the top of his form." We are the only SCLENDS unit to have a copy.
In addition to being a writer of the short story form, Johnston edits the Short Story America series. We added Volume VI (2018) to the shelves alongside volumes 1 - 5.
African Folk Tales : Folk Tales of Bogo People from Togo, West Africa by Kwaku A. Adoboli (RoseDog Books, 2020) offers more than 50 folk tales from Africa, many adapted to lowcountry settings, to impart life lessons via short action stories told in concise and direct sentences for Gullah youth. Dr. Adoboli learned many of the tales from his father, a griot, as he grew up in Togo and Ghana, West Africa. The author is a retired professor of history and government at USCB. This volume joins more materials about Gullah folk tales in the Research Room. The Beaufort County Library has the only copy of this title in the SCLENDS consortium.
Mary Martha Greene, a native South Carolinian newly transplanted to Beaufort County a.k.a. The Cheese Biscuit Queen Tells All about her memories and her family recipes, including her Frogmore Stew dip in this romp of a cookbook from the University of South Carolina Press (2021). There are a lot of copies of this title circulating in SCLENDS.
Gullah Spirituals: The Sound of Freedom and Protest in the South Carolina Sea Islands by Eric Sean Crawford with Bessie Foster Crawford focuses primarily on St. Helena Island's elders and the songs that they sing to express their cultural heritage. He traces the history of the songs from West Africa to the Lowcountry, as links to the past and as visions for a more just future during the Civil Rights Movement. The final 30 or so pages comprise the "Gullah Songbook" with music and lyrics broken into 5 categories: Shouting Spirituals; Seekin' Spirituals; Christmas Spirituals; Communion and Easter Spirituals; and General Use Songs. We have other materials about this musical form in our Research Room. There are copies of this title in the Local History sections too.
Sometimes book covers and title pages do not match. Such is the case for a volume about South Carolinians who served during the Spanish American War in 1898. On the cover is "South Carolina in the Spanish-American War by General J.W. Floyd" but the title page says Historical Roster and Itinerary of South Carolina Volunteer Troops who served in the Late War between the United States and Spain, 1898, coupled with Brief Sketches of their Movements from the Beginning to the Ending of the Conflict published in 1901. This isn't an unusual situation for reprinted editions. The SCLENDS catalog uses the title on the title page as per the rules but on the shelf one sees the spine title "South Carolina in the Spanish-American War Floyd" on a lime green cover. This can be a little disconcerting while browsing and/or when pulling materials for others to use. I do wish that the note field had indicated that the cover title and spine title label are different than the cataloged title.
Most of the Beaufort area volunteers served in the South Carolina Naval Militia. Entries are arranged: NAME, rank, job classification, posting, and Company. For example, here are a few entries for the Beaufort Company that furnished 52 men:
E.J. BURN, Lieutenant (J.G.) U.S.N., naval batteries, Port Royal, S.C., 3d Division S. C. N. M. (Beaufort Co.)
ALLEN STUART, Assistant Surgeon U.S.N., naval batteries, Port Royal, S.C., 3d Division S. C. N. M. (Beaufort Co.)
W.H. E. VAN HARTEN, mate U.S.N., navy yard New York, 3d Division S. C. N. M. (Beaufort Co.)
I trust that this reference title will continue to be useful for any family historian interested in Palmetto State veterans who served during this very short war.
Family Tales and Trials: Settling the American South by Christopher C. Child and Meaghan E.H. Siekman with Victor S. Dunn and Helen Condon Powell (Boston: Newbury Street Press, 2020) was a gift from Helen Powell. It was added to the BDC because of its chapter about Ebenezer and Thomas Aston Coffin who owned Coffin Point Plantation on St. Helena Island among other properties and enslaved people in Charleston, Rhode Island, Louisiana, and Wisconsin.
A Special Place and Time by Judy Hutson is another Lydia Inglett company imprint. In it the author recounts tales of Palmetto Bluff Plantation and some of its inhabitants during the 20th century including the Wilson, Beach, and Harvey families. She includes a lot of personal family photographs as illustrations.
Walking with Peter : Sacred Art for Reflection & Prayer is a prayer booklet containing reflections based on the stained glass windows that the Sacred Art Committee of St. Peter's Catholic Church hoped for parishioners to fund. A digital rendering of each proposed window is accompanied with the scripture that was the inspiration for the stained glass design, a textural description of the design, the role St. Peter played in the scene depicted, and questions to consider during reflection and prayer. In other words, it is a fund-raising publicity piece with a spiritual base that was sent to parishioners such as me in hopes that the money could be raised. I gifted my copy to the Research Room. As of this writing, it is my understanding that all 10 windows on the lower walls have been funded. (I really, really, really like stained glass so I am looking forward to completion of this project.)
How I missed getting a copy of The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son by Pat Conroy in hardcover at publication is beyond me. But miss it I did - and now that error has been corrected with a softcover one published in 2013. For those who don't already know, this is the story of the reconciliation of Pat and Donald Conroy, a Marine Corps fighter pilot who blew up America's enemies and battered his wife and children. We have extensive vertical files about Pat Conroy, his books, and his relationships. There are a multitude of copies in a variety of formats for this particular Conroy title.
Among donors during this period were Beaufort Branch for posters; Dennis Adams for some Gullah related booklets; the ever reliable Friends of the Beaufort County Library; Mary Lou Brewton; Larry Agee; Dr. Lawrence B. Owen who shared some digital copies of slides that he took when he was stationed at Parris Island circa 1958-1960; John Stevens who gave us his research files compiled while writing Court-Martial at Parris Island : The Ribbon Creek Incident (1999); and Sally Johns who donated a book The Descendants of John Samuel Graves and Ann Matilda Dewitt, a few photographic prints relating to Hurricane Gracie (1959) and some miscellaneous newspaper clippings.
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