♪ >> ♪ Oh, I have found the sweetest place ♪ ♪ where people smile and know my name.

♪ ♪ Oh, I have found the sweetest land ♪ ♪ as warm as sun and cool as rain.

♪ ♪ A place so faaarrr... from all we had, ♪ ♪ a place so far from all we've known, ♪ ♪ a quiet place that we can love ♪ ♪ and call our home.

♪♪ ♪ ♪ [water babbling] (Joanna Angle) This county was formed in 1785 when the old Orangeburg District was divided.

First known as Winton, the county and its county seat were renamed in honor of a prominent Lowcountry family, the Barnwells.

Welcome to Barnwell and to "Palmetto Places," a series that explores and celebrates South Carolina's small towns and countryside.

I'm Joanna Angle.

One renowned member of the Barnwell family was Colonel John Barnwell, known as Tuscarora Jack.

When the Tuscarora Indians viciously attacked the village of New Bern, North Carolina, in 1711, both Virginia and South Carolina were appealed to for help.

When Virginia did not respond, John Barnwell led a force of 32 colonists and 495 Native American allies to destroy the Tuscaroras and save New Bern from annihilation.

Later John Barnwell was sent to England as a diplomat.

There he presented the colonists' case for South Carolina's 1719 revolt against the Lords Proprietors.

Colonel Barnwell is also credited with the idea for townships to attract European immigrants to settle the South Carolina frontier.

[no audio] The town of Barnwell was settled primarily by families coming from Virginia during the American Revolution.

They called it Red Hill, and the Red Hill Memorial Cemetery is the final resting place of many town founders.

Several Revolutionary War engagements took place in Barnwell County, notably, the 1760 Battle of Red Hill, where a company of Tories was defeated.

Another skirmish occurred at Morris Ford, a shallow crossing on the Salkehatchie River.

Here the Tories had built breastworks and ambushed a small group of Patriots, killing their leader, John Mumford.

Years later, Confederate General Joseph Wheeler improved the breastworks at Morris Ford and used them to delay the advance of Sherman's prized cavalry corps commanded by Hugh Judson Kilpatrick.

[no audio] Union troops could not be held back and continued on to loot, pillage, and lay waste.

In February of 1865, as Barnwell was blazing, General Kilpatrick and his officers decided to hold an impromptu ball.

When the town's ladies were invited to dance, they took the invitation as a command.

Proud and unsmiling, they went through the figures while their homes burned.

When one officer was asked to show some restraint, he reportedly replied, "Madam, I have very little control over the boys.

"You must remember, we are in South Carolina now.

We enter this state with gloves off."

After that night, the Union soldiers referred to this as " Burn well" .

Among few structures to survive Sherman's torches is Banksia Hall.

Built around 1800, it is the oldest house in Barnwell and was taken over by Kilpatrick's cavalry for five days.

During the Federal occupation, 1865 to '69, it was headquarters for the western Lowcountry.

All white males in the area were required to report here to take an oath of allegiance to the United States.

While Yankee soldiers slept at Banksia Hall, their horses were stabled at the Church of the Holy Apostles.

Organized in 1848, with 38 white and 10 Negro members, this church was built between 1856 and '57 by the Reverend Edwin A. Wagner, an Englishman who donated the lot and funds for construction.

Reminiscent of a typical English parish church, this is an excellent example of Gothic Revival style.

Built of cypress, the walls are board and batten.

A steep gable roof, double-shouldered buttresses, long lancet windows, and a double front door with a window surrounded by an ornamental dripstone combined simplicity and ecclesiastical propriety.

The present building looks as it did when completed with the exception of a tall spire lost to a hurricane in 1886.

Original stained glass windows, now repaired, are magnificent.

The one above the altar was given by James Hammond, South Carolina's governor, 1842 to '44, and later United States senator.

[no audio] Local tradition insists that the congregation removed and buried the windows as Sherman's army marched toward Barnwell.

The stone baptismal font, believed to date to medieval times, was reputedly used as a watering trough for the Union horses.

The Reverend Wagner was first rector of the Church of the Holy Apostles and built this residence next door in 1856.

The rectory further illustrates carpenter Gothic style with its dormer windows and roof eave trimmed in bargeboard.

The rectory is a private residence.

Other beautiful antebellum churches grace Barnwell's streets.

The town's oldest church is Saint Andrew's Roman Catholic, built circa 1831.

Bethlehem Baptist is one of the few churches organized by African Americans before the War Between the States.

The present building was constructed by the congregation, using some materials from an earlier church which had collapsed.

An eclectic design, Bethlehem Baptist features both Queen Anne and Gothic elements.

Queen Anne is reflected in the symmetrical massing of the towers, the steep, multigabled roof, and chamfered corners on the front walls.

Gothic style appears in the six-over-six, center-pointed windows.

[birds chirping] Arched windows also adorn Barnwell's Old Presbyterian Church, built around 1848.

Essentially unaltered, its classic simplicity blends Gothic and Greek Revival styles.

This church was used as the Barnwell County courthouse and jail for about 20 years during the Reconstruction era, an uneasy period of Federal military presence.

Here, in 1867, Circuit Judge A. P. Aldrich suspended the court rather than obey an order of a federal general.

Judge Aldrich announced, "Gentlemen of the juries, for the present, farewell.

"But if God spares my life, "I will yet preside in this court, "a South Carolina judge whose ermine is unstained.

"Mr. Sheriff, let the court stand adjourned "while the voice of justice is stifled."

Later damaged by a lightning strike and finally rescued from demolition by the Barnwell County Historical Commission, the building has been restored and refurbished with theater seats and stage as Circle Theatre.

[no audio] The present Barnwell County Courthouse was completed in 1879 and holds records dating to 1786.

During Reconstruction, the legislature changed the county seat to Blackville, where court was held from 1869 to '73.

It was returned to Barnwell in 1874 by a legislatively ordered referendum, ratified by citizen vote in 1875.

[footfalls] One popular story about that election tells of the ballot boxes being brought to Barnwell and left overnight, locked in a closet guarded by six men, three from Barnwell and three from Blackville.

Apparently, the guards were visited by someone bringing whiskey.

While the six were sleeping off the spirits' effects, the ballot boxes and their contents disappeared.

The next morning, where the boxes had been, were three ballots... two marked for Barnwell and one for Blackville.

To this day, there has been no further effort made to move the county seat.

"The WPA Guide to the Palmetto State" described the courthouse as, quote, "an unofficial social center.

"Townspeople meet there.

"On the portico, "under double wrought iron stairways, "nursemaids gather with their charges, "their voices mingling with the click of typewriters from the open windows."

In front of the courthouse is a unique vertical sundial.

Made in Charleston, it was given to the town in 1858 by Captain Joseph D. Allen, then a state senator.

Believed to be the only one of its kind remaining in America, the sundial is within two minutes of Eastern Standard Time.

Captain Allen was a colorful, eccentric individual.

He erected this monument to the memory of his parents, ending the inscription with, quote, "Alas, who will erect a monument to me?"

[no audio] Today Barnwell considers itself the gateway to the Lowcountry.

Its downtown is an inviting place, recently transformed when overhead wiring went underground and new, ornamental streetlights, awnings, and decorative planters were added.

One old-fashioned haunt is Berley's Pharmacy.

Coming here unchaperoned for an after-school soda has been a local rite of passage for generations.

The Barnwell County Library was a gift from businessman C. G. Fuller.

Fuller and his family lived here from the 1920s until the early '50s while he made daring ventures into a variety of businesses, including banking, insurance, and construction.

Mr. Fuller is credited with using innovative techniques in the building of highways.

The Fuller home's rooms are now lined with books.

A sunroom has become a reading room.

One library storage area was formerly a liquor closet with an inventory list posted on the wall.

A 1933 notation listed 25 gallons of rye on hand.

Behind and beside the library is the Barnwell County Museum, which focuses on local history.

This facility was made possible through the generosity of Mr. Fuller's wife, Effie, who provided funds for its construction.

A prized part of the collection is this handmade sley, a comblike device used to space warp yarns on a loom.

Before metal wires were available, the separating strips were made from reeds.

Sleys made in Barnwell County were widely used, and merchants traveling here to buy them asked directions to "Sleytown."

[no audio] Several miles from Barnwell, Barnwell State Park offers lake fishing, boat rentals, fully equipped vacation cabins, a family camping area, picnic shelters, a playground, nature trail, and a large community center.

All facilities at Barnwell State Park are designed to accommodate the physically challenged visitor.

Within the city limits, a 135-acre lake was named to honor the late Edgar Brown, who represented Barnwell in the South Carolina House of Representatives and then the state senate.

Brown held state office for 47 years, eventually serving as president pro tempore of the South Carolina Senate.

He allegedly proclaimed, "It's my job to take care of the little people of South Carolina."

Another Barnwell County power was Solomon Blatt, elected to the South Carolina House for 53 years, serving as speaker for 33.

Brown and Blatt were heavyweights in the so-called Barnwell Ring, which dominated state politics from the 1930s through the 1970s.

[no audio] At the edge of town, in a little, red barn, among the work of fellow artists, potter Elizabeth Ringus brings clay to life.

(Elizabeth Ringus) I first got interested in pottery in 1974.

I was a teacher.

I took my class to a living history museum.

One of the, um, exhibits that they had at this museum that showed life as it was in the 1830s was a potter.

And he was working on a treadle wheel.

and it was really fascinating.

As a art minor, I had worked in different kinds of media, but clay was one I hadn't explored.

Living in a town that had a art center, I was lucky to take some beginner classes, and then from there, primarily self-taught.

Um, the classes that I took just started me, got me on the road.

I was able to get a kick wheel, and from there I just did as many pots as I could, I got my hands on as much clay as I could, read as many books as I could about pottery.

And that's how I evolved into working with clay.

I got interested, uh, through history, in learning about sponge-decorated pottery, known as spongeware where, a sea sponge is used to do the mottled decoration, in... primarily in blues.

When I moved to South Carolina about nine years ago, I got interested in the history of clay here.

And we have such a rich culture of clay, starting from the Indians several thousands of years ago.

Their pottery pieces turn up in fields whenever farmers plow or work their fields.

Um, too, the face jugs which started at some of the factories that produced stoneware and porcelain not too far from here in Bath, South Carolina, in the Edgefield District.

A lot of people are familiar with Edgefield pottery.

Face jugs, um, were the product of the pottery that slaves made for their own purposes, It was something that they did on their free time, and it's just as an indigenous craft as sweetgrass baskets.

A lot of people think face jugs are part of North Carolina or Georgia culture.

I'm proud to say that this state started it.

The interesting thing about the face jugs is, although other cultures have made pitchers and vases and other things with a face on it, this was the first time it was done in high relief and the very first time in history that two kinds of clay were used to make the face.

The stoneware clay was the body of it, and the white kaolin clay-- which was a very fine, white clay used in porcelain-- was used to make the eyeballs and teeth, and that's what made the faces unusual and different.

And, uh, that's something that South Carolina should be very proud about, having... the first time in history when something was done.

What I'm gonna do now is put a face together.

What I've done is, I've rolled out a coil of clay.

[no audio] And I'm going to pinch the coil of clay on.

This will be the start of an eye socket.

The face jugs were also known as grotesque, or ugly, jugs.

And, um, as far as their purpose, the whole reason why they made them, there's nobody alive today to tell us the real reason.

We can surmise that they put things in it that they didn't want children to touch, and in some cases, that was liquor.

And other people have speculated that maybe they put chemicals in it that might be poisonous.

It was sort of like the beginning of the skull and crossbones.

You know... Stay away, keep away.

We're gonna make this ugly so you won't touch it.

And I've had some people, even today, tell me that they remember seeing an old, ugly jug in their grandma's house that they were always afraid of.

And the grandma would say, well, you know, the bogeyman is gonna get you if you don't behave.

[no audio] What's so fascinating about working with face jugs is, like people, every one comes out different.

Although some people tell me that they look like somebody they know, I'm not making fun of anybody, making anybody in particular, when I...or thinking of anybody when I make them.

They come out on their own.

[no audio] The part I enjoy the most is the mouth, because that's what puts the character on it.

And I just want to show you a couple things I do.

when I make these, I'll roll out my clay, and then I slap it on, then I say I wonder if that looks good.

Or if I want him smiley I might shape it differently, like that.

That's where I start the personality.

and look at the jug and say, okay, he looks like he should be mad or sad or happy.

[no audio] I'm sure the potters that made these jugs in the 1800s did it with a sense of humor, um, maybe even poking fun of somebody when they were constructing these.

[no audio] [no audio] [no audio] This clay is very, very sticky, and just like when I had to make sure that I put all... the facial features on first so I wouldn't contaminate the white clay, the opposite is true now.

Now you can see my hands have that white, sticky stuff that... can get on the pot, and then I'd have to wipe it off and... start over.

[no audio] I think that's what makes it.

They start to look spooky now.

That's what frightens children the most.

I've been at shows where I've brought my face jugs and the children are really afraid of it.

I don't think they understand, you know, how this... this jug, something that's commonplace, has a face on it.

[no audio] I've been at shows where I've constructed the teeth, and children are fascinated to watch me make them.

And they want to have their input, whether I should make them pointy or smooth or have a tooth missing.

[no audio] Spongeware pottery refers to how the pieces were decorated.

It was very popular pottery in the 1800s, starting around 1830.

The sea sponges were used because of their open, lacy work, to apply the glaze onto the piece.

And that's why it's called sponged ware, as opposed to spatter ware, which was used with a brush and flicked on.

It had dots and spatters here and there.

But a lot of people use the terms interchangeably, sponging and spatter.

My pieces go through a first firing, or bisque firing, to around 1800 degrees, and I'm gonna do a tray right here.

On it I have applied a white background glaze.

From there I'm going to take a sea sponge that I have cut into a smaller piece so that I could go around the whole edge, and I'm gonna dip it in the cobalt blue glaze, and then dab it around the edge systematically.

People think that spongeware is so easy... you just slap it on.

Well, if you do that, it's not going to have the open, lacy design that you want to achieve.

So, you have to be careful, not do it with too heavy a hand... so that you get that open design all away around, just like Mother Nature intended when the sponges were created.

They have that pretty, open, lacy... [no audio] look to them.

I'm just gonna go around here.

I would continue and do the handles.

What I like about doing spongeware-- and spongeware frequently had designs on the inside.

Sometimes they would take... they would cut the sponge into different shapes.

I start out with a drawing of something that I want to reproduce on top of the tray.

Right now, birds are popular.

Carolina wren is very popular.

And then, from that design, I make it into a Mylar stencil.

What I'm going to do now in the center is start the design.

[water splashing] Some of my work is freehand.

This is where the art part of my background comes in.

[no audio] The fascination that I have with pottery is that long after I'm gone, it'll still be here.

It is interesting that a lot of people have their grandmother's spongeware bowl or pitcher, or even a piece of Edgefield pottery.

Look how long ago that was made.

Or when people walk the fields and find little, broken fragments of a Native American's Indian pot.

Uh, that, in itself, to me, it shows a lasting legacy, or a heritage.

I mark all my pieces that I've made in South Carolina with "SC" because I've made pottery in three states.

Someday they might want to know who made those face jugs or the spongeware pottery in South Carolina.

Didn't I see her pottery up in Massachusetts or in Connecticut?

Let's find out more about her, about that history, what was going on during that time, and the people who bought her pots.

♪ ♪ (Angle) Thank you for coming with us to Barnwell, South Carolina... smiling faces, beautiful places.

♪ ♪ (female singer) ♪ And here we live, ♪ ♪ within this land ♪ ♪ of mountains' edge and ocean's shore.

♪ ♪ A land of strength... a land of grace... ♪ ♪ of men and women gone before.

♪ ♪ So many smiling faces here, ♪ ♪ so many memories still to come.

♪ ♪ Beautiful places we hold dear ♪ ♪ in this our home.

♪ (choir joins) ♪ South Carolina, always near... ♪ ♪ and always hooommmme.... ♪♪ ♪