This editorial appeared in The Island Packet January 8, 2010
Preserving Our Community History
Across a busy highway from a miniature golf course stands a serene Revolutionary War-era cemetery. Its tombstones, mausoleum and historical markers whisper stories that have captivated Hilton Head Island forever, or so it seems.
Somehow, the stories that entwine these silent remnants of a different era should speak louder than a whisper.
The keepers of that site at the intersection of William Hilton Parkway and Mathews Drive are speaking up for it. The Heritage Library Foundation thinks the stories of the Zion Chapel of Ease cemetery would interest more people if only they knew about it, and had more there to explain and interpret its significance.
Careful consideration should be given to anything this foundation suggests as it involves the Town of Hilton Head Island in exploring ideas and costs.
But we see this plea as part of a bigger picture. It is a picture that stamps Beaufort County as different from all others.
The bigger picture shows that our community's history is beyond remarkable, with its front-row participation in centuries of seminal world and national events. This history should be preserved, documented, shared and sold as a whole. The world should know with the click of a button that we stand apart. The world should know:
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Our mysterious shell rings left by natives long predate the arrival of Europeans.
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The first settlement of Europeans here in 1562 came before such household words as St. Augustine, Fla., andJamestown, Va. But who knows that our Charlesfort on Parris Island predates the hallowed Plymouth Rock by a full century?
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The secession movement was rooted here.
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We were first in freedom. That alone should be a mantra the world associates with Beaufort County. The first unshackling of slavery happened right here in November 1861. The first public reading of the Emancipation Proclamation took place in Port Royal on New Years Day 1863.
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Reconstruction began here, with the stories of Robert Smalls of Beaufort, the Penn School of St. Helena Island and the Mitchelville planned village for freedmen on Hilton Head Island representing major American milestones.
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It was in Beaufort that American heroine Clara Barton led the first national response to a disastrous hurricane.
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Civil rights giant Martin Luther King Jr. planned and rehearsed a movement that we now see as a high water mark of world history right here on St. Helena Island.
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Both the historic preservation movement of Beaufort and the bold development plans of Hilton Head remain national leaders.
Many entities want to, can and are telling these stories, and many more.
But, together, we must do better. Let's make sure we have a cohesive message -- a knockout punch -- that bowls the world over with the powerful, historic story of Beaufort County.
