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GOOD CAUSE CLEAN UP FOR A
ROBINSON HOME: BEFORE CLEANUP
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ROBINSON HOME: AFTER CLEANUP Sallie Ann Robinson is all smiles during a cleanup of Gullah historical sites on Daufuskie Island.
AMERICA’S BOATING CLUB HILTON HEAD, DAUFUSKIE ISLAND GULLAH HERITAGE SOCIETY PARTNER TO RESTORE GULLAH SITES
BY HILTON HEAD MONTHLY | PHOTOS SUPPLIED
America’s Boating Club Hilton Head has partnered with the Daufuskie Island Gullah Heritage Society to assist in the cleanup and restoration of Gullah historical sites on Daufuskie Island. There are five Gullah cemeteries and multiple Gullah historic home sites on Daufuskie that need substantial amounts of work. “The Gullah history is unique and certainly worth preserving,” said Boating Club HH Executive Officer, Craig Loomis.
The initial focus of the cleanup efforts was to clear and remove overgrown vegetation at each of the sites. Club members have volunteered their time to do this work on an ongoing basis. Volunteers provide their own boat transportation to Daufuskie and the tools needed to do the work. Projects are determined and detailed by Sallie Ann Robinson, the founder of the Daufuskie Island Gullah Heritage Society. Robinson provides the volunteers transportation to the work sites on the island.
There have been two workdays performed by club volunteers: one in November (21 volunteers) and most recently Feb. 2, which featured help from nine volunteers. Overgrown vegetation, trees, shrubs and other landscape debris have been removed from two cemeteries (the Mary Fields Cemetery and the Cooper River Cemetery) and two Gullah homesites (the Robinson Home and the Hamilton Home). Additional workdays are being planned for March and likely this fall. “A big focus of our organization is community outreach centered round boating activities,” said Peter Dion, the Commander of America’s Boating Club Hilton Head said. “Last year our club and several other America’s Boating Clubs from South Carolina and Georgia visited Daufuskie Island and took the tour of Daufuskie Island that Sallie Ann Robinson presents regularly. We were impressed with Sallie Ann and her passion for preserving the rich Gullah culture there. She said she needed help, so we decided it would be a great service for our club to help and assist her.” Said Loomis: “That day Pete and I said we have to work with her. This is a great opportunity to do some good on the island.”
Loomis said the club views the initiative as a “longterm project.”
The Daufuskie Island Gullah Heritage Society (daufuskieislandgullahheritagesociety.org) is a 501(c) (3) organization founded by Robinson to “restore, clean up and maintain the Gullah homes and cemeteries on Daufuskie Island.” Sixth-generatio-born Daufuskian Robinson loves living back home with a passion, which is why she’s working hard to restore the old Gullah homes and maintain the graveyards for respect. She’s moved back home with a mission her ancestors would want her to do, she said. America’s Boating Club Hilton Head is a nonprofit organization focused on safe, enjoyable boating and is part of the United States Power Squadron, a national boating organization. The club performs community outreach and offers training and education courses to new and experienced boaters. To learn more, visit abchh.org.
CONNECTING TO THE PAST
A survey team found a brick hearth believed to be the only remaining structure built by the Mitchelville community.
SIGNIFICANT ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERY MADE AT MITCHELVILLE
BY CLAY BONNYMAN EVANS PHOTOS SUPPLIED
Katherine “Katie” Seeber first came to Hilton Head Island in 2015 as a graduate student of archaeology at New York’s Binghamton University, to assist one of her professors with the excavation of indigenous shell rings.
It was, you might say, the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Now, more than five years later, Seeber is in the final stages of preparing a report on a detailed archaeological survey that has already begun to deepen historical understanding of the first self-governed town of formerly enslaved people in the United States.
From November 2020 to January 2021, Seeber and her team of five used groundpenetrating radar, magnetometry and electromagnetometry to survey the 24-acre site, generating nearly 600 scans and “a massive amount of data.”
Preliminary estimates show that as much as 88 percent of the area may contain potential “underground cultural anomalies,” Seeber says, including some from indigenous inhabitants who pre-dated the town.
Most significantly, the survey led to her team’s discovery of an intact brick hearth believed to be the only remaining physical structure built by the Mitchelville community, which thrived as an intact town from 1862 into the 1880s.
