Port Royal Harbor and its surrounding islands were among one of the first areas to be occupied by Union forces after the Civil War broke out. Among those troops of occupation were the members of the 79th New York. Re-enactor Tom Vaselopulos will share a brief history of the Highlanders with a lecture "Kilted Warriors" on Friday, November 3rd at 2 PM in the Beaufort Branch Library's Meeting Room. First come; first seated: Doors will open for seating at 1:30 PM. People will be admitted until we run out of chairs and/or reach Beaufort Branch's Meeting Room capacity is part of the Beaufort History Museum's Civil War Encampment. The lecture will set you up to better enjoy the Civil War Encampment hosted by the Beaufort History Museum in the Arsenal on Saturday, November 4th from 10 AM - 4:30 PM. Jalen and I will be on hand outside the Arsenal with flyers about the BDC's Civil War related materials to distribute.
A few days later, we turn to the colonial period for a program about the man who stayed behind in the 1660s to live with the Native Americans in order to stake stronger English claims to this area.
Henry Woodward was one of early Carolina Colony’s most remarkable citizens. In 1666, four years before Charles Town, he lived with the Native Americans in present-day Port Royal—the only Englishman in four hundred miles. His stay was interrupted when he was held prisoner by the Spanish in St. Augustine. Freed by an English privateer, he served as a surgeon on a buccaneer ship in the Caribbean, and after being shipwrecked in a hurricane, miraculously ended up back in Carolina Colony as one of the Colony’s first settlers. Relying on his rapport with the Native Americans, he traded for food, helping the colonists avoid starvation. Surviving political intrigue, personal loss, and physical hardship, he became one of the Colony’s most important figures.
Separating fact from fiction about this enigmatic figure is challenging. The records from 17th-century Carolina Colony are sparse. We know he was the Colony’s earliest explorer and Indian trader but his legacy is tangled. Was he America's first frontiersman or an unlucky pawn of the English Lords Proprietors who owned the colony? Was he a friend or a foe of the Native Americans, or both? The speaker, Robert Lanham, spent five years investigating Woodward’s role in the Colony’s earliest years. In 2022, he published The Red Bird and the Devil, answering these questions while setting forth the fascinating story of one of Colonial America’s forgotten figures.
Robert Lanham is a retired family law attorney and former geologist residing in the South Carolina Lowcountry where Henry Woodward, the protagonist of his book, The Red Bird and the Devil lived 350 years earlier. Robert moved here from Colorado and fell in love with the Lowcountry and its history. His distant grandfather came to the southern colonies as an indentured servant in the late 1600s, the same time as Henry Woodward, sparking his interest in early colonial history. Using skills developed during 40 years of research, writing, and teaching in science and law, Robert published The Red Bird and the Devil, a fresh look at the origin and first decades of Carolina Colony from the perspective of Henry Woodward.
1) The premiere will be on Thursday, November 9, 2023 at the Hilton Head Branch Library, 11 Beach City Road, at 11 AM. We will open the doors at 10:30 AM for first come seating. We will admit folks until we reach the Fire Marshal's limit for the room. Free parking, too!
2) The reprise will be held in the Spring as part of the Beaufort History Museum/Beaufort County Library local history series.
On December 7, 2023 we have Mary Dorsey of the Samuel J. Bush Post 217, American Legion coming to Beaufort Branch to tell us about the Bush Brothers at Pearl Harbor and what happened to them at and after the "day that will live in infamy."
After this jammed packed Fall series, the BDC will take a break from coordinating local history programs for the arts-and-crafts programmers to do their thing over the holiday season. Be sure to keep up with any additions, subtractions, or re-scheduling via the Library's calendar of events.
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