Thomas Lynch Jr. | Arthur Middleton | Edward Rutledge | Thomas Heyward
I am very disappointed with South Carolina...
Sure, I love my neighbor state for its forests, beaches, and endless road construction, but in the quest to find it's signatories for the declaration of independence, I was met with 4 out of 4 busts. (Not artisan busts like of their faces; no, I mean 100% historical disappointments.)
Almost all of the Declaration signers from South Carolina are buried in their home state, all within a few hours of the port city of Charleston.
Thomas Heyward Jr. is buried in his family's graveyard on the land where his plantation used to be.
Arthur Middleton is buried in his family's tomb within the newly restored grounds of his plantation.
Edward Rutledge is buried in a churchyard in downtown Charleston.
Thomas Lynch Jr. has no burial place; he was lost at sea.
Almost all of the Declaration signers from South Carolina are buried in their home state, all within a few hours of the port city of Charleston.
Thomas Heyward Jr. is buried in his family's graveyard on the land where his plantation used to be.
Arthur Middleton is buried in his family's tomb within the newly restored grounds of his plantation.
Edward Rutledge is buried in a churchyard in downtown Charleston.
Thomas Lynch Jr. has no burial place; he was lost at sea.
Thomas Lynch Jr.Technically, this little dot should be somewhere in the middle of the Caribbean.
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Let's start off with Thomas Lynch. On his journey north from South Carolina, Lynch's ship was lost to sea. I took a picture of the ocean he set off from at the Port of Charlestown as to suffice for a picture of his grave. To the right is a view from me having climbed through the guard rails (do not try to emulate my adventures please) off Charleston's Battery on the south side, overlooking the eastern seaboard from where Lynch's ship would have last been seen before its disappearance.
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Don't dangle off the Battery like I did.
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Arthur Middleton
Next is Arthur Middleton. I knew that driving down to Charleston, there would be many people to see, but I didn't take into account the commercialization of old plantations! He is currently buried at Middleton Plantation and Gardens, which looks beautiful but also charges $28 to explore the grounds, much to my dismay. I ran into a similar problem a few months ago with visiting Andrew Jackson's hermitage, and brings me to question the allotted accessibility to our nation's history. I feel like I either want to write an angry essay analyzing the limit socioeconomic access to historical sites and its reflection on developments of patriotism and historical interest among different communities, or write a pleading letter to these sites including something along the lines of: "Hello, I am a poor college student who loves history and exploring and also I work at a museum so please take pity on your fellow historian and let me in for free?" I bet it could work at least once.
Edward Rutledge |
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Edward Rutledge, along with constitution signer Charles Pinckney, are both buried at St. Philip's episcopal church in downtown Charleston... supposedly. I wouldn't know for sure. After battling heat and fighting our way through a crowd of drunken St. Pattie's Day bar crawlers, we were faced with a closed gate and a single laminated sign: GRAVEYARD TEMPORARILY CLOSED FOR REPAIRS. My friend makes fun of me because the first thing that I said was "What?! You can't close dead people!" I'm glad he whipped out his phone as fast as he did, because it made for a very funny immediate reaction video. Fun tip: do not deprive an Emma of her adventure schemes, especially if it involves history. I'll have to come back and visit them another day (maybe this time actually calling ahead.) Nevertheless, we ended up going to a connected (and not closed) graveyard across the street and ended up with a surprise find. I'll give the fun facts about their lives on the day that I get to see their graves up close, and not through a fence bars.
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Thomas Heyward
... and the final flop. When I tried to hit all of the South Carolina signers at once, it turned out to be a lot. The people I was traveling with didn't have much interest traveling 2 hours out into the low-country marsh land to find a small graveyard just to take a picture with a single monument and say a few words. I can't blame them, I have found myself with a very strange passion. I will come back for Thomas Heyward.
Like I said, though Charleston was a really fun adventure marking a year since the beginning of this blog quest, I'll have to return to do more exploring and actually show up when the graveyard is open, not crumbling into the ground, and with more willing friends. History will be history.