Most of the time, I know what I’m going to write about on the blog. But once in a while, something magically falls in my lap. That’s what took place last week. So often I focus on the stones but I’m hitting for the fences this time.

After reading Part I of my series on the Presbyterian Church on Edisto (PCE), I was contacted by Dr. Anne Chandler Howell. A sociologist and author, Dr. Howell has taught at the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science, Suffalk University, Wellesley College and Cheyney University.

Currently, Dr. Howell is doing research on shipments made by the Robert Wood Ornamental Ironworks of Philadelphia, Pa. She saw my pictures of the PCE graveyard and noticed that one of the fences looked familiar. After she looked at the additional photos I sent her, Dr. Howell confirmed that some of the fencing had indeed come from that company!

This first one surrounds a number of plots, which includes the Legare, Seabrook and Edings family members. It’s what I think looks like a “knotty wood” pattern with intertwined leaves and vines, while the posts resemble nubby trees and branches.

You can see the detail of the design a little more in this photo.

Fortunately, there’s a copy of one of the company’s catalogs online (by that time it was called Wood & Perot) and I was able to pinpoint which one I think it is. You can see what it looked like below.

It turns out that Robert Wood opened his forge in Philadelphia in 1839. He operated under the name “Robert Wood” until 1849, when the business expanded. He changed it to “Robert Wood, Iron Rail Foundry and Manufacturing.” By 1853, Wood’s business had grown into nearly an acre of workspace with 200 employees.

Ornamental cast iron was very popular from the late 18th century through the late 19th century. I learned that cast iron differs from wrought iron because it allows for greater plasticity and more elaborate designs, including raised relief which cannot be accomplished with wrought iron.

Wood’s business grew bigger when he partnered with Elliston Perot, becoming Wood & Perot, from 1857 to 1865. In its last incarnation, the foundry became Wood & Perot Ornamental Iron Works from 1865 until the company went bankrupt and the foundry closed in 1878.

Wood started his career simply making window guards and awning posts, working his way up to large bronze statues. The biggest was a 15-foot sculpture of Henry Clay for the town of Pottsville, Pa. Perhaps his most prestigious creation was President James Monroe’s tomb at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Va., created in 1859. In 2015, Monroe’s tomb received a $900,000 makeover from the Department of General Services in the state of Virginia.

According to an article by Karen Chernick, projects started in the pattern room, where a wooden model was created to size. This alone could take several weeks. Final designs were taken to the foundry where a mold was made from the pattern. Because it took so much work to produce these patterns, they were kept in a storeroom for future projects. In 1853, Wood’s pattern room was filled with between 3,000-4,000 patterns, 150 of which were fence patterns.

While the molder worked, the charger prepared a cylindrical 12-foot tall by 38-inch wide cupola (or melting pot). The inside of the cupola had to be continually stacked with sand, wood, coal, imperfect castings from the previous day, and then more coal and iron. Once the contents of the cupola were lit, it took about two hours for the iron to melt. Workers then spent the afternoon bringing ladles to an opening at the bottom of the cupola and filling molds situated all over the room with the liquid iron.

Dr. Howell told me customers often chose what designs they liked in the showroom and then customized them to meet their needs. I saw that whomever bought the woody patterned fence had also chosen a Woods & Perot arch. In the photo below, you can see what it looked like in the catalog, but with a different fence design.

Here’s how the actual arch looks in the PCE graveyard now.

Since the Seabrook family (the most likely candidates for purchasing the railing) lived on Edisto, they were quite a distance from Wood’s Philadelphia showroom. They may have simply flipped through the catalog, chose what they wanted and ordered it sent to them.

Dr. Howell was also interested in the fencing around the Mikell family plot so I sent her more photos. She confirmed it can also be found in the Wood & Perot catalog. She was especially interested in the gates.

Here you can see the fence design that the Mikells (who intermarried with the Edings and the Seabrook families) chose.

Dr. Howell told me that this style of railing was indeed No. 42 out of the Wood & Perot catalog, although the Mikells chose a different gate than the one in this illustration.

Instead, the Mikells picked out a gate that featured what appears to be two field workers with a Medieval-type feel to them. The top of the gate features oak leaves in the scroll work.

The name “J. Jenkins Mikell” is also on the gate. I think this is an error on Wood’s behalf because there is nobody buried in the cemetery by that name. There is, however, an I. Jenkins Mikell buried at PCE (the “I” standing for Isaac). Interestingly, Isaac’s third wife Aramintha’s monument states she is the wife of J. Jenkins Mikell so it looks like this was not the first time there was an error with Isaac’s name.

I could not find the figures in the 1867 catalog that I had access to, but Dr. Howell sent me what she had from the 1848 catalog. You can see that the Mikells chose the two center motifs for the fence.

This is what they look like up close.

And here’s the other one. Both are very agrarian in nature, which supports how the Mikells, Seabrooks and Edings made their fortunes by growing cotton on their plantations.

I did a little research and learned that much like Julia Legare’s father, William Seabrook, Isaac Mikell (1808-1881) was a prosperous plantation owner. But what he’s probably best known for is the amazing home he built for his third wife Mary Martha Pope Mikell between 1853 to 1854 in Charleston.

The Greek Revival residence was designed in the style of grand Italian villa and is still standing today. In 2008, the house sold for $4.8 million to Manhattan socialite Patricia Altschul. Apparently, the house is often featured on the Bravo television reality show, Southern Charm.

I knew when I visited the PCE graveyard that I was in a special place like no other. But I had little idea that the same company that had made some of its cast iron fencing had also created the tomb of an American president. I am very grateful to Dr. Howell for contacting me so I could learn a bit more about Robert Wood and his company’s place in cemetery history.

There are too many stories from the PCE graveyard to end just yet. Stay tuned for more.

Today’s blog post might make some of you feel angry or disappointed. I expect some grumpy comments. That’s because I’m going to debunk a beloved ghost story that many people swear is true.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a suspenseful old yarn. Who doesn’t? The haunting tale of Julia Lagare is one of them. But when it flies in the face of actual facts, I can’t let it go unchallenged.

Before I start, many thanks to J’aime Rubio’s web page “Stories of the Forgotten”. She did a ton of research on this story and I’m going to be sharing some of it with you here. If you click on the link, you can get more details.

One of the reasons crowds flock to the Presbyterian Church on Edisto’s (PCE’s) historic graveyard is in the lone mausoleum located in the very back. Across the entrance is the name “Legare” (pronounced “La-gree”). There are three people interred inside. There is no door on the mausoleum, but a wooden lattice-type frame to keep people from going inside while enabling them to view the contents.

First, I’ll share the ghost story.

In the 1850s, a child or pre-teen girl by the name of Julia Legare was visiting family on the island when she fell ill from diphtheria and went into a deep coma. Her family, thinking she was dead, held a funeral then placed her body inside the family mausoleum at PCE’s graveyard. They left her there, shutting the door behind them.

The legend states that some 15 years later (some versions say seven) when her brother died, the family opened the mausoleum to place his remains inside. To their shock and horror, Julia’s bones were found right beside the door. Several accounts state they found scratch marks on the walls and door indicating Julia had awoken from her coma and fought without success to get out of the mausoleum.

Ever since, her spirit has haunted the cemetery. The legend also says that despite the fact people would shut the door to the mausoleum, it would be open the next day. So they took it off permanently and placed it in the woods

This tragic tale continues to get printed in tourist brochures and on web sites. The problem is that it isn’t true.

Born on Nov. 19, 1829, Julia Georgiana Seabrook’s parents were William Seabrook and his second wife, Elizabeth Emma Edings. William’s parents were John Seabrook and Sarah Lawton Seabrook. William was quite successful at managing his mother’s estates and is thought to be one of  the first plantation owners to cultivate Sea Island cotton (or black seed) successfully. In addition, William owned and operated the Edisto Island Ferry that carried passengers between Charleston and Savannah (in addition to other island areas).

Julia grew up on her father’s plantation, playing in the rooms of the elegant William Seabrook House that still stands today. William chose the designer of the White House, James Hoban, to draw up the plans. The home was built during his first marriage in 1810. Julia was his youngest child with second wife, Elizabeth.

Unlike other plantation homes that burned during the Civil War, the Seabrook House is still standing because it was used as a provost and headquarters for the Union Army. I last read the fully renovated home, situated on 350 picturesque acres, was for sale in March 2017 for $8.5 million.

Julia was about 18 when she married plantation owner John Berwick Legare in 1848. Soon after, Julia gave birth to their son, Hugh. Little Joseph came soon after. They were all living together in 1850, according to census records. The cause of her death is unknown, but Julia died at the age of 22 on April 15, 1852 (which is inscribed on her marker). She was the first person interred in the Legare mausoleum.

There is no door on the mausoleum so I cannot testify to any scratch marks the legend refers to. I couldn’t see anything resembling scratches on the walls, just the expected aging. I imagine that so many people wanted to see inside over the years, the church gave up and left the door off (which may have been scratched up by tourists themselves). The wooden frame keeps people out while letting you get a good look inside and take pictures.

The idea that the Seabrooks simply left Julia’s remains inside the mausoleum is hard to swallow. There’s not much room in there. Most of the time, the casket is slid into a hole in the wall that is sealed or buried beneath the mausoleum floor and then covered by stone. The casket wouldn’t simply be left in the open. So the notion that her bones were found by the door doesn’t make any sense.

Julia’s son, Hugh Swinton Legare, died at the age of six in 1854. He is interred to her right. Her husband, John, died two years later in 1856 at the age of 36. He is interred to her left. Son Joseph would have been about six at the time of his father’s death but his whereabouts are unknown. He may have grown up under the care of one of Julia’s sisters.

You’ll notice that this is the Legare mausoleum. Not the Seabrook mausoleum. Her 31-year-old brother, Robert Chisholm Seabrook, died only six months after Julia. Not 15 years later as the legend states. So they wouldn’t have opened the mausoleum to inter him there. He is buried near the mausoleum with his own towering monument that was put up by their mother. It’s the tallest one in the cemetery.

William Seabrook died in 1836 and is buried in the Whaley-Seabrook Cemetery on the Seabrook House grounds (described on Find a Grave as being in very poor condition) on Edisto Island with his parents and first wife, Mary Ann Mikell Seabrook. His second wife, Elizabeth, died in 1856 and is buried in the PCE graveyard near Richard and a daughter, Mary, who died in 1834 at the age of three.

William and Elizabeth also had a son, Joseph, in 1823 who was one of the eight church members who tragically died on the Steam Boat Pulaski in 1838. Daughter Carolina, born in 1825, married James Hopkinson. She died in 1879 (outliving most of the family) and is also buried at PCE near her mother, brother and two sisters (Julia and Mary).

So that’s the true story of the life and death of Julia Legare. While it’s not as romantic or spooky as the legend that continues to surround her, her family does have an important history worth noting. And while it is true that there are cases of people who were buried alive when their family thought they were dead, this isn’t one of them.

Next time, I’ll talk about some new revelations about the ironwork railings at the PCE graveyard and more of the history of those interred there.

Charleston, S.C. is a wonderful city filled with historic cemeteries and I’ve seen the majority of them. However, last summer I was eager to venture out a bit from my usual stomping grounds and check out the surrounding areas like Edisto Island.

I already knew there are many small family cemeteries secreted away deep in swamps, forests and old plantations. However, they’re also mostly on private land and the owners don’t welcome uninvited guests. So I ended up going to the bigger church ones, which were certainly amazing in their own right.

The Edistow (that’s how they spelled it) Indians were living on the island when Spanish Jesuits established a mission there in the 1500s but abandoned it within the year. Those Indians were all but gone by 1750 due to displacement and disease.

English Lord Proprietors who held dominion over North and South Carolina purchased land from Indians, then granted land on Edisto and other islands for planting rice. The Paul Grimball family (at Point of Pines) were the first Europeans to live on Edisto in 1683. Spanish pirates destroyed the Grimball house in 1686, but its ruins remain.

During the 1700s, South Carolina, including Edisto, exported record amounts of rice to Europe and Caribbean buyers. For a short period they exported indigo, too. During the Revolutionary War, most planters fled to the mainland. The British destroyed property and sold many slaves to the West Indies. In 1785, Edisto began growing long-staple cotton from seeds locally developed.

I did make a stop at the Geechie Boy Market and Grocery Store, having heard that their doughnuts were pretty tasty. The Johnsman family has operated a mill on their local farm since 2007, selling hand-milled grits, corn meal and other grains. And by the way, those doughnuts lived up to their reputation. Delicious!

Not far down the road you’ll find the Presbyterian Church on Edisto (PCE) and its graveyard. The congregation is thought to have started meeting in the 1680s, but the first official pastor was not installed until 1704 with the Rev. John McLeod, a Scottish native. The current church was built in 1830, with updates and renovations over the years.

By 1860, Edisto’s slave population of about 5,000 made possible local prosperity from sea island cotton. Wealthy planters built antebellum homes on the island and some of them were members at the church. But all that changed when the Civil War started.

With the fall of Port Royal in 1861, white residents of Edisto evacuated under orders from the Confederate government. Union troops soon occupied Edisto and remained for many years. Black residents also remained. Those who were members of the church came down out of the balcony, then elected a session and pastor while continuing the worship of God.

Two years after the war’s close, Dr. William States Lee (the church’s pastor since 1821) and several white members got a writ from the occupying Federal government returning the church sanctuary and grounds to the white members. The black members went down the road and founded the Edisto Presbyterian Church. According to church literature, Dr. Lee wrote that the event was peaceful while others remembered it as very tense. Today, both congregations are members of Charleston-Atlantic Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

The graveyard that surrounds the church dates back to the 1770s and boasts a wide variety of monuments and markers. Some of are very worn and difficult to read. The grandest ones representing the wealthier church members are around back and closest to the church itself.

Near the front is a memorial to those who perished in the June 14, 1838 wreck of the Steamboat Pulaski. Eight church members, including pastor Rev. James Joseph Murray and his family, were among the victims. A total of 130 passengers and crew died in the tragedy. The death toll was said to have been the greatest suffered to that point by a steam-powered vessel.

The Pulaski (bound for Baltimore) left Savannah on June 13, 1838, and arrived in Charleston later that day. After taking on passengers in Charleston the following day, it headed north with nearly 190 passengers and crew.

At around 11 p.m. on June 14, one of the Pulaski’s boilers exploded. The explosion blew off the ship’s promenade deck, according to an account published by survivor Rebecca Lamar in 1854. “At the same time the bulkhead between the boilers and forward cabin was stove in, the stairway to it blocked up, and the bar-room swept away,” she recalled.

The explosion swept some passengers into the sea and scalded others to death. Irreparably damaged, after 45 minutes it split in two with a crash. Shortly after, both halves sank.

Several dozen passengers and crew survived the explosion and found themselves in the water as the ship sank, either in lifeboats or floating amid debris. Two of the lifeboats started rowing for the North Carolina shore. But other survivors aboard a third lifeboat and a raft were unaware others had made for the coast and spent several days at sea.

Over the next few days, several in the second group would succumb to injuries, exhaustion or thirst before the schooner Henry Camerdon, headed to Wilmington, N.C., came upon the survivors and rescued them.

An inquiry concluded that the engineers had improperly operated the boilers on the ship, causing the explosion. Gradually, public opinion led Congress to pass regulations that governed steamer inspections. The tragedy soon faded from memory, except for those whose families were touched forever by it.

Two of the victims that were church members were Sarah Ann Mikell Edings (27) and her daughter, Sarah Josephine (5). She left behind husband William Edings and their children. She and her daughter’s bodies were never recovered.

In the back of the graveyard is the elaborate monument for William Edings, a prosperous planter.  After the death of his wife and child, William married the widow Hess Marion Waring Smith Mikell in 1844. She had three sons of her own. She and William would have several children together, a number of whom died in childhood and are buried beside William. He died in 1858 at the age of 49.

I believe the famous Charleston stone carver William T. White created William’s grand monument, a column cut off at the top to signify a life cut short. I didn’t see his name on it but White’s name does appear at the bottom of his sons’ markers located behind his in the plot.

Buried beside these are two other children, William Seabrook Edings and Horace Waring Edings, both of them slab markers done by White. Son William Smith Edings lived to adulthood and is buried in the family plot.

Hess struggled after William’s death and the ensuing Civil War. She fought to get a certificate of ownership of the family’s land on Bayfield Plantation after the war, and was only able to do so by sending a desperate letter to a general who helped her. After receiving the certificate in May 1865, she was about to support her family with crops raised on the plantation despite the fact the family home was burned.

From census records, it appears she lived on Edisto with a maiden daughter (Juliet) and two of her bachelor sons (William and David, who ran the place). The 1900 U.S. Census sadly noted that of the 12 children she had given birth to, only three were still alive. She died in 1906 but her burial site is unknown. William and sister Juliet shared a home until his sudden death from a heart problem in 1918. He is buried at PCE in the Edings plot. David and Juliet’s death dates and burial sites are unknown.

Next time, I’ll be back with the “ghost story” of Julia Legare. There’s a lot of misinformation floating around about her, but she was a real person who is indeed buried in the PCE graveyard.