On Facebook, December 16, 2023 - January 20, 2024

I was taking some personal leave over the holidays so the posts on Facebook during this period were slim. 

You can read the January outlook post as it's already posted to this blog.

Uniquely BDC series

December 18 - "Uniquely BDC: Materials Monday:" Yuletide on Hilton Head: A Heritage of Island Flavors grew out of a Island Packet newspaper recipe contest in the mid-1990s. There's a whole section on my favorite holiday flavor: cranberry! The book offers up 14 menus for entertaining ..."complete with timely holiday libations." I'll skip the libations but bring on the Berries-in-the-snow.

Berries-in-the-Snow

6 premium white chocolate baking squares

3/4 cup dried cranberries

Unwrap baking squares and place in a microwavable bowl. Microwave on High for 2 to 2 1/2 minutes. Stir half-way through heating time. The squares will retain some of their original shapes; remove from microwave and stir until smooth. If not completely smooth return to microwave for 10 seconds, one or more times. When smooth stir in dried cranberries. With two teaspoons, scoop mixture onto a sheet of wax paper, making clusters about the size of a half dollar. When set, store in covered container. Yield: 12 to 14 clusters

The Research Room has the only copy of this book in the SCLENDS Consortium. Call number is SC 641.568 YUL

January 8 - "Uniquely BDC: Materials Monday:" In honor of our upcoming local history program about cotton, I share an illustration about the product by W.T. Crane who worked as a “special artist” for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. This is Print BDC 90B in the Research Room.

I made a special post about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s connection to Penn Center on January 15, viz.

Although the Library is closed today, you are not cut off from library materials about Martin Luther King, Jr. Hoopla, our digital service, has a suggested list of 21,915 ebooks, movies, and audiobooks about him with materials for kids, teens, and grown-ups. Hoopla is always open 24/7/365. Or you can read a recently updated Connections blogpost about his ties to Penn Center to help celebrate the life and achievements of this honored man.

Black History Notes series

December 20 - My last "Black History Note" post of the year is about As We Remember: A History of the Woman's Relief Corps in Beaufort, SC (Guntersville, AL: Fresh Ink Group, 2023). Because of Beaufort District’s unique Civil War history, it had three Grand Army of the Republic posts for Union veterans and one official auxiliary for women.

The Woman’s Relief Corps (WRC) provided critical support for veterans, their families, and organized the annual Decoration Day festivities from its founding to well into the early 20th century. The Beaufort WRC was one of the few African-American units in the country. The local WRC re-organized as the Fred Washington, Sr. Woman's Relief Corps No. 1 on July 26, 1998. The group, though small in number, still contributes to local veterans related activities and community events. Professor Thomas crafts an impressive story from oral tradition and supporting documentation to provide a unique and very local history of a woman’s group long committed to service to others. By the way, this could also be an "Uniquely BDC" entry.

January 10 - "Black History Note:" World Heavyweight Champion and Olympian boxer Joe Frazier (1944 - 2011) was born in Beaufort County on January 12, 1944. Learn more about his life and career in the BDCBCL: LINKS, LISTS, AND FINDING AIDS blog

January 17 - "Black History Note:" When the Union occupied this area during the Civil War, they discovered a lot of enslaved people left behind - and with a war to fund and cotton fields aplenty, contrabands were put to work during the occupation. This Hubbard & Mix photograph of contrabands working in one of the cotton fields on Retreat Plantation comes from our Civil War and Reconstruction Era Stereoscope Photographs of the Port Royal Region collection. We added this collection to the Lowcountry Digital Library in 2018 to provide better access to the images while simultaneously protecting the 150 years+ old stereoscope cards from excess handling.

Come learn more about recent efforts to save sea island cotton in our local history program tomorrow.

Local History Programs Posts: I posted local history programs reminders on January 9, 11, 16, 17, 18 and 19. Two are now done and dusted with two more on the agenda.

I posted Library holidays hours on 17 December, 21 December, 22 December and January 12.  

"Yamasee Homelands" with Hannah Hoover & "Battle of Beaufort, 1779" with Neil Baxley

We are delighted to have Hannah Hoover share her research about the Yamasee Indians on January 31, 2024 beginning at 2 PM in a BDC@ Beaufort Branch Local History program. We are also delighted that the Hilton Head Chapter of the Archaeological Society of South Carolina has agreed to co-sponsor her lecture.

Hannah Hoover is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of Michigan and holds a research affiliation with the South Carolina Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of South Carolina. Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, she received a BA in Anthropology and Classical Studies from Tulane University in 2018 and an MA from the University of Michigan in 2021. 

Her dissertation research explores community formation in colonial contexts, specifically the emergence of new Tribal Nations amidst the demographic and economic changes of the 17th-century Southeast. 

For the past two years, Hoover has lived in Beaufort while working on her dissertation, tentatively titled “Small-Scale Processes of Native Nation-Building: Archaeological Investigations of early 18^th century Yamasee Towns in the South Carolina Lowcountry.” She has conducted three seasons of archaeological fieldwork at the Yamasee primary town of Pocotaligo, located today on the Mackay Point Plantation, with the assistance of over 50 community and student volunteers, including our own former BDC assistant, Olivia Santos.

Her work has been funded by several granting agencies including the National Science Foundation, the Wenner Gren Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, the Beinecke Scholarship, the Southeastern Archaeology Conference, and the Archaeological Society of South Carolina. 

Colonial surveyors created stunning maps of the natural landscapes of the Carolinas during the 17th and 18th centuries. They also frequently recorded cultural features, including Native American towns, homesteads, mounds, roads, bridges, and fields that dotted the Southeast. The common appearance of such markers on regional maps, property plats, and town memorials affirms that Europeans encountered rich and intricately constructed Native worlds.

The documentary record created by early surveyors and property transactions provide a valuable means for reconstructing Native homelands in the early Carolina colony. When considered alongside archaeology and study of modern place names, we may begin to disentangle local processes of Native erasure and better realize the deep-time connections Indigenous communities continue to hold to their ancestral homelands in South Carolina.

In this presentation, Hoover will focus on Yamasee homelands in the Port Royal Sound of South Carolina. Yamasees were a broadly diverse Native community who settled in the Port Royal Sound in 1685. They formed a strong alliance with the Carolina colony by prominently participating in the regional fur and Indian slave trades. Yamasees are most well known in local and popular history for their 1715 instigation of the Yamasee War against the colony which vastly reconfigured North American geopolitics in its wake. While the causes of war have long been debated, settler encroachment and abasement of Yamasee women and lands certainly played an outsized role in souring their political relationship. Through several case studies, she will explore how some of the earliest settlers of Beaufort County sought out Yamasee homelands in the years after the Yamasee War and ultimately engaged with, erased, and in some cases rewrote Yamasee histories in the process.

Wednesday, January 31, 2024 – "Reconstructing and Reconnecting 18th Century Yamasee Homelands in the Port Royal Sound, South Carolina" with Hannah Hoover. | BDC@ Beaufort Branch Library, 311 Scott, 2 PM. |  No registration process: First come; first seated. Door opens 30 minutes ahead of the program start time. | Co-sponsored by the Hilton Head Chapter, Archaeological Society of South Carolina.

Hoover credits the resources of the Charleston County Register of Deeds office and the Behan Papers here in the Beaufort District Collection and her ongoing collaboration with Dr. Denise Bossy, Associate Professor of History at the University of North Florida for making this presentation possible. 

Don't forget that there's another local history program the very next day! On February 1, 2024, we host Neil Baxley for a reprise of "Battle of Beaufort, 1779" at the Hilton Head Branch Library. His lecture is co-sponsored by the BDC, Beaufort County Historical Society, and the Beaufort County 250th Committee. 

Though the British Winter Campaign, 1778-1779 in the Palmetto State had mostly gone in Britain’s favor, South Carolina's first land based engagement between professional British, militia, and Continental forces resulted in a Patriot victory - and it was here in Beaufort County! Come learn about the strategy, tactics and significance of this American Revolution battle fought near the MCAS Air Station 245 years ago.  

A native of North Carolina, Neil Baxley spent 4 years in the Marine Corps before joining the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office more than 40 years ago.  In 2013, Col. Baxley was put in charge of Beaufort County's Emergency Management Division.  In his spare time, he studies and writes history. He's given presentations at the South Carolina Archives and at area museums and libraries. He's authored two Confederate regimental history books, Walk in the Light: The Journey of the 10th and 19th South Carolina Volunteer Infantry (2013) and No Prouder Fate: The Story of the 11th South Carolina Volunteer Infantry (2009) and the foreword to Confederate General Stephen Elliott: Beaufort Legend, Charleston Hero by D. Michael Thomas (2020). 

We hope that you will be able to join us for one - or both! programs. 

"Where Have All The Shrimp Boats Gone?" Local History Program

Raconteur and former shrimp boat captain, Woody Collins, has added local author to his list of accomplishments.  Though local residents have been catching and eating shrimp off the coast of the Carolinas for centuries, the area’s commercial shrimp industry began about a century ago. From a peak of about 1500 working boats in the 1980s, Beaufort’s fleet is no more.

There’s no one who can explain the factors in the rise and all of the shrimp industry better than Woody Collins who spent 40 years trawling area waters. His self-published book, Where Have All the Shrimp Boats Gone? has sold out and the author has no intentions of authorizing a third printing. Collins drew extensively from a series of oral histories collected by Laura Von Harten during the 1990s and his long work and personal relationships with other shrimpers to flesh out the challenges and triumphs of a life-style based on the ebbs and flows of tidal creeks and local waters.   

The BDC is privileged to have been gifted copies #1 and #5 of the limited printing directly from Captain Woody who very graciously inscribed them for posterity. Lavishly illustrated with more than 300 images (some from the BDC’s collections), this book is a substantive history but nevertheless fun to read.

Please join us at the Bluffton Branch Library on Wednesday, January 24, 2024 for Capt. Woody's Author Book Talk about Where Have All the Shrimp Boats Gone?. Doors open at 12:30 pm for first come seating. 

Historically Speaking 5.3: Sea Island Cotton and Tom Austin

The "Historically Speaking" series returns on January 18, 2024 with a lecture about one of agricultural products that brought early 19th century prosperity to this area.

Akin to vegetarian silk Sea Island Cotton commanded a price over twice as high as the coarser "short staple cotton" grown inland.  In tandem with Carolina Gold Rice, Sea Island Cotton made pre-Civil War Beaufort the "Newport of the South", but its unique features demanded enslaved labor for its tending.  Thought to be extinct, Tom Austin tells the story of this crop and his ongoing project to preserve a small patch for Low Country posterity.

Tom Austin is a professional conservationist working as the Edisto Island Open Land Trust's (EIOLT) Land Protection Specialist, an independent researcher, and an avid naturalist from the ACE Basin of South Carolina. Through EIOLT's Hutchinson House project on Edisto Island, a reconstruction era freedman home which is being restored and developed into a public greenspace, Tom has found himself amidst an effort to study, interpret, and re-introduce one of the State's most influential cash crops, Sea Island Cotton.

This lecture is brought to you by the Beaufort County Historical Society and the Beaufort District Collection. We hope that you can join us! Registration is open until capacity is reached:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tom-austin-lazarus-the-resurrection-of-sea-island-cotton-from-extinction-tickets-792647368617?aff=oddtdtcreator. 

Just a reminder: The Library system will be closed on Monday, January 15, 2024 for Martin Luther King, Jr. day.

BDC's "Best Book of 2023" Selection : As We Remember

The Library's Marketing unit has asked staff to select a "Best Book of the Year" again.  As you can tell from the "New (and New to Us) Materials" posts, we tend to get more older titles than those published in this calendar year. Last year, I chose a coffee table book full of wonderful nature-based photographs of Hunting Island. This year, I am choosing an 83 pages, small press published history book about an enduring small, but mighty, local African-American woman's group as the BDC's "Best Book of 2023" selection. 

Every war has its veterans; and every veterans group tends to have its auxiliaries.  The Civil War period is no exception. Confederate veterans had several such associations and as the veterans died off, their descendants became eligible for membership in similar associations. The Union too had its Grand Army of the Republic posts from 1866 to 1956 when its last member, Albert Woolson, died. Civil War veterans saw their respective associations as "crucial networks of moral support and fellowship for veterans after a traumatic war experience, and eventually as significant sources of political power." (1) 

Because of Beaufort District’s unique Civil War history as a rallying point for inducting Black men into the Union Army, there were enough former Federal soldiers (and sailors) living in the area to have three Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) posts for Union veterans: Post #9 Major General David Hunter in Beaufort; Post #12 Abraham Lincoln on Hilton Head; and Post #19 William McKinley in Bluffton founded in the late 19th century. The national GAR established an official auxiliary called the Woman's Relief Corps in 1883. The Beaufort post has had a Woman's Relief Corps (WRC) since at least 1892. 

So often, small local women's groups are ignored in the historical record and in the general public's consciousness. Dr. Najmah Thomas undertook the task to remedy this for the Beaufort Woman's Relief Corps, a local African-American woman's group tied to a national auxiliary led by white women in support of a Civil War Union veterans organization.  Because historically the national Woman's Relief Corps was led by white women and units were segregated by race in the South, Beaufort's unit was run by African-American women mostly on behalf of Black Union veterans. It was one of the few African-American units in the country.  As We Remember: A History of the Woman's Relief Corps in Beaufort, SC by Najmah Thomas and Fred Washington, Sr. and the Woman's Relief Corps, No. 1 of South Carolina (Guntersville, AL: Fresh Ink Group, 2023) is a short history of that woman's group and its enduring relationship with the David Hunter Post. Professor Thomas crafts an impressive story from oral tradition and supporting documentation to provide a unique and very local history of a woman’s group long committed to service to others.  

Researching this topic had its challenges due to paucity of written records. The author states: 

Much of the record of the early Beaufort WRC was passed on through the oral history tradition....With deep respect and appreciation to the oral tradition, this historical documentation is an effort to formally preserve and present a shared understanding of the Beaufort WRC's work conducted in service of the national corps' fraternity, loyalty and charity mission. It is written from the lived experiences and perspectives of past and present Corps members, with some supporting historical context provided." (2)   

According to the author, "the WRC provided critical support to veterans in the form of nursing services, raising funds for much needed material goods for wounded and impoverished veterans and their families, an the intangible but impactful service of inspiring the patriotic cause after the war." (3) In Beaufort, the WRC planned and organized the annual Decoration Day festivities up to 1976. "The WRC distinguishes itself as the only patriotic group in the country founded on the basis of loyalty rather than  kinship to members of the GAR. (4) 

The "Historical Summary of the Beaufort Woman's Relief Corps, 1889-1996" provides historical context to the unit's origins based on Civil War era activities of Black women who taught, nursed, fed and led during this period in Beaufort District's local history. She provides biographical summaries of the experiences of Harriet Tubman, Charlotte Forten Grimke and Susie King Taylor to help set the stage for the founding of the local group. Indeed, Susie King Taylor may have been an organizer of the Beaufort WRC. The group was one of only a few WRC's in the South in the 1890s. The BWRC submitted reports, dues, and hosted regular meetings as was required by the national organization. It  operated under its original charter until 1951 when it disbanded for a time. National WRC Convention records indicate that the group was operating again by 1960 though there is only cursory documentation of its activities over the next 30 years. 

The WRC was chartered by the United States government in 1962. Its aims are: 

1) To especially perpetuate the memory of the Grand Army of the Republic and its heroic dead. 

2) To assist such Veterans of all wars of the United States of America as need our help and protection, to extend needful aid to their widows and orphans, and to assure them of sympathy and friends. To cherish and emulate the deeds of all loyal women who rendered loving service to our country in her hour of peril and

3) To maintain true allegiance to the United States of America; to inculcate lessons of patriotism and love of country among our children and in the communities in which we live; and encourage the spread of universal liberty and equal rights to all. (5) 

During the early 1980s and 1990s, there was a revival of Black-led community organizations - and in Beaufort, the physical structure, the Grand Army Hall, helped gel interest in saving the historic building and revitalizing the local GAR and WRC groups. The Grand Army Hall Historic Preservation Foundation chaired by Fred Washington, Sr.. He was a local man who was a Montford Point Marine, entering military service during World War II and who retired in 1970 with the rank of Master Gunnery Sergeant. He sought funding to restore the building in honor of the 200th birthday of the United States Constitution in 1987. 

The WRC honored his commitment to the building, the building's role in the local Black community, and his own role in Beaufort County by re-organizing itself as the Fred Washington, Sr. Woman's Relief Corps No. 1 on July 26, 1998. The Fred Washington Sr. Woman's Relief Corps No. 1 is in continuous partnership and collaborates with well-established Black congregations at Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church, Tabernacle Baptist Church, First African Baptist Church, Grace African Methodist Episcopal Church, and Central Baptist Church as well as local units of Daughters of Union Civil War Veterans and the Sons of Union Civil War Veterans. Together the Grand Army Hall Committee, upon which representatives of the WRC serve, helps provide management and preservation of the GAR Hall building and its small museum dedicated to the history and memory of Black military personnel. 

The penultimate section provides background information and photographs relating to members of the local WRC post, information from interviews conducted by the author over the summer of 2019, and some of the organization's activities up to 2022. The author makes a compelling case for the need to continue the WRC to encourage productive discourse about the meaning of patriotism and democracy today and some veterans continue to experience difficulties adjusting to civilian life. 

I recommend that you make an appointment to come to the Research Room to read Dr. Thomas' gem of a book; review the contents of the GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC vertical file; read Inside the G.A.R. in South Carolina by Wendell Smith (2006) and learn about genealogy research from the Guide to Tracing Your African Ameripean Civil War Ancestor by Jeanette Braxton-Secret (1997). 

Notes: 

(1) As We Remember: A History of the Woman's Relief Corps in Beaufort, SC by Najmah Thomas and Fred Washington, Sr. and the Woman's Relief Corps, No. 1 of South Carolina (Guntersville, AL: Fresh Ink Group, 2023), p. 1. Hereafter As We Remember. 

(2) As We Remember, p. 2.

(3) As We Remember, p. 1.

(4) As We Remember, p. 1; Woman's Relief Corps membership application accessed 8 December 2023

(5) Woman's Relief Corps Constitution accessed 8 December 2023

January 2024 Overview

Happy Jubilee Day ... and so another year begins. May we all be happy, healthy, and prosperous in 2024 - in spite of the upcoming Presidential election cycle.  

The BDC hits the ground running in 2024.  We expect a new employee on January 8th - but I am not one to count my chickens before they hatch. Once the person is duly employed, I will share more information with you. 

Because I've decided to stay a bit longer toiling away in the Research Room, I've also decided to continue the "Uniquely BDC" Materials Monday series until further notice. I could probably run it another 4 to 5 years easy-peasy if I were so inclined (but I am not so inclined to work that long). As before, though, I won't make Materials Monday or Black History Note Wednesday posts when the Library is closed or when I am on leave.  

We offer you three opportunities to attend a local history program this month: 

Thursday, January 18, 2023 -- Historically Speaking 5.3 "Tom Austin, Lazarus, and the Resurrection of Sea Island Cotton from Extinction" with Tom Austin. First Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall, 1201 North Street, 11 AM.  First come; first seated. Door opens 30 minutes ahead of the program start time. 

Wednesday, January 24, 2024 -- "Where Have All the Shrimp Boats Gone" Author Book Talk with Woody Collins. BDC@ Bluffton Branch Library, 120 Palmetto Way, 1 PM. First come; first seated. Door opens 30 minutes ahead of the program start time.

Wednesday, January 31, 2024 -- "Yamasee Homelands" with Hannah Hoover.  BDC@ Beaufort Branch Library, 311 Scott Street, 2 PM. First come; first seated. Door opens 30 minutes ahead of the program start time.

The Library system is closed today, Monday, January 1, 2024. It will also be closed on Monday, January 15, 2024 in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

I hope to soon be able to make a public announcement re: our latest project with the Lowcountry Digital Library.