A production of South Carolina ETV in association with the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism ♪ (male singer) ♪ 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.

♪♪♪ ♪ ♪ (Joanna Angle) Welcome to "Palmetto Places," a series that explores and celebrates South Carolina's small towns and countryside.

I'm Joanna Angle.

This is the head of Winyah Bay, the confluence of the Waccamaw, the Great Pee Dee, the Sampit, and Black Rivers.

Spaniards sailed into these waters in 1526, attempting one of the first settlements in North America.

Two centuries later, this was an international port, busy with ships laden with rice and indigo bound for Great Britain.

The town was named to honor England's Prince of Wales, who later became King George II.

Today Georgetown, South Carolina, is home to a fishing fleet, its docks lined with shrimp boats and pleasure craft traveling the Intracoastal Waterway.

Just beyond is Harborwalk, centerpiece for this historic seaport.

[no dialogue] Georgetown has been named one of the 100 best small towns in America.

One reason for this prestigious honor is the extraordinary public-private partnership that has revitalized the waterfront.

The multimillion dollar project occurred in two stages.

First came the thousand-foot boardwalk along the Sampit River, parks, flowers, and fountains.

Next was Streetscape, with turn-of-the-century lampposts, live oak trees, and brick sidewalks.

Almost 400,000 bricks were used, nearly enough to reach from Georgetown to Charleston if they were placed end to end.

All along Front Street you can enjoy an assortment of specialty shops, antique stores, and great restaurants.

You can also sign up for a tram or boat tour to get a closer look at Georgetown's residential area or shoreline.

Much of Georgetown's charm comes from the continuing, tangible reminders of things that once were.

Its broad streets still lead to many pre-Revolutionary structures.

One of them houses a fine collection of antiques and period furnishings.

This is the Kaminski House, built in the mid-1700s on a bluff overlooking the Sampit River.

Today it is a museum, owned and operated by the city of Georgetown.

Ralph Calhoun is the director.

(Ralph Calhoun) Most furniture in this room dates from around 1810 to 1820.

I think one of the outstanding pieces is our large table, our dining room table.

It's wonderful.

It's quite long now, but we actually have two or three more sets of leaves.

We can expand this table almost to the full size of the room and sit 28 to 30 people.

What a party!

Yeah, quite a dinner party!

It's mahogany?

It's mahogany.

Most of the furniture in the house is mahogany.

It's a wonderful table up top, but it's just as interesting from below.

The feet are what we call hairy paw feet.

Usually people tend to think of feet on a chair being a ball and claw, the eagle claw, but we have hairy paw feet.

It looks like something's foot!

Usually people say it's a lion's foot.

I guess that's a lion's foot.

It has acanthus leaves, a very typical decoration, coming down over the hairy paw feet.

Tell me about the china.

It's so pretty.

The china is from Mrs. Kaminski's family.

It's more of a 20th-century piece.

The china, silverware, and stemware are 20th century.

The crest in the middle is the Pyatt family crest.

Pyatt's a kind of common name down here.

It's spelled P-y-a-t-t, and that's her maiden name.

Very pretty... this sideboard?

This sideboard and the cupboard we'll see in a moment date around 1810 to 1820.

The nice thing about it, we're looking at a time period that the furniture is called American Empire furniture.

American Empire furniture is usually big, kind of heavy.

This is very typical, these front columns.

Come look at this piece.

It's really exuberant furniture, wasn't it?

It's big, and that exuberance in the furniture is what's happening in the country at the same time.

If you think about that time, America is moving beyond the Mississippi.

We're beginning to think of ourselves as one of the big countries in the world, and our furniture starts to get big and important and reflect that kind of taste.

Did that used to be taller?

A little bit!

It almost looks like that one finial is going into the roof, but they've been cut off so that they would fit.

This type of furniture, if it's off center, you don't care too much because you don't want to have to move something quite this big!

Could we go to the drawing room?

Sure, let's go this way.

[no dialogue] One of my favorite pieces in the entire collection is here in the drawing room.

It's this girl's side chair, one of the few English ones we have.

It dates to around 1705.

I think it's a very nice piece of furniture.

The crafting is not as fine as you see in some of the pieces, but you're looking at a bit older piece.

The thing I like best about this piece are the little feet.

They look like little boots!

It's called slippered feet, and, yes, they're little boots or bootees.

It's something you don't see a whole lot.

We bring a lot of people through here, and no one has said, "Oh, we have ten chairs just like that."

It's a really neat piece.

I've never seen anything like it.

I was interested in the mirror.

Tell us about that.

That's called a Constitution mirror.

It dates to the early 1800s.

It's a very easy piece for us to date.

With the American flag, we would add stars every time we added a state.

With Constitution mirrors, the manufacturers would add a ball to that outside part of the frame.

If you take time and count, there's 17 balls on this particular mirror.

Ohio is the 17th state.

It came into the Union in 1803, so we know that this mirror was made in 1803 or just a bit later.

I'm sure visitors from Ohio are especially interested in that.

They really are!

We had some people from Ohio just recently, and we always point that out.

It's very handsome.

I noticed the chest down here.

Tell me about it.

That's a letter file, or a correspondence file.

I think it's got an interesting story also.

Let me ask you a question.

How many letters do we have in the alphabet?

Oh, goodness... um, 26, I think.

We do...we have 26 letters in the alphabet, but if you count the cubbyholes here, there are only 24 holes.

You'll notice, if you look at the letters over each hole, there's only one letter over each, so we don't have an X-Y-Z to tie up the miscellaneous letters.

So what's missing?

J and Y aren't there.

If somebody sent a letter to someone named Joanna or John, where would they put it?

The J and Y would be filed under the letter I.

If you go in-- one of the best places-- the front of your encyclopedia where it talks about letters and growth of the alphabet, you'll find that in the early 1800s, you didn't have J's and Y's being used very often.

So that's what's happening here.

These rooms are beautiful, but they are so formal.

I noticed a room in the back that looks very cozy.

That's our library, and, like I say, it's the comfortable, 20th-century room.

I think you'll like it a lot.

[no dialogue] I think the appeal of this library, or anyone's bookshelves in their own house, is that you can look at the books and get a feel for the personality of the people who owned the house.

In the Kaminskis' library, we see a lot of books that are classics.

We see a lot of books on collecting antiques, local history, maritime history.

Maritime history maybe stands out more in this room than a lot of other things.

There are numerous models of sailing ships on the shelves.

The paintings in this room, a lot of them have ocean or maritime scenes.

Even the views out the windows, you do see the river.

So I think we really connect with the water aspect of the Kaminskis' personalities.

Very much a seaman's room.

Very much so.

Mr. Kaminski was in the Navy in World War I and World War II.

He was at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked.

He was in charge of a submarine defense net, which actually sort of closed the mouth of Pearl Harbor.

And very early in the morning, the Japanese sent two miniature submarines through this net, set off a number of alarms, and it was Kaminski's job to call the top brass and tell them that something was happening.

By the time he is able to get people to listen to him that there is need for concern, it's too late for a warning.

A lot of the books here mention him by name.

They always have him in a very high light.

It's the next link in the chain of command that was maybe a bit weak that morning.

It's a handsome portrait of him, and Mrs. Kaminski was a beautiful woman.

Yes, very much so.

The pictures we have of her, I think she's a beautiful woman.

And it's very interesting, when I talk to people who knew her, they make the same comment.

They say her skin was like peaches and cream.

She reminds me of the Breck Girls.

And because of her, all the people in South Carolina can enjoy this house.

Which days would the house be open for visitors?

We're open seven days a week.

Monday through Saturday, we start tours at 10.

Our last tour is at 4.

Tours are on the hour.

Sunday tours are from 1 to 4.

We thank you very much for having us and encourage visitors to come.

The upstairs is also open.

We didn't look at that.

We have four bedrooms upstairs.

We hope you can come again... we'll show you the upstairs then.

Thanks so much.

♪ Georgetown was once one of the wealthiest towns in America, an impressive center of commerce whose cash crop was rice.

The fascinating story of rice culture is illustrated at The Rice Museum, located in the Old Market Building.

♪ The museum's displays, dioramas, and artifacts help visitors to understand a society that was dependent upon one crop, rice, for nearly 200 years.

Rice was so important during the 18th century that it was used as money, even being accepted in payment of taxes.

More than half the nation's total rice crop was produced right here up until about 1850.

♪ Two conditions allowed Georgetown County to become the country's rice capital.

First, an abundance of freshwater which could be controlled.

Second, hand labor from a large, stable slave population.

Once the dense cypress forests were cleared, then the rice fields were laid out and irrigated through what is called the tidal flow method.

That meant that pressure from a high tide backed up the freshwater rivers to cover the rice fields.

The water was regulated through a series of small floodgates called trunk docks.

One of the most important tasks that a slave could be assigned was a trunk mender, because if salt water were allowed into a rice field, the field could be ruined and not usable for many years.

♪ Rice plantations followed the rhythm of the seasons, with planting in March or April, cultivation throughout the summer, and harvesting in September or October.

The cycle concluded with winnowing, "the gleaning of seed rice," for next year's crop.

♪ Rice created unimaginable wealth for a planter class whose actual number was a mere fraction of those who toiled in the fields.

At its peak, just before the War Between the States, rice cultivation truly made Georgetown County a garden of gold.

♪ [vehicular noise] The history of the Lowcountry has always been tinged with mystery, embellished by legends and ghost stories.

Storytelling was a popular pastime on board ships that passed through this harbor.

Those tales live on, and no sailor ever spun a yarn better than Georgetown's Captain Sandy.

[no audio] (Captain Sandy) The haints, the hags, the plat-eyes... legends, tales... the sea, the water.

You know, there are things in Georgetown, I guess, that I've had experiences with.

Probably more near and dear to my heart than anything else were the times I spent on the ocean with one old sea captain, old Captain Mead Morrison.

I got a job working for Captain Mead 'cause I could cook... and I'm a good cook.

I'd sit on the boat at night, after the fellows had gone to bed, in my old straight-backed chair, take my bucket full of sand, rub the bottoms of the pots and pans, clean them good.

Everybody likes to eat off of good, clean things.

I was sitting there one night, and I heard something and looked up.

Back toward the starboard stern quarter of the boat, there was a golden glow.

It looked like a little girl.

I took off my hat and said, "How do?"

And she said, "Sandy, go home."

I stood up and looked around, and I looked back, and she was gone.

I felt kind of a cold thing come about me.

I walked up to the wheelhouse and knock on the door.

Old Captain Mead came out and looked at me, took me by the shoulder.

He said, "You don't look good."

I said, "I don't feel good."

He said, "What's wrong?"

and I told him.

He said, "You saw Annie."

He led me to the bow of the boat and pointed toward land.

We were 20 miles offshore, but I could see a light.

Flick...flick... blink, blink.

And it did it again.

It was the Georgetown light.

There ain't but one light that blinks like that.

He said, "We're going home... there's a storm coming."

He gave me the old bullhorn-- we didn't have radios then-- and I got on the bow.

There was five boats out there, four from Georgetown and one from Charleston.

We went by each one.

I remember hollerin' out at old Captain Teddy on the "Morning Star," "Captain Mead told me to tell you I saw Annie and we're goin'."

He said, "We're goin' too."

The captain from Charleston, he just laughed about it.

He said, "I don't believe in superstition.

"We got to stay and fish.

We got men that got families to feed."

And they stayed.

Well, we came in to the top of the Sampit River where you turn out of Winyah Bay into Georgetown.

All the boats had left 'cept one, and when he came by, he said, "You got to leave... storm's coming."

Mead said, "I know it is... Sandy saw Annie."

Went on up the river, the Black River, and we anchored up there, and the storm came.

That was 1954, and that was Hurricane Hazel.

We survived that storm, one of the worst disasters to ever hit the coast of South Carolina.

Later after that, I asked Mead, and he finally told me... he told me the story.

He said his grandpappy told him.

Said they was sitting around, and he told him about little Annie.

When they built the lighthouse-- the first lighthouse at the tip of North Island-- at the mouth of Winyah Bay back in 1801, they hired theirself a light keeper, an old man named Krueger.

Had a granddaughter... a pretty, little, golden-haired gal.

Her name was Annie.

Once a month, they would take their little rowboat, and when the tide would rise in the mornin', they'd row to Georgetown, buy supplies.

Then they'd take the falling tide back to the lighthouse.

One morning they were in the store, and the little girl, she'd gone out to play with the kids and dogs along the dirt road.

And she came in, she said, "Papa, the birds are flying high in the western sky, "and it's getting red... a storm's coming.

"We've got to light the light, Papa.

We got to light the light."

The old man ambled hisself out there and look up in the sky.

It is turnin' red, and birds are flyin' high.

He told the man in the store, "We're goin' now...

I got to light the light.

There's sailors in that ocean."

They got in their little boat and headed down Winyah Bay, the old man pulling the oars for all he was worth.

The rain came, and little Annie, she cup her hands and throw the water over the side.

But the rain came too hard, the skies got dark, and the boat started to sink.

The old man look in her eye, and she tell him, "Papa, we got to light the light.

There are men out there... they need the light."

He said, "Don't worry... we'll swim for it."

He took her underneath his big, strong arm, pulled her up close, and swam as hard as he could.

When they found him, the lighthouse had blown over, and he was facedown in the sand at the tip of North Island.

Cap'n Mead, he told me, "My pappy said he talked to the old man after that.

He'd gone fool crazy from losing that little girl."

And he told him, "I pulled on the oars.

"I couldn't row hard enough.

"She tried to bail the boat.

"She knew we had to light the light.

"I knew that I couldn't get there, "and Annie knew too.

"She looked at me, and she took her little hands, "and she touched my face, and she kissed my lips, "and she told me, she said, 'Papa, I'll go now, "'and I'll walk the deck of every ship, "'and I'll tell every man before a storm comes, "and you'll never have to light the light again, Papa.'

"And she sank and was lost in the dark, black waters of Winyah Bay."

Is that what I saw that night?

I don't know, but I'm here to tell that tale.

[no audio] [no audio] (Angle) Another storyteller, one whose special province was poetry, lived in this stately house.

Archibald Rutledge, first poet laureate of South Carolina, spent his boyhood and his retirement years at Hampton Plantation just outside Georgetown.

[footfalls rustling] This building really began as a simple farmhouse, with four rooms downstairs and two up.

Originally the house faced the water, but in the 1700s, this grand portico was added, supposedly in anticipation of a visit by George Washington.

Now what was the rear of the house is the carriage front.

[no dialogue] [footfalls tapping] During the transition from farmhouse to mansion, a ballroom was added.

Paneled in black cypress, the walls soar 28 feet to the arched ceiling.

Heart-of-pine floorboards run more than 34 feet without a break.

It is said that after the War Between the States, cotton was stored in the ballroom.

[footfalls tapping] When Dr. Rutledge returned to his ancestral home, it had been vacant and untended for many years.

He approached his revival with care, seeking not to modernize or elaborate but to restore.

Hampton is left unfurnished intentionally to emphasize its architectural detail and hand-hewn construction, as illustrated by cutaway sections.

Dr. Rutledge made a personal contribution to the grounds, planting an avenue of 154 hollies from the house to the woods and hundreds of dogwoods to create a border.

His particular passion, camellias, numbered over a thousand.

None are more beautiful than those at his grave site.

He once said, "One may easily tire of too many azaleas, but never of too many camellias."

[no dialogue] It's most appropriate that today Hampton Plantation is a South Carolina State Park, welcoming visitors from all over the world.

Rutledge considered himself to be only a temporary caretaker, a steward.

He remarked once, "I, too, am but a visitor here, and I'm trying to be a considerate guest."

Archibald Rutledge's abiding love for this house, the land, and its creatures was reflected throughout his writing.

One simple verse expresses his feeling.

"As the azure is to the eagle, "as to the ship, the sea, "as to the deer, the wild wood, so are you home to me."

South Carolina... smiling faces, beautiful places.

♪ Program captioned by: CompuScripts Captioning, Inc. 803.988.8438 (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.... ♪♪♪ ♪