“Sarah and Angelina, the Grimké Sisters from Charleston”
Year: 2014
Size: 54″ x 36″
Medium: acrylic on canvas

Grimke sisters need to be bigger part of Charleston’s rich history

by Brian Hicks | October 1, 2014

Carol Ezell-Gilson says it’s time for Charleston to reclaim the Grimke sisters.

And she’s just the person to make sure that happens.

The sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke were born into a prominent Charleston family at the turn of the 19th century. They didn’t take to the life well, uncomfortable with the role of women in society of the day and appalled by the notion of slavery.

They would eventually become the nation’s first female abolitionists and early pioneers of the women’s rights movement. In the 1830′s, they published an anti-slavery pamphlet that was the most famous treatise on abolition until “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” came along.

But the Grimke sisters were largely forgotten, at least until Lowcountry writer Sue Monk Kidd made Sarah the protagonist of her novel, “The Invention of Wings.” Now, a lot of people are catching up to Ezell-Gilson, who first learned about the sisters 30 years ago. She first read about them when studying the book given to Charleston tour guides. There was a brief mention, but not nearly enough detail for Ezell-Gilson.

“I’d never heard of abolitionists from Charleston, especially not women,” she says. “I was fascinated.”

Finding their voice

Sarah Grimke was born in 1792, the sixth child of Judge John Grimke – a planter, lawyer, politician and veteran of the Revolutionary War. Her mother was the daughter of a prominent South Carolina banker.

From a young age, Sarah was frustrated by the limitations imposed on her by gender. The only thing that upset her more was the way slaves were treated. When she was given a slave girl of her very own, Sarah defied state law and taught her slave to read.

It was just the beginning of her revolt against the time.

Angelina was born 13 years after Sarah, and shared her views – and was much more vocal about it. Eventually, as adults they escaped the South and moved to Philadelphia (Sarah left first, Angelina followed 13 years later). They became Quakers, but soon found even that group stifled their beliefs too much.

In 1831, they began to read anti-slavery papers. When Angelina wrote to one publication’s editor, praising his work, she found her private letter published in a subsequent issue. The sisters had found their voice.

Soon, Angelina wrote an “Appeal to Southern Women,” reminding her audience that although they could not vote, they were the wives, mothers, sisters and daughters of the men who made all the decisions.

They should exert their influence, Angelina wrote, as she was trying to exert hers.

When her “Appeal” was published in 1837, copies were publicly burned in Charleston. Their mother was warned the sisters would be arrested if they ever showed their face in the Holy City.

They would never return.

Sarah and Angelina ultimately became the first female abolitionist agents in the United States, and agitated for their cause for more than a decade, speaking in parlors and churches across the country.

In 1848, they participated in the first meeting for women’s rights in Seneca Falls.

They were heroes and role models to the folks who organized it.

A tour into history

The Grimke sisters may have faded from Charleston memory because all of their life’s work was done after they left the city.

Or it could be because most of that work was burned outside the Custom House.

But there are still remnants of their history here. Sarah actually grew up in the Heyward-Washington house – which her family bought shortly after George Washington stayed there in 1791.

In fact, Ezell-Gilson believes it should be known as the Heyward-Washington-Grimke house.

The family eventually moved, and Angelina grew up in an East Bay house that is currently a law office.

Ezell-Gilson is currently finishing a portrait of the sisters, perhaps the first ever done, and it will be on display at the Preservation Society of Charleston during its Fall Tour of Homes.

Also, she and fellow tour guide Lee Ann Bain have put together a Grimke sisters tour that will run Thursdays through Sundays the first four weeks of October.

To book a tour, call 1-800-514-3849 or go online at thefalltours.org.

There is a lot more to this story than you can learn in a few minutes, and Ezell-Gilson is right – it’s time for Charleston reclaim this important chapter of its rich history.

“First Shipment of Golf Clubs to America”

Rewriting history: Golf arrived in America even earlier than thought at Charleston

by Tommy Braswell | December 1, 2014

Charleston has long been known as the birthplace of golf in America, with its roots dating back to 1743.

But a researcher at the National Archives of Scotland has discovered that golf arrived in the port city four years earlier than previously thought.

A document dated June 29, 1739, mentions golf clubs shipped from Scotland to Charleston businessman William Wallace in “Carolina” at a payment of 1 pound, 18 shillings (about 200 pounds or $350 in today’s market), said Scottish historian and author Dr. David Purdie. Purdie was in Charleston to make a presentation Monday night to the local St. Andrews Society, a philanthropic organization of which Wallace was a member.

“We are very thrilled that we can tie together that shipment of golf clubs to William Wallace,” said St. Andrews Society president Harrison Bissell. “We went through our archives and looked at the membership ranks and actually found his signature in the book in 1735. So we are pleased, being the oldest St. Andrews Society in the world (1729), that we also have the connection to the introduction of golf to what would become the United States.”

The previous earliest golf link between Scotland and America was 1743, when 432 balls and 96 clubs were shipped to Charleston businessman David Deas.

Purdie said he learned of the 1739 document through a phone call.

“Because I was involved in checking out the 1743 shipment, the researcher at the National Archives of Scotland called and said, ‘You have to come down here. We have seen something you will be interested in,’ ” said Purdie, a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh.

“The cradle of golf in America is this city. The oldest continuous golf club in America is the Saint Andrew’s Golf Club in Yonkers, N.Y. They were founded in 1888. But 150 years earlier, this was going on in Charleston.”

Charleston artist Carol Ezell-Gilson immortalized the early arrival of golf with a 1990 painting commissioned by Golf Expo 1990, a festival planned to capitalize on the rediscovery of golf in Charleston with the upcoming 1991 Ryder Cup Matches at Kiawah Island. The expo lasted only one year, but brought about renewed interest in Charleston’s place in golf history.

Ezell-Gilson’s painting, titled “First Shipment of Golf Clubs to America,” depicted wooden clubs in a crate arriving in Charleston Harbor. Other ships can be seen in the background, and the bill of lading is attached to the crate.

With the arrival of clubs and balls, the popularity of the game increased. The South Carolina Golf Club was founded in 1786 at Harleston Green on the Charleston peninsula, at the corner of present-day Pitt and Bull streets, just south of the College of Charleston’s present-day Addlestone Library.

“Green, in those days, was the original word for a course,” Purdie said. “They would meet in the coffee house and then go play golf. I imagine a Scottish businessman writes home to his brother and says there is land here for golf, send clubs, send balls. There’s a business opportunity here, perhaps the formation of a club.”

The golf clubs, Purdie said, were wooden – hickory shafts with perhaps hazel heads. The balls were featheries, pieces of leather stitched together with a small hole left in which goose feathers were stuffed. Caddies would carry an assortment of clubs for the golfer; golf bags were still to come.

Golf in Scotland dates back nearly 600 years. Musselburgh Links in Scotland bills itself as the world’s oldest golf course and was located in the middle of a horse racing track, Purdie said. It is located perhaps a mile from Port of Leith, where both shipments would have made their departure to bring golf to Charleston and to America.