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.

In this program, we're visiting Union, South Carolina.

Union began as Unionville in 1791.

The name comes from Union Church, where Episcopalian and Presbyterian congregations worshiped.

Before the War Between the States, Union prospered as a crossroads where stagecoaches and produce wagons met near the Broad and Tyger Rivers.

During the war, there was little military activity here, but as General Sherman advanced toward Columbia, Governor McGrath and other key officials hurried here, bringing important documents and papers.

They were the guests of Judge Dawkins, whose home was surrounded by sentinels.

A steady stream of couriers came up the Broad River, bringing news of Sherman's movements to the governor and his staff.

Union has numerous historic districts and a variety of styles, beginning with the courthouse that one writer described as "ponderous."

Next to the courthouse is the old Union jail, designed by Robert Mills and built in 1823.

The massive, hand-hewn granite blocks and arches are characteristic of Mills's style.

The jail was used until the early 1980s with only one successful escape.

The Gothic Revival Episcopal Church of the Nativity dates to 1855.

Its stained glass windows were designed by Louis Tiffany.

[no dialogue] Union has four National Register Historic Districts, including Main Street itself, where an exciting downtown revitalization project is under way.

One longtime resident of Main Street is Kerhulas Newsstand.

The manager of this family business is Juliaette Kerhulas.

Hello!

Hello, Joanna.

How long have you been on Main Street?

This business has been on Main Street since 1923.

It's been a family business the entire time?

Been a family business the entire time.

Tell me the history of it.

Well, my father-in-law, Tom Kerhulas, is the one that started the business.

He started with the little fruit stand and popcorn and newspapers.

And then in about 1936 is when we started with the magazines.

And then in the '40s was when the paperbacks became more popular.

My husband was in service, and he and I came back in 1946.

So we have been in the newsstand business since 1946.

Well, this is an unusual thing to find in a small town.

You don't see these wonderful little newsstands anymore.

Tell me about being a merchant on Main Street.

Oh, it's wonderful.

If I had not had this business after my husband passed away, I don't think it would have been nearly as easy to adjust, but it was somewhere to come.

We know all the people-- possibly everyone in Union-- since we have been here so many years.

I really enjoy working on Main Street.

♪ ♪ (Joanna) Union's downtown revitalization has spilled over into the residential area.

Come tour an antebellum mansion called Merridun.

Once abandoned and forlorn, it's been revived through the vision and talent of two retired naval officers.

Today, Merridun is a spacious country inn run by Jim and Peggy Waller.

♪ Jim!

Hi... how are you?

Welcome to Merridun, great to see you.

Oh, everything looks so pretty!

This really is a grand old lady of a house.

Thank you... we feel very fortunate to have it.

We want to take a house tour, and one of the things I've always thought was special about Merridun were these pocket doors.

Ah, well, they still work.

They're a hundred years old.

You can have meetings and close them off.

We can close both parlors off.

This room you call...?

It's the Lady's Parlor and Music Room.

We have a new acquisition, a 1876 Steinway.

It doesn't play yet, but we hope to get that redone.

Then you'll really have music in the music room!

Have some of our family pictures.

We also have the portrait of Fannie Merriman Duncan.

She was the lady of this house during the 1800s.

Yes, she was.

And this room is called...?

The Gentleman's Parlor.

It's closest to 1855 architecture as any of the rooms in the house.

The only thing that's been added is the sunbursts over the windows and the wainscoting along the walls.

As you can see, it looks pretty basic, the plain marble fireplace and so forth.

The crown moldings are unusual.

They were... they are not wooden.

They were poured-in-place plaster.

It's a lost art.

I don't think anyone knows how to do that anymore.

What about the chandeliers, Jim?

As far as I know, they are original, when they put electricity in the house around 1880s.

They're very beautiful, we... quite lucky to have all of 'em left in the house.

The portrait on the far wall.

That's Thomas Cary Duncan in his younger days, probably just around the time he became a state senator.

Now, tell me about when the house was built and who built it.

Well, it was built in 1855 by a gentleman named Keenan.

He was a merchant in Union, and he was also a mayor in 1855.

He had the house built and lived in it for a short period of time.

A man named Benjamin Rice bought the house in 1876.

Thomas Cary Duncan, his grandson, inherited the house from him, and he remodeled it extensively.

He started building textile mills.

He built the Buffalo Textile Mill, which is on the National Register.

They tell me they could see him walking to the mill every day and back and forth.

He loved his mill and his people.

Is that...?

That's a portrait of him.

The three portraits in the house of he and his wife are on loan from the family.

One of the things I've always liked about the foyer are these tall mirrors... you call them petticoat mirrors.

They are hung in such a way that the lady can step back and check her petticoats.

They used to have hall trees and the mirrors built low.

These are unique... you can see the floor.

Special angle.

This is so interesting, what's next?

How about let's go to the library?

Great.

[footfalls on floor] Ooh, pretty!

You like it?

Oh, it's so pretty!

Lots of books!

This is our library, as you can tell.

We have quite a few cookbooks, as you can see.

Quite a few... like, hundreds!

We have approximately 800.

A lot of 'em are still in boxes upstairs.

With that many cookbooks, you must have some interesting recipes.

We do the gamut... Spanish cooking, French cooking, German, Southern, Californian.

About anything you can think of, we can come up with.

You and Peggy traveled a lot in the Navy.

Right...she traveled mostly on the Pacific side.

I was on the Atlantic side.

We culminate our cooking skills, and it usually comes out pretty good.

The house has so many fan lights, long and elliptical fan lights.

When I think of Union, I think of that kind of window.

You see a lot of them in old houses.

Quite a few homes have that.

And this is...?

The dining room.

The dining room.

Oh, it looks like you're expecting a crowd!

We have lunch for a group-- several groups--today.

How many can you seat here?

Eighteen at the main table.

We can set up for 30... we've done that.

I love the treatment of the table, the flowers.

What do you call that?

We call that backyardia.

Excuse me?

Backyardia..." anything we find in the backyard" that looks nice comes, and Peggy and Mark puts it together on the table.

It comes out really neat.

The thing that is so incredible in this room is the ceiling... wow!

That was painted in approximately 1880 by a German artist named Otto Hammer.

He was supposedly quite famous on the coast, but he painted several other frescoes in this house, one in the Music Room.

There are different motifs in each corner.

Do they have a special meaning?

To me, they're four food groups.

Food groups?

You have fish and poultry and fruit and vegetables painted in each corner.

Oh....

This is the Senator's Chamber.

Oh... handsome!

We named it after T. C. Duncan.

He was a state senator in South Carolina.

One of the interesting things in this room is the black marble fireplace.

It's quite rare.

We have a beautiful oak armoire brought from York, South Carolina.

It was sold supposedly several times.

People couldn't figure out how to get it downstairs.

A friend of mine saw it, bought it, and took it apart.

It's a pegged piece.

He took it all apart and brought it here.

This is where it sits.

Goodness, these are high ceilings!

They are 14-foot downstairs and 12-foot upstairs.

I bet this is the spot that brides like to toss their bouquets.

Oh, yeah...they come down in their beautiful gowns and throw their bouquets over.

It's real beautiful.

[footfalls on stairs] On the third floor, the Plantation Observatory-- the old cupola-- we turned it into a bedroom.

It used to be the trunk storage room.

We use our elevator that still works, bring trunks up, and store 'em.

That's when people would come and stay for months.

Months, yes, not overnight or a week.

What's in here?

This is Sister's Boudoir.

[footfalls] Well, you have used some colorful fabrics in this, uh....

The fabrics are all local companies.

The fabric is Cone Mills, and the tassels are Consew.

We try and use all the local companies we can.

Speaking of that, we even have a local artist displaying her art.

This is one of Nancy Basket's pieces.

She's taken the, uh, out of the bedspread and transposed it to the piece on the wall.

[no audio] [door squeaking] [footfalls] [door shutting] [footfalls] A hundred years ago, you'd look out from here and see miles and miles of cotton fields.

Sure could.

Now it's secluded with all these old trees.

But one thing just hasn't changed, and that's the hospitality.

Thank you.

We so appreciate you and Peggy allowing us to come and visit Merridun.

Well, it's been our pleasure, and y'all come back and see us, hear?

Okay.

♪ [Native American flute music] (Angle) Many of the beautiful objects in Merridun were created by a local artist.

Come meet Nancy Basket, a Cherokee woman whose name is also her craft.

(Basket) Basket making has been in our family since my third great grandmother.

Her name was Margaret Basket.

She was Cherokee and lived in Virginia.

Our territory used to extend much farther a long time ago than it does now.

She never passed the traditions to the grandchildren.

She assimilated so the grandkids wouldn't get teased.

I collected baskets when I was younger, I quilted baskets, and I found someone to help me learn when I was in the Northwest.

My grandmother was from Oklahoma.

I learned about 13 years ago.

Once I made my first basket, I knew it would be something I'd do the rest of my life.

I love making baskets.

It's a tradition in the Northwest, where I come from, with different tribes of people who live there, when you show signs of becoming a good basket maker, you're given a new name, the name of one of your grandmothers.

You can have her come back and help you remember things.

Once in a while, I feel the old ones guiding my fingers.

I'm proud to be making something beautiful.

This basket combines a lot of different things from South Carolina.

This is a very special basket for a friend of mine.

It will be used in a funeral ceremony.

It reminds her of her grandparents and the hard work that they did on the land, that they were making something from nothing.

It includes pine needles, rye straw, cornhusk.

This is broomcorn that brooms are made out of.

I'm putting these in and other things.

It will be given to her.

I love making pine needles.

There's a story about that, but there are lots of stories about these baskets.

This is one I'm making.

It has a covered bottom.

To me, it looks like a river, or water.

My family design is lightning.

That's what the black part is.

It's going to be built up a little higher.

The last four rows will have a black raffia.

It will look like rain clouds.

Lightning will come out into the water in the bottom.

I love gathering my own material, so I gather pine needles whenever I can find them.

Some of my friends do not enjoy riding with me in my van, because when I see a longleaf pine tree, I'll pull over and gather the needles from that tree.

When I need more needles than I can gather myself, I'll go through the forest departments.

I'm doing that now.

In the South, they log longleaf pine trees.

They leave needles on the tops of trees in the field.

About six months after they finish logging, I gather needles, tie a rubber band around them, and then they're all bundled like this.

And it's easier then to go ahead and cut the ends off, and your basket goes together faster.

The large basket here with the baby's breath in it is made out of cattail leaves.

I made a lot of baskets for the movie "Last of the Mohicans," so with the leftovers, I made this basket.

It's an egg basket.

I wanted to experiment with different kinds of shapes.

These are made out of different materials as well.

This happens to represent a wedding flower basket, much like you'd see at altars of churches for weddings.

This one represents a Cherokee cradleboard.

It's made out of pine needles.

This is where you put a cloth over the baby's face.

You tie that child in through these spaces and to the feet so the baby wouldn't slip out.

You'd wear this on your back.

I moved to Union-- I chose it on a map to be close enough to gather needles and close to the Cherokee reservation.

When I arrived, I found kudzu in abundance.

We have a kudzu festival.

This will be the 15th year.

They asked me to make kudzu baskets.

I went in the fields and said, "I can do this...I've been a basket maker a long time."

I gathered the leaves, took 'em home with the vines, I made two baskets, and they fell apart.

And I forgot the story!

Native American people feel that we must talk to plants and ask permission and how the plant would want to be used.

I went to the same field and asked the plants how they wanted to be used.

They said, "Turn us into paper... leave the trees alone."

It wasn't for a long time-- until I learned to make a kudzu basket, I made paper instead.

With the kudzu paper, I can make any size, any shape, any design.

I can make three-dimensional or one-dimensional work.

I make cards... you can make quilt designs.

Many of my designs out of kudzu paper are inspired from traditional Native American stories or designs.

Some of the standard quilt patterns will have Native American stories I put with them, so all of my work comes with a story.

[Native American flute music] [Native American flute music] I love my work.

My work is part of my medicine.

Medicine means "the mission we have here."

We come into the world knowing we're supposed to do something special.

We have to find what it is.

When we find that medicine, that's called being on the Red Road.

My medicine is not just to make baskets but to fill 'em again with stories of all tribes-- red, yellow, black, white, brown-- so people learn from each other, not be afraid of each other anymore.

We either learn each other's stories or kill each other off.

[Native American flute music] [windflaw noise] (Angle) Union Countians have always loved their barbecue, and for half a century, Jack O'Dell has gone whole hog to serve barbecue at its best.

(Angle) Hello!

Could I help you, ma'am?

I'll have that famous special with the mixed plate.

Have you tried my chicken stew?

Ooh, no!

We're gonna give you a sample.

One mixed plate and one side of chicken stew.

I can't wait... that sounds delicious.

That's for here.

How long have you been cookin' barbecue and hash?

Fifty-two years.

Tell me how you got started.

I was just a 13-year-old kid, and you know how it was-- well, you don't remember that far back.

Back then, money was hard to come by.

I was always lookin' for a way to make a little spendin' money.

Naturally, I was always in the food-- I helped my father in the food business, the grocery business.

Thank you.

And helped with the meat market especially.

So I was very interested in cattle and hogs, and I decided to cook hash and barbecue.

I'm gonna start tastin' here.

Tell me about your barbecue.

It's a little bit different from what you find in the rest of South Carolina.

It's cooked over 100% hickory in a pit I designed.

I had to start from scratch.

I did it three times before I got it like I wanted.

What's the secret to the pit?

We get more smoke flavor into the barbecue.

Now, the beef hash... you cook that here too.

Cooked in 100-gallon pots.

We cook it out in back.

Yum!

I started...I had most of my trainin' previous to World War II, pre-World War II trainin'.

And we learned then to give service with a smile, and that service and quality could not be replaced.

And we hope that our people will treat you pre-World War II style.

Well, I sure am enjoying this.

Thank you very much for being with us.

Thank you.

♪ ♪ (Angle) Just a short drive from Union is the 44-acre Rose Hill Plantation State Park, once the home and headquarters of South Carolina's secessionist governor, William Henry Gist.

Chris Hightower is the park superintendent.

Chris, why was he called the secessionist governor?

While in office as governor of South Carolina, he called the Secession Convention that later convened in Charleston.

He was also a signer of the secession document.

Was he governor during the Civil War?

No... he left office.

December 17th was his last day.

South Carolina seceded 20th of December 1860.

Governor Gist had a reputation of being a hothead.

He attended College of Columbia, which is now University of South Carolina.

Shortly before graduation, he was expelled because of rooming and boarding regulations he did not believe in.

He was also involved directly in one duel and indirectly in a second.

He killed a man over the honor of a lady.

He was also backup for his brother-in-law on Main Street in Union.

Tell me about Rose Hill, the house he built.

The plantation house is made of solid brick, slave-labored brick, and constructed by slaves, later covered with stucco, verandas added front and rear.

It was the centerpiece of what eventually became an 8,000-acre plantation.

Formal rose gardens to the front and sides, original boxwood and magnolia trees.

The family, after the death of Governor and Mrs. Gist, began renting it to tenant farmers.

The property passed into ownership of the U.S. government... we're in Sumter National Forest.

For a time the house was completely unoccupied, privately owned by Clyde Franks of Laurens, South Carolina, and restored at that time.

It then became a state park in 1960.

We have a beautiful facility.

We have been trying to make it more accessible to the public.

Not a lot of people know about us.

A lot of guests pass the gates and decide to see what we have.

We have lots to offer... a beautiful home, beautiful grounds and gardens, scheduled events, and 44 acres of beautiful countryside.

[no audio] We hope you enjoyed this visit to Union, the "City of Hospitality," and that you'll join us again on "Palmetto Places."

Until then, I'm Joanna Angle, inviting you to discover 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 hoommme.... ♪♪♪