Freezing weather didn’t hold back a capacity crowd for our January DIHS Meeting.
Renee Marshall, Executive Director of the Huguenot Society of South Carolina took us on the journey the French Protestant group undertook at 60+ years of war between Catholics and Protestants in their home country. Some fun facts she pointed out: The first Huguenots were in South Carolina in 1562…35 years before the English settled Jamestown. (That settlement, near present day Parris Island, didn’t survive.)
The Huguenots were attractive settlers for the Lords Proprietors to recruit to the New World because they tended to be better educated and included both professional people and merchants. Marshall also pointed out how some of the early recruiting pitches in London coffee shops glossed over some lowcountry realities like mosquitoes and weather.
Many of us are familiar with the Huguenot Church, appropriately on Church St downtown. Marshall pointed out it is the only Huguenot church in the U.S. that was never incorporated into another denomination. For more info on the Huguenot Society, visit their website: https://www.huguenotsociety.org/ and their Facebook page
