If one is searching for an example of poetic justice, look no further than the coastal town of Beaufort. The residence at 511 Prince St., now proudly listed as a National Historic Landmark, was once the property of Henry McKee, who also possessed hundreds of acres of cotton on Lady’s Island and hundreds of slaves. Among the enslaved population whose collective fate rested in McKee’s hands was a little boy named Robert, who was born to house servant Lydia Polite in a cabin behind the main house in 1839. There is evidence that Robert may also have been the progeny of his master.
Look ahead 24 years to 1863 when that same Robert Smalls, now a certified Civil War hero, purchases the home of his former owner in a tax sale. No better example can be found, I would assert, of what the dictionary defines as “an outcome in which vice is punished and virtue rewarded, usually in a manner ironically appropriate.” Furthermore, when Henry McKee’s widow Jane came by the house – she was suffering from dementia and believed that the residence still belonged to her – the generous-hearted Smalls let her stay under what was now his roof until her death.
The Robert Smalls House, which was recently featured in a special promotion on HGTV as one of 11 “homes with history,” is just one impressive site in Beaufort associated with a man who was a folk legend even in his own lifetime. At the age of 12, Smalls was sent to Charleston as a paid laborer, most of his salary going to Henry McKee. Eventually he advanced from dockworker to boat pilot; and that ultimate set of skills laid the foundation for the most dramatic moment in his life and one of the most extraordinary incidents of the American Civil War. In the early hours of May 13, 1862, Smalls sailed the Confederate transport ship Planter – on board were seven other African-American crew members and their families – past Charleston harbor forts and to the Union fleet then blockading the city.
Besides delivering himself and others to freedom, Smalls supplied the U.S. Navy with valuable information on Confederate harbor defenses, including the location of underwater mines. His brave act also led to President Lincoln’s eventual acceptance of the fact that African-American combatants were capable of making a significant contribution to the war effort.
After the war, Smalls returned to his native Beaufort, which he represented in the state legislature – he was a strong advocate for free public education in South Carolina – before serving in the U.S. Congress. Devoted to what was then known as the “party of Lincoln,” Smalls became a lifelong Republican because of the role that he felt the party had played in having “unshackled the necks of 4 million human beings.” What he would have thought about the Republican Party under the tutelage of Donald Trump I leave to you, dear readers, to surmise.
A major political and commercial figure in his hometown – he established an African-American newspaper and invested in a horse-drawn railway – Smalls joined the congregation of the Tabernacle Baptist Church, whose sanctuary still stands on Craven Street. Founded in 1863 with an initial congregation of 500 freed people, the church building was refurbished in 1893 as a result of hurricane damage that same year.
In the graveyard between the church proper and the parsonage, both Smalls and his first wife Hannah are buried. In front of his simple grave marker flush with the ground is an impressive monument erected by the Beaufort County Council in 1976. On top of a stone base is a bronze bust of Smalls as he appeared at the height of his political career; the work is by sculptor Marion Talmage Ethredge. On the base is carved the following quote from 1895 when Smalls served as a delegate to the South Carolina constitutional convention of that year: "My race needs no special defense, for the past history of them in this country proves them to be the equal of any people, anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life."
The Jim Crow document generated during the 1895 convention – Smalls was one of only five minority delegates – effectively barred African-Americans for generations from playing a significant role in the political life of our state. Thus, the promises made during Reconstruction, the heyday of Smalls as a public servant, faced a multitude of obstacles by the time of his death in 1915. Still, Robert Smalls stands as a role model to all Americans of what can be accomplished by one man of courage and enterprise.
Next Friday’s final installment of my three-part Beaufort series will focus on the hauntingly beautiful graveyard of the Parish Church of St. Helena.