Coosaw Island is one of South Carolina's Sea Islands. It is part of Beaufort County, South Carolina. The island is rural and residential. A narrow creek separates it from Lady's Island.[1] It is named for a tribe of Native Americans who inhabited the area,[2] the Coosaw band of Native Americans.
History
editAn uprising reportedly occurred on the island in 1715.[3]
John Bull (ca. 1693–1767) lived on the island[4] and it was known as Bull's Island.[5] His wife was reportedly taken by Native Americans while he was away and never heard from again.
Landgrave Joseph Morton acquired it.[6]
Surgeon Thomas P. Knox, an abolitionist who served with the U.S. Army in South Carolina until being fired for encouraging black to exercise their political rights, wrote about deplorable conditions of freed slaves on this and other islands accusing a relief organization and Rufus Saxton of fraudulent activities.[7]
In 1863, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln gave instructions to U.S. tax commissioners regarding the island and other areas.[8] After the Civil War the 6,500 acre island, part of a "cluster of sub-tropical, swampy, malaria-infested Sea Islands west of St. Helena Sound was where thousands of "contraband" escaped soaves were held on the islands. The islands were sold off on the cheap after General Sherman's attempts to manage the island for agricultural production by freedmen failed to pan out by 1864.[9]
A Penn School graduate taught at a one room school house on the island documented in a photograph.[10]
In 1937, a Work Projects Administration guide to South Carolina described the island as being inhabited "solely by negroes" and as having no telephone service, bathing facilities, or cars on it.[11]
In 2003 a 40 page report on its shell ring complex was published.[12]
Geography
editCoosaw Island is 10 miles northeast of Beaufort, South Carolina. South Bluff Heritage Preserve is on the island. It includes ring sites (List of shell ring sites) dating from 5,000-3,000 years ago.[13]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Coastal South Carolina. Pineapple Press Inc. ISBN 978-1-56164-348-6 – via Google Books.
- ^ Administration, United States Works Progress; Project, Federal Writers' (September 28, 1937). "The Intracoastal Waterway: Norfolk to Key West". U.S. Government Printing Office – via Google Books.
- ^ Nestor, Sandy (May 7, 2015). Indian Placenames in America. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-9339-5 – via Google Books.
- ^ Jr, Malcolm Bell (December 1, 2004). Major Butler's Legacy: Five Generations of a Slaveholding Family. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-2395-4 – via Google Books.
- ^ "Related Records | Historic Charleston Foundation". charleston.pastperfectonline.com.
- ^ Rowland, Lawrence Sanders; Moore, Alexander; Rogers, George C.; Rogers (Jr.), George C.; Wise, Stephen R.; Spieler, Gerhard (September 28, 1996). The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina: 1514-1861. Univ of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-57003-090-1 – via Google Books.
- ^ https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/rbc/lcrbmrp/t2304/t2304.pdf
- ^ https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:President_Lincoln%27s_instructions_to_tax_commissioners_-_letter_from_the_Secretary_of_the_Treasury,_in_answer_to_a_resolution_of_the_House_of_28th_ultimo_(IA_presidentlincoln00unit).pdf&page=4
- ^ Mackay, James (December 21, 2012). Sir Thomas Lipton: The Man Who Invented Himself. Random House. ISBN 978-1-78057-492-9 – via Google Books.
- ^ "Photo Asset | School on Coosaw Island | History of SC Slide Collection | Knowitall.org". www.knowitall.org.
- ^ The Intracoastal Waterway: Norfolk to Key West. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1937.
- ^ Investigation of the Coosaw Island Shell Ring Complex (38BU1866). Southeast Archeological Center, National Park Service. 2003.
- ^ "Exploring South Carolina's cultural preserves". www.dnr.sc.gov.