Beaufort, SC and Easter Sunday

We picked up a mooring ball yesterday in the Harbor of Beaufort, NC. We took the dinghy into town to check in with the marina and we roamed the town to start to get a feel for it.  It is a lovely small historic town.

We found the chocolate store which was hoppin (no pun intended) because it was the day before Easter.  The interesting thing about this chocolate store is they are the ones who provided the Chocolates for the Movie Forrest Gump.  “Life is like a box of Chocolates.”  Tom Hanks has a reputation of being a really nice guy.  He would ride his bike around town and hang out at the barbershop.  When he was leaving town in his stretch limo, a wedding was just letting out. He went up to the bride a groom and asked if he could kiss the bride.  Everyone, including, the photographer, were so star struck that no one took a picture.  Tom’s crew came along later and heard about the photo faux pas.They called Tom and he left the airport to come back for the photo op. Everyone loves Tom in the town. On the other side of the coin was Barbra Streisand filming Prince of Tides. They said she rode around on her broom and was demanding and terrible to everyone. This movie was being filmed when the Gulf war started and there is a large Marine Air Base close by. The planes were flying constantly and Barbara was incredibly annoyed.  She picked up the phone and called the base commander and demanded that the flying stop and not start again until 9am so she could sleep.  The commander stopped the flying and Barbara was quite pleased with her success. That is until 2 am the commander sent a group of fighter jets to fly low over the town and right above where she was staying they put the afterburners on.  The next morning there was an notice in the newspaper that went something like this…. “To the people of Beaufort, I apologize for the noise last night and to Ms. Streisand, you are welcome…that sound was your freedom.”  I guess he got the last laugh. The flying never halted again. Scenes from Glory with Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman and Matthew Broderick  were also filmed there.

A group of South Carolina government leaders met and made a pact to secede from the union. The secession papers were drafted in the basement of one of the homes. They were then sent on to Charleston, the state capital, then on to Washington DC. The men at that initial meeting all signed their names in blood on the basement wall of the home. During the civil war the union came in and painted in blue over their names “Union.” It is still there today and no one has ever painted on top of the signatures.  We would have liked to have seen it, but it was a private home. Why is Beaufort so well preserved with many homes still standing from the 1700s? Abraham Lincoln was looking for a town in the south to take over and sent approximately 15,000 troops to take this town of about 4000. It would be one of the first towns to be taken by the Union Soldiers in the Civil War. The people in the town got wind of the ships coming in and the all skedaddled.  They left because they feared they would all be found guilty of treason and hung because of what went on the basement of that home. By the time the soldiers arrived there was no one left in the town except a few servants. No fighting occurred and therefore buildings were not  destroyed and burned. This is why so many are standing today. Many of the homes became hospitals for the wounded and offices for the Union. The ironic thing was, that a few years later two boys 8 and 10 were smoking cigarettes and one of the butts started a fire and burned several homes. What the war didn’t do, two little boys did.  They were taken to stand trial. It is reported that the judge had mercy on the children and ordered them back to their parents.  The boys are reported to have begged the judge not to return them to their homes for fear of their mother’s discipline.  I may not have remembered all the details exactly right on that story but you get the gist.

Robert Smalls was a slave who gained freedom during the Civil War.  He freed himself, his crew and their families by stealing a  confederate transport ship the CSS Planter. By these actions he helped convince Abraham Lincoln to accept African-Americans into the Army and Navy. He became a ship’s pilot sea captain and a politician. He was one of the first African Americans to become a United States House representative.

There are so many lovely historic homes.  We saw the hanging tree where slaves were hung. It had a large straight horizontal limb that went over the road. It was a little disturbing to think about. Despite the hanging tree, we loved Beaufort. What a neat town.

Easter Morning, we went to a Sunrise service in the Park along the water.  It was a joint effort of the first African Baptist Church and the Scots Presbyterian church. We joked, wondering if we would be singing hymns to bagpipes.  Hee Hee The service was lovely and the setting along the water with the sun rising made the service that much better.

Thanks for reading.

Karen and Scott

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