BDC's Posts to Facebook in February 2026

February 1 - Monthly Overview for February

February 2 - "Independence (Mon)Day:" February 3, 1779 was a Red Letter Local History Day for Beaufort District and in the American Revolution. Two Signers of the Declaration of Independence fought to defeat the British on that date near the present-day USMC Air Station. I recently updated the Connections post about the battle for you to learn more.

February 3 - In honor of National Women Physician's Day, today we highlight the contributions of Esther Hill Hawks who journeyed South to minister to black Union troops and newly freed slaves both as a teacher and a doctor during the Civil War. She worked in Beaufort District several times between 1862 and 1866. She kept a diary that describes her experiences and impressions. Check one out and/or visit the BDC to read both her diary and the contents of our vertical file: HAWKS, ESTHER HILL, 1833- 1906. We can be reached by email bdc@bcgov.net; or telephone 843-255-6468 during regular business hours. (BTW: This would make both a quick and interesting read for the system's Winter Reading program, too.

February 4 - "Black History Note:" The theme for Black History Month 2026 is "A Century of Black History Commemorations" so I will highlight some of the celebrations of African American history and culture from the Civil War era onwards this month.

I wrote about Emancipation Day, 1863 which is still commemorated in the "Watch Night" tradition back on December 31. Another carryover from the Civil War and Reconstruction eras is "Decoration Day."

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.

You can learn more about:

*The local WRC in As We Remember: A History of the Woman's Relief Corps in Beaufort, SC by Najmah Thomas - available inside our Research Room or as an audio book on Hoopla.

* The history of Decoration Day and the commemoration of the Civil War dead in Connections.

* The clippings we have compiled about Decoration Day festivities of the past through a review of the BDC's vertical file on the topic.

February 5 - We recommend for your winter reading: Beaufort, South Carolina: Pages from the Past by Gerhard Spieler (2008).

“History abounds in ironic contradictions, and the history of the Carolina Lowcountry is no exception.”

Pages from the Past is a collection of articles written by historian and author, Gerhard Spieler, who spent more than forty years of his life furthering his knowledge of Beaufort’s long and rich history. From the Dukes of Beaufort to individual properties along Bay Street, Spieler covers every era in conjunction with various drawings, maps, and photographs of all different people, places, and aspects of Beaufort. For anyone wanting to learn more about Beaufort’s past and what exactly “Beaufort Style” is, this title is a wonderful introduction that covers all of the important details.

February 6 - "Finding Aid Friday:" Geneva Betties donated her personal collection of late 20th and early 21st century funeral flyers for African Americans in Northern Beaufort County. These flyers and programs include photographs of the deceased, obituaries, and information on the funeral services for the deceased. You can email us bdc@bcgov.net or call us at 843-255-6468 for us to check the index in our Research Room for the funeral program of your departed loved one.

February 9 - "Independence (Mon)Day:" Among those fighting in the Battle of Beaufort, 1779 was a free man of color, Jim Capers. He would stay with the Patriots all the way to Yorktown. Artist Jeff Trexler depicts him playing his drum on the battlefield in his painting "In the Glorious Cause of Liberty." Capers would drum during the ceremony at which British Gen. Charles O'Hara surrendered in place of Lord Cornwallis. The Siege of Yorktown (September 28, 1781 – October 19, 1781) was the final major land engagement of the War for Independence involving Patriot, British, and French combatants. You can read more about Jim Capers and other African-American Patriots in the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution by Bobby G. Moss and Michael C. Scoggins (2004) in our Research Room.

In 2021, archaeologist Daniel Battle gave us the beautiful Trexler art print, framed by Dennis Ford, that hangs in our Research Room.

February 10 - 10 AM - Please note: We've got a new date for "A Party Divided!" Join us on May 14 at Beaufort Branch to learn from NPS Historian Eric Ellis about how the local Republican party was affected by internecine struggles during Reconstruction.

6 PM - Our wonderful tour of the Beaufort National Cemetery with Lead Guide Bonnie Wade-Mucia on Saturday was well attended. Sydney's posted some of the photos in the "Beaufort National Cemetery Tour" file for you to see. She's updated the "Glimpses" programs flyer too. Next up (due to the postponement of "A Party Divided" until May) is Dr. Mollie Barnes and her presentation about Susie King Taylor and Elizabeth Botume.

February 11 - "Black History Note:" The most visible celebration of Gullah culture is Penn Center's Heritage Days. It was Executive Director Emory Campbell's idea to reinstitute the "Harvest Days" of Penn School's past in 1981 as a way to promote the West African roots of Gullah culture. Held in November of most years, the festival was cancelled in 1998 and 1999 and again during the COVID pandemic. This 2025 festival included a parade re-routing that caused friction between the Sheriff's Office and the Penn Center community and supporters. The BDC's vertical file "FESTIVALS- HERITAGE DAYS, 1981 - " contains clippings, brochures, and flyers about many of the annual celebrations.

February 12 - For your Winter Reading, the BDC recommends... Blue Roots: African-American Folk Magic of the Gullah People by Roger Pinckney. Enclosed in this short book “are stories of haunts, hags, the dreaded spirit called the plateye, root doctors, spells, and hexes, as they were told by people who loved me...,” according to Roger Pinckney. Pinckney was raised in mid-century Beaufort as the grandson of the much-respected local journalist Chlotilde Martin, and encountered many local legends, both fictional and physical, throughout the course of his long life.

In Blue Roots, Pinckney writes at length about Sea Island root work and the most famous local "Doctors” who practiced it. He also gives context for these folk tales and traditions, detailing the dark history of slavery that brought African spirituality and medicine to the Lowcountry and forced it, and its people, to adapt to the coast. If this discussion of supernatural forces and cultural history is of interest to you, you can check out a copy of Blue Roots from a BCL Local History section near you!

February 13 - 10 AM - "Finding Aid Friday:" A very happy birthday to the Beaufort County Historical Society - 87 years old today and still going strong. On February 13, 1939 Mrs. Howard Danner, Mrs. Etta C. Foster, Mrs. P. Theus, Miss Mabel Runnette, Mrs. Chlotilde Martin, J.F. Morrall, Major Geo. H. Osterhout, and W.E. Nelson met for the purpose of organizing a Historical Society in Beaufort, S.C. The BDC is privileged to care for their records.

4:50 PM Reminder: The BDC will be closed on Monday to observe Presidents' Day. We'll be back on Tuesday to tell you who was the first President to visit Beaufort District.

February 14 - 10 AM - Excerpts from letters of love from Mae Onthank of Seabrook, SC to her fiancée, Billy MacLeod as found in our archives:

* July 18, 1914 - Darling I love you to death - Crazy 'bout you - Your Maezie

* October 20, 1914 - Dearest Boy: ... You know I love you too much and I think you were made for me and I had never thought that the war would make any difference with our marrying each other. Write and tell me about it. Do you really think it will? I hope and pray it will be best for us to get married in June.

The Finding Aid to the Onthank Letters is on our BDCBCL blog.

6 PM - We got some love from our customers [in this Library Lovers' Month].

February 16 - In honor of Presidents Day, read about POTUS #5's visit to Beaufort in 1819. (All units of the Library system will be re-open Tuesday, February 17.)

February 17 - And the short answer is ... Our nation's first president under the US Constitution, George Washington, visited Beaufort District as part of his Southern Tour in May 1791. For more about the Presidents who have dropped by, see Connections, the BDC's blog since 2008.

February 18 - "Black History Note:" The Gullah Festival held in May around Memorial Day was incorporated in 1987. The Deloris Brazel Nevils Collection contains a copy of the 1987 Articles of Incorporation for the Gullah Festival and a roster of board members and technical advisors for the 1988 Gullah Festival. Contact us if you'd like to see the archival collection or the BDC's vertical file about the Gullah Festival: 843-255-6468; bdc@bcgov.net.

February 19 - You still have time to read our final recommendation for you to participate in the Library system's Winter Reading Program (which ends at closing tomorrow). Sydney recommends: Defiant: The Story of Robert Smalls by Rob Edwards, 2025.

“We were almost there... We were racing Relyea. Fighting the current. And trying to outrun the sun.”

One of our newest titles just so happens to be one of our most interesting titles (in my opinion, of course.) Author Rob Edwards along with artists and designers from Legion M Entertainment and Stranger Comics all joined forces to create this new perspective of the legendary story of Robert Smalls. Defiant follows Smalls as he begins to tell his life story to his grandson. From being born into slavery to becoming a war hero by commandeering The Planter, this first volume covers just the beginning of Smalls’ inspirational story.

February 20 - In memory of Robert Duvall (Grace's favorite actor), we feature the Paul Siegmund Collection that documents the World Premiere of Pat Conroy’s the Great Santini movie held at the Beaufort Plaza Twin Theatres on 19 October 1979. As some of you know, Robert Duvall played Bull Meechum in the film. What you may not know is that the BDC is physically located in the Paul Siegmund Room named in memory for his service as the first President of the Friends of the Beaufort Library.

February 21 - Looking ahead: The BDC is involved with our sister cultural heritage organizations and USCB. For example, we'll be tabling and on a panel at the ISRE's 4th Annual Symposium, March 20 -21. Be sure to drop by to learn what the Library's special collection has to share about this year's topic: "Securing the Economic Foundations of Citizenship." A few weeks later, we're giving Dr. James Shinn's students a behind-the-scenes tour geared to their Spring project topics.

February 23 - Independence (Mon)Day - If the section about the Revolutionary War in Historic Beaufort County: An Illustrated History by Michael C. Taylor was too short for you and the 4 chapters I recommended from volume 1 of the History of Beaufort County, South Carolina by Drs. Rowland, Moore, and Rogers were too long for you, perhaps The Carolina Lowcountry, April 1775 - June 1776 and the Battle of Fort Moultrie by Terry W. Lipscomb, 2nd ed., 1994 might be the perfect amount of pages (54) and illustrations (21) for you to learn more about the early days of the Revolution. You can read the booklet in the BDC, borrow a copy from one of the local history sections at our branches or you can download a copy from the South Carolina State Library Digital Collections website.

February 24 - The new website means that our Online Obituary Index's address has changed as has the appearance of the search screen and results page. The URL to access the OOI search screen is now https://www.beaufortcountylibrary.org/research-and-services/local-history/online-obituary-index.

If you input the Month as "February" and the Day as "24," you'll get 132 hits. Then you can "Download Data" to get a spreadsheet of all the people in our index whose obituary notices were published on February 24th from issues of local newspapers across the years 1882 - 1999. Please note: The date refers to the publication of the obituary, not the date of death of the deceased person. The actual obituaries are in the BDC Research Room card files or on the microfilm inside the Research Room. Contact us if you have any questions: bdc@bcgov.net; 843-255-6468.

February 25 - "Black History Note:" The current Hilton Head Island Gullah Celebration evolved from the first annual Native Islander Gullah Celebration of February 1-22, 1997. The program's tagline was "Economic Development Through Cultural Enlightenment" and featured art exhibits, a business symposium, arts & crafts, a food expo, a golf scholarship tournament at Palmetto Dunes, and performances by Verta Mae Grosvenor, Ron & Natalie Daise whose "Gullah, Gullah Island" was a hit on the cable TV station Nickelodeon, and musicians performing in the Jazz Festival. How do I know this? Because our FESTIVALS- NATIVE ISLAND FESTIVAL just so happens to contain an original program brochure from 1997. Want to see it? Reach out to us: 843-255-6468; bdc@bcgov.net.

February 26 - 111 years ago today, all of Beaufort attended Robert Smalls' funeral at the First African Baptist Church , 601 New Street, according to newspaper reports.

Five Black ministers eulogized Smalls. The choir sang "Shall We Meet Beyond the River" as people paid their respects at the last viewing of the body. With the music of the Allen's Brass Band leading the cortege, members of Masonic Lodge, Sons of Beaufort, No. 36 and the Odd Fellows Lodge No. 2211 carried the body through the streets to the Tabernacle Baptist Churchyard where Smalls was laid to rest with "a most impressive Masonic ceremony.... The funeral was the largest ever held in this city." Floral arrangements were numerous but those sent by the City Council and the Grand Army of the Republic were praised in particular. His survivors were listed as daughters Elizabeth Smalls Bampfield of Beaufort and Sarah Smalls Washington of Orangeburg and a son, W. Robert Smalls of Austin, Texas and several grandchildren.

February 27 - "Finding Aid Friday:" Conrad Munro Donner (1844-1916), a German immigrant to Beaufort, SC, documented scenes from his daily life as a phosphate mining engineer, and later farmer on Hall's Island, during the turn of the 20th century. The collection includes 548 images (also available digitally through the Lowcountry Digital Library) and supplemental research materials related to the Donner family.

Many of the images include photographs of African Americans associated with the Donner Brothers. Link to the Finding Aid ; Link to the Digital Collection hosted for us by the LCDL

February 28 - Pencil this into your calendar: The Inaugural "Pen & Palmetto" writers' event at Bluffton Branch is drawing nigh. Please help us kick off this new literary event by attending!