Travel Writings in the Research Room by Grace Cordial

The Library chose to highlight 'Travel' as its featured theme for April. Staff and the readers of the Library system's monthly newsletter, The Current, were asked to recommend books about travel. We decided to interpret that theme as "Travel Writings" in ways that comply with the BDC's geographical imperative to make this post about materials we have on the topic in the Research Room. As it turns out, the Research Room has more accounts of traveler's writings from the 17th through 21st centuries than I had expected to find. Some of the travel writings were written by Americans. Some of the travel writings about this area were written by Europeans. Most of the ones we have are in published book form, though the original source materials were letters, diaries, journals or newspaper articles. 

If you prefer an overview of travel writings across several time periods at once, then I would recommend: 

• South Carolina : The Grand Tour, 1780 - 1865 edited by Thomas Clark (University of South Carolina Press, 1973) 
• The Travelers' Charleston : Accounts of Charleston and Lowcountry South Carolina, 1666 - 1861 edited by Jennie Holton Fant (University of South Carolina Press, 2016)

The BDC also has several vertical file folders of clippings that may contain shorter travel writings from a variety of authors: 

• BEAUFORT - DESCRIPTION - PRE-19TH CENTURY
• BEAUFORT - DESCRIPTION - 19TH CENTURY
• BEAUFORT - DESCRIPTION - 20TH CENTURY
• BEAUFORT - DESCRIPTION - 21ST CENTURY

Among the most notable travel writings in the BDC Research Room are: 

Period of Exploration - Here are a few examples of travel writings used to encourage investment in settling this area during the 16th and early 17th centuries. 

• Three Voyages by Rene Laudonniere (1587)
• A Relation of a Discovery Lately Made on the Coast of Florida by William Hilton (1664) 
• A Brief Description of the Province of Carolina on the Coasts of Floreda [sic] by Robert Horne (166?) 

Federal Period, 1776 - 1800

• We have two books about Washington's Southern Tour in 1791. 

Indeed, a number of US Presidents have visited Beaufort District through the years though George Washington was the first. He stopped by in mid-May 1791.  He intended for the tour to give him an understanding of the state of the country and its people. He visited Pocotaligo: 

Wednesday [May] 11th. After an early breakfast at Mr. Smiths we road 20 Miles to a place called Pokitellico, where a dinner was provided by the Parishioners of Prince William for my reception; and an Address from them was presented and answered.

Washington also visited Thomas Heyward's White House Plantation and Purysburg while he was in Beaufort District.

James Monroe would visit in 1819. U.S. Grant would briefly visit Beaufort in 1880.

• Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America during 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, and 1802 by John Davis (New York: Henry Holt, 1909) was first published in 1803. Davis, a keen-eyed young sea-faring Englishman, was writing for the American market. Davis does a lot of walking on his tour. He walked from Charleston to Coosawhatchie. He ends up spending a lot of time as a guest of Mr. Drayton of Ocean Plantation near Coosawhatchie. Davis comments upon slavery indicate the conflict he felt between his abolitionist views and the use of enslaved servants to care for his needs whenever he was a house guest or staying at area taverns.  

Antebellum Period, 1801 - 1861

• The Homes of the New World: Impressions of America is a travelogue in two volumes written by Fredrika Bremer, a Swedish author and feminist reformer. Often termed the "Swedish Jane Austen," Fredrika completed 18 novels and travelogues before her death. Financially independent, she traveled throughout much of the United States between October 1849 through September 1851. Her long letters to her sister document the journey and give her reflections and judgments about the people, places, and the institutions she encountered, including slavery. Like many people who visit Charleston and/or Savannah today, Fredrika bypassed visiting Beaufort District. The book is a hold-over from the "Beaufort Township Library" collection. There are many digital versions of this book on the Hathitrust Digital Library. 
• The Aristocratic Journey; Being the Outspoken Letters of Mrs. Basil Hall written during a Fourteen Months' Sojourn in America, 1827-1828 by Margaret Hunter Hall. In April 1827, Margaret Hunter Hall, her husband Basil and young daughter, Eliza, set sail from Liverpool, England for America. She wrote intimate detailed letters her sister Jane about her experiences and travels in the United States. Mrs. Hall had high standards of lifestyle, convenience, and behavior based upon her own upbringing in a noble household in Edinburgh and Madrid, Spain where her father, Sir John Hunter, served as British consul for a short time. In March 1828 the group journeyed from Charleston to Savannah, stopping off at the plantations owned by Nathaniel Heyward and William Heyward (though she spelled their surname "Hayward.") The letters are full of Mrs. Hall's unstinting observations of slavery and of plantation owners. Her critiques of America were not always kind. For example, she did not think much of the conversational skills of the Nathaniel Heyward family in spite of the fact that "His plantation is considered one of the best regulated in this State:"

... At dinner we were joined by one of his sons who had been out hunting. We were not much the better of his conversation, nor that of his brother who came in in the evening, neither of them spoke a word. I have heard of sisters being no greater use at a party than to fill two chairs, but I never saw the case so completely identified as in the case of those two brothers. The old gentleman himself is much more willing to talk, but neither is he a man of much information, and when we had got all out of him that we could relative to the cultivation of rice and the treatment of slaves, the conversation flagged so much that we were glad to make our escape to our own room.

Other notable travel writing before the Civil War in our Research Room are:  

• Travels in the Southland, 1822 - 1823 : The Journal of Lucius Verus Bierce, edited by George W. Knepper (Ohio State University Press, 1966)  
• Letters from the United States, Cuba and Canada by Amelia M. Murray (G.P. Putnam and Sons, 1856) Letter 17 discusses her trip to Charleston, SC and her perceptions of slavery. 
• A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States : With Remarks of Their Economy by Frederick Law Olmsted (Dix & Edwards, 1856) covers his research visits as a journalist to South Carolina via train to Charleston from North Carolina and via boat to Savannah. The critic Charles Eliot Norton described the three books that came from Olmsted's "Yeoman" articles for the New York Daily Times as "the most important contribution to an exact acquaintance with the conditions and result of slavery in this country that have ever been published." Olmsted makes remarks about slavery and socio-economic conditions in Chapters 6 - 8. He does not appear to have visited Beaufort District. This is another holdover volume from the Beaufort Township Library. 

Civil War and Reconstruction

During and in the aftermath of the Civil War, writers published their perceptions of the South in great numbers. Historian E. Merton Coulter compiled an annotated bibliography of almost 500 such books as Travels in the Confederate States in 1948. I recommend that you start with it even though it is old as bibliographies go. There are entries in the index for Beaufort, SC, Coosawhatchie, Hilton Head Island and Port Royal Island as well as a much more extensive reference for South Carolina, Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA. All references to Black folks, freed or enslaved, are listed under the heading “Negroes” and “Negro troops, Federal.” The references under the headings go to location of the book in the list rather than to the page upon which the annotations are placed. 

Among the travel writings we have in the Research Room for this period are: 

• The South Since the War: As Shown by Fourteen Weeks of Travel and Observation in Georgia and the Carolinas by Sidney Andrews (1866) toured South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia in September, October and November 1865 as a newspaper reporter for the Boston Advertiser and the Chicago Tribune. The first 100 pages are about his time in South Carolina.
• My Diary, North and South by William Howard Russell (1863) has been called "the most important travel account by a foreigner in American during the Civil War." We have 3 copies inside the Research Room, though you can also find the two volumes on the Hathitrust Digital Library and Internet Archive as well. 
• White and Black ; The Outcome of a Visit to the United States by George Campbell (1879). We recommend the sections about the time he spent in South Carolina (pp. 312-346) and his descriptions of life in Beaufort County (pp. 334 -346) at the phosphate works and in conversation with local residents on topics of political, economic and social matters. Because our copy is old and tightly bound, we encourage you to access a digital copy on the Hathitrust Digital Library. 
• The Great South : A Record of Journeys in Louisiana, Texas, the Indian Territory, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland by Edward King (1874) was written for an assignment by Scribner's Monthly magazine in 1873 and 1874. Chapter 47 is "South Carolina - Port Royal - The Sea Islands - The Revolution" begins on page 422. I recommend that you use the digital copy as our physical one may be one of the so-called "Poisoned Books" in our holdings.
• My American Tour : Being Notes Taken During a Tour Through the United States Shortly after the Close of the Late American War by David Thomas (1868) is a legacy title from the Beaufort Township Library. Thomas concentrates his travel in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Washington, DC.
• The South : A Tour of Its Battle-fields and Ruined Cities, A Journey Through the Desolated States, and Talks with the People ... by J. T. Trowbridge (1866) was written by a New England journalist who provides insight into the early days of Reconstruction. Chapters 71 - 79 discuss conditions in various parts of South Carolina. Chapter 74 "The Sea Islands" is devoted to the author's prejudicial views of Black people and the tax confiscations and sales. I recommend that you use the digital copy as our physical one may be one of the so-called "Poisoned Books" in our holdings.
• Though the Wales Journal does not include travel related descriptions of our area, it is a charming collection of illustrated letters from Susan Wales to her sister Annie Flagg Wales Stratton of Boston from 1887 to 1895. Wales wrote of her three trips to Europe, the Middle East and North Africa to hone her artistic skills and to experience other cultures. The entire collection is online through our long partnership with the Lowcountry Digital Library.

20th Century, 1901 - 2000

The BDC has fewer 20th and 21st century travel writings about our area to share:

• My Trip to St. Helena Island: Discovering Gullah Geechee Culture by C.M. White (2019) is a rare-for-us children's book. The BDC does not collect many children's books but we do have this one from the Travel Adventure series. The illustrations are photographs of some of the local sites related to Gullah culture including a two page spread about the artistic interpretation of a sweetgrass basket that is in the middle of the St. Helena Branch Library. Most of the narration is a sentence or three relevant to the photographic image written at an elementary school grade level.
• Jeanne Harman and her husband Harry E. Harman were travel writers based in the Virgin Islands. They wrote travel and relocation guides for the Caribbean and the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia. The materials in this archival collection relate to their publication, the Hilton Head Island Report.
• One Man's Travels Through a Changing America in the 1930s by Jennifer Lynn Ritterhouse (2017) is an account of Jonathan Daniels' driving tour of the South in the summer of 1937. He was the young, white, liberal-minded editor of the Raleigh News and Observer at the time. Ritterhouse uses his unpublished notes, published writings, and archival evidence to place Daniels' journey in context of the time. BTW: Daniels founded the Island Packet newspaper on Hilton Head Island in 1971.
• Islands at the Edge of Time : A Journey to America's Barrier Islands by Gunnar Hansen (1993). The publisher's blurb says that the author "perceives barrier islands... as expressions in time of the processes that make them.... [and] examines how the culture and history of the history of these [the resident] people are shaped by the physical character of their surroundings."
• 100 Things to Do in the South Carolina Lowcountry Before You Die by W. Lynn and Cele Seldon (2025) is the most recent travel related guidebook added to the BDC.

As always, there are other related materials in the Research Room. We would love to share them in our Research Room with you. Reach out to set up an appointment: 843-255-6468 or bdc@bcgov.net.