Sumter, South Carolina

By Cameron Kinard

Local History Institutions

• General Thomas Sumter Memorial Park lies about 10 miles west of Sumter’s downtown, named after the Revolutionary War general who gave his name to the city of Sumter. Thomas Sumter is buried here, and the grounds are maintained to preserve how the site may have looked in the early nineteenth century.[1]
• The Sumter County Museum is a collection of several educational sites that interpret local and South Carolina history, as well as topics of particular local interest. Housing the Sumter County Historical Society and Sumter County Genealogical Society, its locations collect a major proportion of local historical documents and artifacts, and provides research and genealogical services to the local community.[2]
  • The Museum’s original home was the Williams-Brice House, a 1916 Edwardian structure developed into a house museum and archives by the Sumter County Historical Society in the 1970s. Another major attraction here is the adjoined Martha Brice Gardens, designed by renowned landscape designer Robert Marvin.[3]
  • The Carolina Backcountry Homestead was developed as an interpretive historical site by relocating numerous farm structures built in the late 18^th and early 19^th Among its numerous public events are the tri-annual Living History Days, where costumed staff and volunteers interpret the lives and crafts of rural Americans living in this period.[4]
  • Built in 2003 as an expansion to the Williams-Brice House, the Heritage Education Center became the County Museum’s primary space for public programming and collections storage, which include papers from local figures such as Raymond Schwartz and Martha Williams Brice. It houses their primary exhibits, a theater, classroom spaces, and administrative offices.[5]
  • In cooperation with Sumter’s significant Jewish community, the County Museum developed the Temple Sinai Jewish History Center in 2018. It contains award-winning permanent exhibits interpreting Jewish history, including the Holocaust, using multimedia and oral history components, and its Ackerman Hall hosts a variety of rotating exhibits.[6]
• The Historical Lincoln Center began in 1874 as a four-room school for the local black community, and experienced great growth and development throughout the early 20^th Unfortunately, the site appears closed for the time being and its website is inaccessible.[7]
• A few miles southwest of Sumter’s downtown is the Millford Plantation, built in the 1820s and preserved today by the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust as a major example of Greek Revival architecture. Though open for public tours only a few days each month, the site has expanded its interpretation to include the lives of its black slaves and caretakers, documented in a collection of rare photographs taken throughout the 19^th[8]
• Walker Cemetery is one of the most notable African American cemeteries in South Carolina, originally organized in 1895. Local black politicians and community leaders including Z.E. Walker and Reverand Harry Bowman Brown, and volunteer efforts are underway to restore portions that are in disrepair.[9]
• The Temple Sinai Cemetery hold the genealogical history of Sumter’s Jewish community, which grew steady when Jews began moving to the area from Charleston in 1815. The cemetery was incorporated in 1874, and has received multiple historical markers commemorating those resting there.[10]
• Not much information is available on the Sumter Military Museum, but it appears to be a collaboration between local amateur historians and military veterans. It displays, interprets, and hosts educational events for photographs, memorabilia, and other objects loaned to the museum by veterans or family members as a way to honor their service.[11]
• The Sumter Fire Department operates a small museum at their headquarters location. Using a small collection of objects, they interpret important moments in the city’s history that depict cooperation between the fire department and the city’s population.[12]

[1] “History and Heritage,” City of Sumter SC, accessed February 26, 2024, https://www.sumtersc.gov/community/history

[2] “Home,” Sumter County Museum, accessed February 26, 2024, https://www.sumtercountymuseum.org/

[3] “Williams Brice House,” Sumter County Museum, accessed February 26, 2024, https://www.sumtercountymuseum.org/brice-house

[4] “Carolina Backcountry Homestead,” Sumter County Museum, accessed February 26, 2024, https://www.sumtercountymuseum.org/carolina-back-country-homestead

[5] “Heritage Education Center,” Sumter County Museum, accessed February 26, 2024, https://www.sumtercountymuseum.org/heritage-education-center

[6] “Temple Sinai Jewish History Center,” Sumter County Museum, accessed February 26, 2024, https://www.sumtercountymuseum.org/temple-sinai-jewish-history-center

[7] “Lincoln School,” City of Sumter SC, accessed February 26, 2024, https://www.sumtersc.gov/discover-sumter/things-do/history-heritage/african-american-history

[8] “Millford,” Classical American Homes Preservation Trust, accessed February 26, 2024, https://classicalamericanhomes.org/sites/millford/

[9] “African American History,” City of Sumter SC, accessed 2/26/2024, https://www.sumtersc.gov/discover-sumter/things-do/history-heritage/african-american-history

[10] “History of Sinai Temple,” Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina, accessed 2/27/2024, https://jhssc.org/history-of-temple-sinai/

[11] “About,” Sumter Military Museum, accessed February 26, 2024, https://www.sumtermilitarymuseum.com/about

[12] “Sumter Fire Department History,” City of Sumter SC, accessed February 26, 2024, https://www.sumtersc.gov/fire/stations

Newspapers

• The Samaritan Herald was owned and published by Reverand and black community philanthropist Harry Bowman Brown, running from 1909 to 1942. The paper was then renamed The Samaritan Herald and the Voice of Job and ran until 1950.[1]
• The Watchman and Southron was a county newspaper that ran from 1881 to 1930 before being absorbed by The Sumter Daily Item. It originally consolidated two smaller weekly papers, The Sumter Watchman and The True Southron, which were both politically partisan papers active during the antebellum period.[2]
• The Sumter Daily Item originally began in 1894, but grew rapidly after becoming a daily paper and absorbing The Watchman and Southron in 1930. In 1987, it was renamed The Item and remains today as the Sumter County’s top paper for local news.[3]
• The Sumter Advance was started in 1881 and published under this name until 1892. The paper was then renamed The Sumter Herald, and continued until 1952.[4]

Books

• The first major history written about Sumter, SC was History of Sumter County, South Carolina in 1954 by Anne King Gregorie, a history professor at the University of South Carolina. The book covers at length the area’s politics, government, and general history from the early colonial period to the early 20^th[5]
• John R. Poindexter’s Sumter County: A Photographic Chronicle 1845-1955 was published in 1989 through the Sumter County Museum. Hundreds of photographs taken throughout the 19^th and 20^th centuries were compiled in this book and interpreted to depict the history of the local area and population.[6]
• In 2001, Thomas Tisdale, who would later be elected president of the South Carolina Historical Society, published A Lady of the High Hills: Natalie Delage Sumter. The book is a broad biography of the named Frenchwomen, who after fleeing the French Revolution became connected with various Revolutionary figures including Aaron Burr and settled down with Thomas Sumter Jr. on his family plantation in Sumter County.[7]
• Monica Sullivan’s 2012 Sumter County, South Carolina: Including Its History, the Pinewood Depot, Singleton's Graveyard, the Milford Plantation, and More was published as part of a project called “Earth Eyes Destinations.” This series of travel guides was aimed at encouraging leisure travel, and Sullivan’s book provides very basic information and describes places tourists might visit.[8]
• A Country Boy from Sumter County, South Carolina: The Autobiography of Harry Lee Fulwood, Sr. is a short, self-published autobiography of a local black man. As a military veteran, sports coach, and local leader the book provides a snapshot of life in mid-late 20^th century Sumter County.[9]
• As an attempt to attract tourists and interests to the area, in 2018 Emmitt I. Reardon published a very short booklet titled City of Sumter, and Sumter County, South Carolina, U. S. A: The Ideal Location for Home Seeker, Farmer, Manufacturer, Merchant, Truck Grower, Health Seeker, Poultry Breeder, Tourist, Sportsmen. It provides a very basic overview of the city’s economic, political, and demographic status in the 2010s.[10]

Documentary Films

• A Place in Time: Sumter, South Carolina is a documentary film produced by the Sumter County Museum in 2000 and now available to view on YouTube. It is played in their Heritage Education Center’s theater as an introduction to the site and to local history, and provides basic details and information about the area, from Native American habitation through the late 20^th[11]

[1] “About The Samaritan herald. (Sumter, S.C.) 1909-1942,” Library of Congress, accessed 2/26/2024, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92065557/

[2] “About The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930,” Library of Congress, accessed 2/27/2024, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn93067846/

[3] “About The item. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1987-current,” Library of Congress, accessed 2/27/2024, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn93067969/

[4] “About The Sumter herald. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1892-1952,” Library of Congress, accessed 2/27/2024, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86063747/

[5] Anne King Gregorie, History of Sumter County, South Carolina (Southern Historical Press, 1954).

[6] John R. Poindexter, Sumter County: A Photographic Chronicle 1845-1955 (Sumter County Museum, 1989).

[7] Thomas Tisdale, A Lady of the High Hills: Natalie Delage Sumter (University of South Carolina Press, 2001).

[8] Monica Sullivan, Sumter County, South Carolina: Including Its History, the Pinewood Depot, Singleton's Graveyard, the Milford Plantation, and More (Earth Eyes Travel Guides, 2012).

[9] Harry Lee Fulwood, Sr., A Country Boy from Sumter County, South Carolina: The Autobiography of Harry Lee Fulwood, Sr. (Self-Published, 2014).

[10] Emmitt I. Reardon, City of Sumter, and Sumter County, South Carolina, U. S. A: The Ideal Location for Home Seeker, Farmer, Manufacturer, Merchant, Truck Grower, Health Seeker, Poultry Breeder, Tourist, Sportsmen (Forgotten Books, 2018).

[11] A Place in Time: Sumter, South Carolina (South Carolina ETV, 2000), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPR0sSKCZTY