#95: Kiawah Island, Sullivan's Island, and a Modernism in Greenville Walking Tour
For South Carolina history lovers far and wide! Enjoy weekly SC history and upcoming SC historical events
Welcome to the first 100 days of the South Carolina History Newsletter! My name is Kate Fowler and I live in Greenville, SC. I have a 9-5 job in marketing, and outside of work, have a deep love of history. I started this newsletter as a passion project to learn more about our beautiful state and build a community of fellow SC history lovers along the way! To establish a foundation for the newsletter and to grow my expertise on a wide variety of South Carolina historical topics, this past February I challenged myself to post 100 newsletters in 100 days. After this coming May 21st, the newsletter will become weekly. Thank you for joining the journey!
Dear reader,
Welcome to Newsletter #95 of The South Carolina History Newsletter! I’m so happy you’re here.
As always, I’d like to also extend a special welcome to the following new subscribers — woohoo! Thank you for subscribing.
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I hope you enjoy today’s newsletter, and as always, please feel free to reply to this email with your ideas and suggestions on South Carolina history topics you’d like to learn more about. I’m only a click away.
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And now, let’s learn some South Carolina history!
Yours truly,
Kate
(Writing from Greenville, SC)
➳ Featured SC History Event
Please enjoy our featured SC History Event below, and click here to visit my SC History Events Calendar that organizes all the upcoming SC history events I have discovered. Please let me know if you’d like to add an event to the calendar! Reply to this email or send me a note at schistorynewsletter@gmail.com.
Saturday, June 1st from 11:00 am - 1:00 pm | “Modernism in Greenville Walking Tour” | Start at the Children’s Museum of the Upstate | Greenville, SC | Tickets: $15
“Join MidModSC board members Caroline Wilson and Lauren Fowler, both Upstate South Carolina natives, for a walking tour of Greenville's Modernist architectural gems. Greenville's prosperity was spurred by the textile boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries; the industry's success continued through the mid-20th century period, resulting in a booming downtown with many prominent Modernist buildings. The tour will begin at the Children's Museum of the Upstate (constructed as the Greenville County Library in 1970), 300 College Street, Greenville, SC.
Tour map and additional details will be provided in May.
MidModSC is South Carolina's organization for the identification and preservation of Modernist architecture. We are currently obtaining 501(c)3 status for the organization and are working to provide comprehensive digital access to our state's rich Modernist legacy.”
➳ SC History Fun Facts
I.
Did you know that Kiawah Island was privately owned by the same family for 180 years?
Kiawah is a small barrier island situated south of Charleston between the mouths of the Stono and North Edisto Rivers.
The Island is named for the Kiawah Indians, who lived in the vicinity at the time of European contact.
The Kiawah were a tribe of Cusabo people, an alliance of Indigenous groups in lowland regions of the coastal region of what became Charleston.
English settler Robert Sanford wrote in his 1666 recollections that a Kiawah tribe member known by the title of Cacique (leader) welcomed him earnestly to the Kiawah "assuring [him] a broad deep entrance, and promising a large welcome and plentiful entertainment and trade.”
Supposedly, it was the “Cacique's pride for his country that encouraged the English to solidify the creation of their settlement.”
Another English settler, Nicolas Carteret, recorded his travels from Bermuda to the Ashley River in a letter. During his visit to Port Royal (the Charleston Harbor area since a settlement had been constructed there in April of 1670), the Kiawah’s Cacique assisted in the travels of Cartaret, who remarked that he was "a very ingenious Indian, and a great linguist."
In 1699, the Lords Proprietors deeded the island to George Rayner.
Twenty years later, the island became the property of the planter John Stanyarne, who cleared land for indigo production and built a sizable house that came to be known as the Vanderhorst mansion.
In 1772 the island was inherited by Stanyarne’s two granddaughters, Mary Gibbes and Elizabeth Raven Vanderhorst, wife of Arnoldus Vanderhorst.
Kiawah would remain in the possession of the Vanderhorst family for the next 180 years.
Indigo gave way to cotton planting on Kiawah by the start of the nineteenth century and remained “the primary economic activity on the island into the twentieth century.”
A series of hurricanes and the arrival of the boll weevil pest decimated Sea Island cotton by 1918, however, and Kiawah’s cotton fields reverted to woodlands.
In 1952 C. C. Royal Lumber Company purchased the island from the Vanderhorst family for $125,000.
Shortly thereafter, Royal constructed a bridge that connected Kiawah to Johns Island.
In 1974 Royal’s heirs sold the island for $17,385,000 to Kiawah Island Company, Inc., a subsidiary of Kuwait Investment Corporation, which developed an upscale resort and residential community.
In 1988 the town of Kiawah Island was incorporated. A world-famous resort, Kiawah boasts “expansive beaches, as well as superb tennis and golf facilities.”
Please scroll to the bottom of this email for my source for this section
Have you stayed at Kiawah Island? Tell us about it! Please leave a comment below!
II.
Did you know that poet Edgar Allan Poe was once an army recruit stationed at Sullivan’s Island?
Sullivan’s Island was discovered in 1666 by Captain Robert Sandford and named for Captain Florence O’Sullivan, a former Irish soldier and one of South Carolina’s first colonists.
On May 30, 1674, O’Sullivan was given the responsibility of manning the signal cannon on the island at the entrance to Charleston harbor. Thus began the island’s relationship with military defense as well as the name “O’Sullivan’s Island.”
Throughout the history of Sullivan’s Island, “military defense and summer recreation would be the two most important factors in its economic development.”
A quarantine station was built on Sullivan’s Island in 1707 and served as the primary line of defense against infectious disease reaching Charleston via newly arriving immigrants, primarily African slaves.
On June 28, 1776, the first major defeat suffered by the British forces in the Revolutionary War took place at the Battle of Sullivan’s Island, where the American fort on the island forced the withdrawal of British warships threatening the city.
Beginning in 1791, private citizens “who thought it beneficial to their health” began spending summers on the island, making Sullivan’s perhaps the state’s original seaside resort.
In 1817 the incorporation of the town of Moultrieville reflected the increase in summer and year-round residents.
From 1827 to 1828 the resident Edgar Allan Poe, then a young army recruit, was stationed at Fort Moultrie. Years later Poe’s story “The Gold Bug” drew on his time spent on Sullivan’s Island. Poe described the island:
"This island is a very singular one. It consists of little else than the sea sand, and is about three miles long. Its breadth at no point exceeds a quarter of a mile. It is separated from the mainland by a scarcely perceptible creek, oozing its way through a wilderness of reeds and slime, a favorite resort of the marsh-hen ..."
On January 30, 1838, the imprisoned chief Osceola of the Seminole Indians died and was buried at Fort Moultrie.
Taking part in the opening shots of the Civil War on April 12, 1861, Confederate gunners at Fort Moultrie and three other batteries on Sullivan’s Island participated in the bombardment of Fort Sumter.
Sullivan’s Island’s few businesses — which included boardinghouses, entertainment halls, grocery stores, drugstores, churches, and post offices — served residents and the military over the years.
In 1906 the General Assembly revoked the charter for the town of Moultrieville, replacing it with a township government and creating the town of Sullivan’s Island.
Fort Moultrie was deactivated in 1947 and turned over to the National Park Service.
A navigation beacon or lighthouse is the only remaining defensive fixture on Sullivan’s Island from the days of Florence O’Sullivan.
Sullivan’s Island is prone to natural disasters, such as Hurricane Hugo, which hit on September 21, 1989, but still the island remains a desirable place for residents and guests, whether for a few days or all year long.
Please scroll to the bottom of this email for my sources for this section
Have you stayed at Sullivan’s Island? Please tell us about it! Please leave a comment below!
➳ SC History Quote
“If ever there was a resort born with an old soul, it’s The Sanctuary…a distinct blend of Old South refinement and island breeziness…If Kiawah’s Ocean Course is the jewel of the coast, The Sanctuary is now its crown…The Sanctuary exudes an enduring rhythm.”
— Travel & Leisure Golf commenting on The Sanctuary Resort on Kiawah Island
Kiawah Island article sources:
“Indigo Cultivation – Florida History Online.” Projects of History – A Compendium of Research and Community Projects at the University of North Florida, https://history.domains.unf.edu/floridahistoryonline/projects-proj-b-p-html/plantations-plantations-indigo_cultivation_and_processing-htm/. Accessed 12 May 2024.
“Kiawah People - Wikipedia.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, 25 Feb. 2013, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiawah_people#cite_note-salley-5. Accessed 12 May 2024.
“Kiawah.” Charleston Raconteurs in Charleston, SC, https://charlestonraconteurs.com/kiawah.html. Accessed 12 May 2024.
“Publicity Quotes.” Kiawah Resort, https://kiawahresort.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/quotes_sanctuary.pdf. Accessed 12 May 2024.
Walpole, Ford. “Kiawah Island.” South Carolina Encyclopedia, University of South Carolina, Institute for Southern Studies, https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/kiawah-island/#:~:text=Kiawah%20is%20a%20small%20barrier,the%20island%20to%20George%20Rayner. Accessed 12 May 2024.
Sullivan’s Island article sources:
Fitzgerald, Catherine. “Sullivan’s Island.” South Carolina Encyclopedia, 1 July 2016, https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/sullivan%C2%92s-island/#:~:text=Sullivan’s%20Island%20was%20discovered%20in,the%20entrance%20to%20Charleston%20harbor. Accessed 12 May 2024.
“Visit Edgar Allan Poe’s Lowcountry Haunts.” South Carolina Tourism Official Site, https://discoversouthcarolina.com/articles/visit-edgar-allan-poes-lowcountry-haunts. Accessed 12 May 2024.
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