The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1922-09-14
OLD CAROLINA
AND HER "TABBY'
(By Y. l.. Willet.)

Time InaC WSdVSS LILY SUI opOAAo
and puts a halo about environment
has her habitation in Beaufort land
for in this land time is gentle and
kind; here time is not an avenger!
The grandfather's clock in my hotel
at Beaufort has been tabulating the
seconds for 169 years; and through
my window 1 sect street sign which
says: 1.-TWO blocks to st. Helena
church founded in seventeen hundred
and twelve (1712).' This old
church, founded 21O years ago and
her contemporaneous and sister
chruches, Sheldon, Parish church
and Goose Creek church-near
harleston-constitut a trinity of
churches, the oldest and historically
the most important in all of Ameri-
can history. And in this St. Helena
churchyard, which covers a whole
city square with it's high surrounding
walls and with a gateway with COM
manding portals, sleep a host, as
likewise in Sheldon Parish church
yard, of the most illustrous men and
women of the early days of this coun-
try. These peoples, who long ago
passed on, endured, and conquered,
too. the hardest vicissitudes that ever
best any portion of this great land.
Than this old St. Helena churchyard
there is in all the land no sweeter
place to sleep, for here within these
walls tall and everlasting live oaks
keep guard; here are beautiful
palms, ever enduring palmetto trees,
and hundreds of thousands of soft
ever-swinging grey pendants of Span
ish moss. all Of which, at least to
me, seem as if they must serve as
pillows for these weary heads to rest
upon.
Other sections may boast of their
brick and granite but the old prov
ince of Carolina boasts of her "tab-
by" which is equally as immortal as
the above builders and far more ro-
mantle in that it is made up of whole
shells imbedded in and cemented by
burnt oyster shell lime. From Char
lesion to Savannah this tabby work is
in continual evidence. Tabby serves
for dwellings, for churches, for walls
and for foundations for forts!
The oldest house in Beaufort, inhabi-
ted today and over 200 years old, has
a base of tabby walls in which are
half a dozen port holes for rifle use.
Old Fort Charles on Paris Island,
the first fort in America and the
landing place of Americas first colo
nists, had tabby walls which were
recently razed. This was an act that
seems wholly incredible-unless done
through ignorance of what these old
walls represented.
Second Largest Tabby Fort.
Between Beaufort and Port Royal
and situated directly on the banks Of
the quite broad Beaufort river. About
this fort is a forest fort in America.
A mile away and across neck of
land is Port Royal river. About this
fort is a forest of ancient live oaks,
which, with it's phantom Spanish
moss. is as weirdly beautiful as the
live oak forest of Bonaventure Gene
terry, Savannah. Indeed, the Port
Royal grove is called Carolina's Bona
venture. This old fort covers an acre
or more. Of it's four walls the one
at the waters edge is gone, probably
washed away in the great storm of
1892. The ends of two other walls
nearest the water and weighing
many tons were at the same time
cracked and disconnected from the
main wall, perhaps being undermin-
ed by the waves. The fort walls are
four feet thick-ample protection in
those times-and are, perhaps, eight
feet high.
The natives call this magnificent
old tabby fort the Spanish fort and
tell Spanish fables about it. The
truth is it is an English fort and
dates back to a little before the
Revolutionary days. The fort, it is
said, was never paid for by the Eng
lish because, as they declared, it did
not come up to specifications. Though
it was never, perhaps, occupied by
soldiers it is a wondrous old fort, all
the same. Indeed, to all shrine wor-
shippers of tabby forts this old Eng
lish fort is excelled only by the truly
Spanish tabby forts of St. Augustine,
The Sphinx on Broad River.
Ten miles from Beaufort on the
Riverside Farm and lying directly on
Broad river is strange structure