1 of 3
Ranger Katherine Freeman entertains and educates visitors about the Reconstruction period in Beaufort during one of the park service’s complimentary walking tours through the city’s historic district.
Photo by Mic Smith
2 of 3
The tour includes a stop at the gravesite of Robert Smalls, who was born into slavery in Beaufort and who is famous for commandeering and delivering a Confederate ship to the Union Army. He was elected to Congress during Reconstruction.
Photo by Mic Smith
3 of 3
Darrah Hall at the Penn Center is part of the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park.
Photo by Mic Smith
A one-of-a-kind national park sits in the Beaufort area, telling the story of a pivotal period in South Carolina and American history when the city and its Sea Islands were at the center of a change in how human beings were treated and how a swath of the United States was governed.
Beaufort can make you feel transported to another time, with its rich antebellum architecture and centuries-old live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. In many ways, the identity of this Lowcountry locale can’t be separated from its history, both the beautiful and the difficult.
While national parks most often are stand-alone landmarks or natural resources, Reconstruction Era National Historical Park is unusual as a “time period” park, spread over four locations that have been donated to the federal government by communities and leaders—as is required by the Antiquities Act—and all of which contribute to the Reconstruction story.
A visit to this unique park in the heart of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor is part drive and part stroll through some of the most iconic scenery of South Carolina, from the moss-draped streets of downtown Beaufort to the quiet charms of St. Helena Island and Port Royal. It is very much a personal journey through South Carolina history—not ancient history, but a history that’s still deeply tied to the present-day community.
“Just today I sat and talked with a Penn School alumnus and listened to her sing songs from the school’s ‘mystery play’ they did at Christmas,” says Chris Barr, a supervising ranger at the park, explaining modern-day connections to the school that was one of the first places to educate formerly enslaved people in the Lowcountry. “There are local residents here today who knew those people and remember their stories.”
Those enduring community connections, Barr says, are “the power of this park.”
Reconstructing Reconstruction history
Beaufort and its Sea Islands played an integral part in the Civil War. They are strategically located between Charleston and Savannah, with a secure port tucked away from the Atlantic Ocean at the confluence of the Beaufort and Broad rivers. The area was captured by Union forces during the Battle of Port Royal in 1861, and as slavery ceased to be the law of the land, most white Confederates fled, leaving behind their property and their formerly enslaved people.
By 1862, some 10,000 newly freed African Americans were thought to be in the Beaufort area, looking for their next chapter and ushering in the Reconstruction era in South Carolina’s Lowcountry.
The goal—and challenge—of this period in America was to integrate millions of formerly enslaved people into social, political and labor systems, including citizenship, education and land ownership.
The Reconstruction era, spanning four decades from the 1860s to 1900, found initial footing in Beaufort County and the surrounding islands in what became known as the Port Royal Experiment. This groundbreaking program included the establishment of a military recruitment depot and training ground for African Americans joining the war effort, the arrival of northern missionaries who opened schools for formerly enslaved people, and buildings throughout Beaufort’s historic district that were transitioning to businesses that helped pave the way to citizenship for African Americans.
More than 160 years later, the story of America’s Reconstruction is being shared through Reconstruction Era National Historical Park.
“The Reconstruction story is happening in every ZIP code in America,” Barr says. “The park tells the story of the Reconstruction era nationally, with Beaufort as a case study.”
And it’s an important story—then, now and for future generations. “The Reconstruction era has important implications for how we create a wiser and more just society as we move forward,” former Beaufort mayor and park champion Billy Keyserling writes in his book Sharing Common Ground: Promises Unfulfilled but Not Forgotten.
The first effort to create the national park—or rather, at the time, to create a Reconstruction Era National Monument—failed in the early 2000s but was revived in 2016 by two congressmen from South Carolina, Democrat Jim Clyburn and Republican Mark Sanford, along with Keyserling, former Port Royal mayor Sam Murray and other community leaders.
The following year, President Barack Obama established the national monument in Beaufort, saying, “While the Civil War raged in the background, Beaufort County became the birthplace of Reconstruction.” The national monument was redesignated by Congress in 2019 as a national historical park.
The park “is just getting started,” says Kaley Crawford, who led tours of the park in its earlier days. “The Reconstruction story is ever-evolving, and the park will continue to evolve with it.”
Dive into the story on your own with an exploration of Beaufort’s four park sites. The sites sit within an easy 15-minute or less drive from one another, so visiting all four can make for a full day of learning and sightseeing. Here’s a guide to going back in time through the park.
Downtown Beaufort
Exploring the park begins in downtown Beaufort at the visitor center in the historic Beaufort Firehouse, which was donated to the park by native Beaufortonian Keyserling and his brother, Paul.
Daily tours of downtown Beaufort from the visitor center help put the Civil War and resulting Reconstruction into perspective. Stops throughout the historic district include:
- The Castle, which served as a hospital for both Black and white Union soldiers during the war
- First African Baptist Church, which served as a school during Reconstruction and continues to have an active congregation
- Robert Smalls’ gravesite at Tabernacle Baptist Church
- The new Harriet Tubman Monument on Craven Street
- The location of one of the first federally chartered Freedman’s Savings Bank branches in the U.S.
- The Secession House, where South Carolinians first decided to secede before the war and where tax auctions of Beaufort land were held after the war
Camp Saxton
From downtown Beaufort, drive about 10 minutes south to Camp Saxton in Port Royal. Established in the fall of 1862—shortly after the Battle of Port Royal—Camp Saxton was one of the first recruiting depots and training facilities for the African American soldiers who were part of the 1st South Carolina Infantry.
With military service seen as one of the first steps toward citizenship, Black soldiers trained on the grounds of the John Joyner Smith Plantation, also known as Old Fort Plantation, along the Beaufort River in Port Royal, which today borders the Naval Hospital Beaufort. The only remnants of the plantation are the tabby ruins of the old fort, which served as the dock for Camp Saxton and were donated to the national park by the town of Port Royal.
Echoes of the Emancipation Proclamation can be heard here, where some 5,000 newly freed people gathered to hear the proclamation read on the morning of Jan. 1, 1863.
Tours of Camp Saxton depart from Pinckney-Porter’s Chapel, a restored Reconstruction-era freedman’s chapel in Naval Heritage Park, which also serves as Port Royal’s visitor center for the park.
Darrah Hall and Brick Baptist Church
Round out your Reconstruction exploration with a 15-minute drive from Camp Saxton to the Penn Center on St. Helena Island, where you’ll find Darrah Hall and, nearby, Brick Baptist Church. Founded in 1862 by abolitionist missionaries from Pennsylvania, Penn School was one of the first schools created specifically for the education of freed African Americans. Darrah Hall, the oldest building on the Penn Center campus, is part of the Reconstruction Era park.
Darrah Hall was used over time as a community center, classroom, temperance hall and recreation facility. Today, it is the park’s St. Helena Island visitor center and houses interpretive displays and videos and launches tours to Brick Baptist Church, just across the street.
Beginning in the fall of 1862, classes at the Penn School were held at Brick Baptist Church. The church was first built in 1855 by enslaved people to be a house of worship for the white planters. But ever since the Battle of Port Royal, it has been an active African American church. The church remains privately owned but allows the park to lead tours onto its grounds.
___
Get There
Reconstruction Era National Historical Park Visitor Center
Where: 706 Craven St., Beaufort, in the Old Beaufort Firehouse in Beaufort’s Historic District
Hours: 9 a.m.–5 p.m. seven days a week
Tours: Ranger programs depart from the visitor center Tuesday through Saturday at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. and last about an hour.
Cost: Admission and tours are free.
Camp Saxton
Where: Pinckney-Porter’s Chapel visitor station at 27 Pinckney Blvd., Port Royal
Hours: 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays
Tours: Tours of Camp Saxton from the chapel to the Fort Frederick Heritage Preserve depart on Saturdays at noon and last about an hour.
Cost: Free
Penn Center’s Darrah Hall and Brick Baptist Church
Where: Darrah Hall is at 24 Penn Center Circle West, St. Helena Island, on the Penn Center campus
Hours: Darrah Hall is open 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays
Tours: Ranger programs depart Darrah Hall Tuesday through Saturday at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. and last about one hour, including a visit to the grounds of Brick Baptist Church.
Cost: The ranger-guided programs are free. However, Penn Center maintains its own museum and welcome center where visitors can learn about Gullah Geechee culture, heritage and history on St. Helena Island. Admission to the Penn Center museum is $15 for a self-guided campus tour and $20 for a docent-guided tour. Visitors ages 5 and under are free.
For more information about visiting Reconstruction Era National Historical Park, visit nps.gov/reer or call (843) 962-0039.
___
Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor
The story of South Carolina’s role in slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction can’t be separated from the roots of the African American people whose culture came to define swaths of the Southeastern Atlantic coast, particularly in the Lowcountry. The federally designated Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor stretches from southeastern North Carolina, just north of Wilmington, down to St. Augustine, Florida.
The Beaufort area and the Reconstruction Era park are right in the heart of the cultural corridor, which celebrates the heritage, legacy, foodways and linguistics of enslaved Africans brought over to the United States—many through Charleston and other Southeastern cities—during the Transatlantic Slave Trade of the 18th and 19th centuries. Isolated in these coastal communities, the Gullah Geechee people retained their African beliefs, customs and languages, and many of them continue to thrive along the Southeastern coast.
The 12,000-square-mile federal National Heritage Area isn’t a single site but rather many historic and culturally rich places of significance to the Gullah Geechee people, including:
- McLeod, Magnolia and Boone Hall plantations in Charleston
- The many ironworks of Philip Simmons throughout Charleston and the Philip Simmons House and Museum
- The Charles Pinckney National Historic Site in Mt. Pleasant
- The Gullah Museum in Georgetown
- Reconstruction Era National Historical Park in Beaufort County
- Penn Center on St. Helena Island
- Historic Mitchelville on Hilton Head Island, the first freedmen’s town established after the Civil War
- And the Gullah Museum on Hilton Head Island.
Learn more at www.gullahgeecheecorridor.org.