Author: Margaret Evans

Historic Beaufort Foundation gears up for its popular annual event The grounds of Marshlands, a historic view on Beaufort’s waterfront, will be the site of the 11th annual oyster roast sponsored by Historic Beaufort Foundation January 21st, 5:30 p.m. – 10 p.m. Open to HBF members and the general public, the event will feature a traditional oyster roast, chicken gumbo, beverages and dessert catered by Reeves Outdoor Catering and music by the bluegrass band of Beek Webb and the Sea Island Ramblers.

The history of African American troops in the Civil war kicks off HBF’s 300th anniversary series Historic Beaufort Foundation will focus its 2011 lecture series on topics directly related to Beaufort’s history beginning January 24 with “African Americans in the Civil War” by Joseph McGill, Jr., a program officer with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Civil War reenactor. Beaufort was the site of the first slave regiment mustered into the service of the United States during the Civil War, the First South Carolina Volunteers, by Gen. Isaac Saxton, commander of Union forces in Beaufort. Just a year after the Union occupation, Saxton called on abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson, to command the troops. The neighborhood which developed behind the National Cemetery on Boundary Street after the war was named Higginsonville in his honor.

Deborah S. Johnson, B3C Project Coordinator, sums up the past three years. The Beginning On January 17, 1711, or 1.17.1711 if one (not 1) is inclined towards numerology, the Lords Proprietor a great distance away across the Atlantic Ocean in England decreed the following:  “…We therefore being desirous to render the province of Carolina as useful as may be to this her Majesty’s Kingdom of Great Britain and also considering what great tracts of sand are lying upon the said River of Port Royal which may afford great quantities of Naval Stores have given directions for the building of a Town called Beaufort Town…”

Sewanee president and scholar of the American South, Dr. John McCardell, spoke with our editor about his part in the upcoming Tricentennial Lecture Series at the Parish Church of St. Helena.   Last January, our features editor Mark Shaffer had the privilege (and fun) of sitting down for a chat with Beaufort historians Larry Rowland and Steve Wise prior to the second round of Tricentennial Lectures at USCB. The good doctors were still basking in the glow of the wildly successful first round of lectures, from which literally hundreds of people were turned away for lack of space. As Mark put it at the time, it was “the small town equivalent of a smash Broadway show… An encore presentation wasn’t simply necessary, it was practically mandated. The trio of scholars has agreed to take the stage once again in what can only be described in certain circles as Beatles-esque.”