That’s what a full house crowd got to experience Tuesday night as Chelsy Proper and Shanda Phillips of the Berkeley County Museum & Heritage Center gave us a terrific tour of the rich and involved history of Berkeley County….from the first settlements through the exploits of Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox” of Revolutionary War Fame. The role of the Old Santee Canal and the efforts of Thomalind Martin Polite, a descendant of an woman brought from Sierra Leone as a 10 year slave, to reconstruct her ancestor’s life path. The museum shows a copy of Polite’s documentary as part of that exhibit.
All that and lots more are part of the tale the Berkeley County Museum and Heritage Center have to tell.
A couple more examples: Did you know that the first county seat of Berkeley County was Mt. Pleasant? Yep. Of course that ended when Charleston County annexed Mt Pleasant and the county seat moved to Monks Corner.
Were you aware that Fort Fair Lawn is one of only two intact British fortifications in South Carolina?
It’s not really a substitute for being there, but here’s the slideshow Chely and Shanda used Tuesday night (11.16.21)
To learn lots more, check out the Berkeley County Historical Society Museum and Cultural Center’s website. CLICK HERE
Here are a few more social media links for the Berkeley County Museum:
To follow the Museum on Facebook CLICK HERE
For their Twitter feed CLICK HERE
And for their Instagram page CLICK HERE
Some other links worth checking out:
25 Incredible Photos From Berkeley County’s Past The Berkeley Observer, Dec. 2016
For a 2018 NBC story on Priscilla, the 10 year old slave brought to Berkeley County…and her distant descendant Thomalind Martin Polite’s efforts to trace her journey CLICK HERE