In the first half of the nineteenth century, Georgetown was at the heart of one of the most productive rice-growing regions in the world, which resulted in Georgetown landowners who were among the richest Americans in the country. At the end of the Civil War, the emancipation of the slaves brought an end to the enforced free labor that propelled these rice planters to such riches, resulting in the demise of large-scale rice-growing in the region. Land prices plunged and in the early twentieth century, wealthy Northerners began purchasing South Carolina lowcountry plantations with their abandoned ricefield

Within a Charleston-made desk, which is among the antiques in the collection of the Kaminski House Museum, lies an over two-hundred-year-old mystery. A hidden note was discovered attached to the back of a drawer of the desk. Written in ink are these words: “January 11th Domini 1800 – the Great Snow fell from five to 14 Inches Deep.”

A small collection of 18th century Charleston-made furniture takes pride of place among the collection of the Kaminski House Museum in Georgetown, SC.

One of the many tasks we are working on during the Kaminski House Museum’s temporary closure due to COVID-19, is an inventory of the collection. Inventories are taken periodically at all museums and we thought this would be the perfect time to check on the condition of all of our collection items.

HAROLD AYMAR SANDS AND PAULDING FOSDICK

Harold Aymar Sands and Paulding Fosdick were prominent New Yorkers. They were both noted athletes, clubmen and avid sportsmen, whose families appeared in the New York Social Register for generations. They frequented Newport and Palm Beach seasonally, and often appeared in society columns. They both married twice, and married heiresses. Like many of their northern friends who bought houses and plantations as sporting estates and winter residences in the region, they purchased the Georgetown house on the Bluff (likely dirt cheap) as a seasonal residence for hunting, fishing, and socializing with their friends.

WILLIAM WASHINGTON TAYLOR, JR.

W.W. Taylor, Jr. (1884-1953) was the son of W.W. Taylor, Sr. (1845-1915), who, like George R. Congdon, was among the “new men” who had risen to prominence in Georgetown in the 1880s. W.W. Taylor, Sr. had been affiliated with Heiman Kaminski (the father of Harold Kaminski), when he opened a hardware business on Front Street in 1867. When Kaminski later expanded into dry goods, he partnered with Sol Emanuel and W.W. Taylor, Sr., both of whom had been previously in his employ. When Taylor and Sol Emanuel later left the Kaminski firm, Taylor, Sr. founded W. W. Taylor & Son, dealers in builders' supplies, which operated in Georgetown for many years.

RUFUS .J. CLIFFORD

Rufus. J. Clifford, a Canadian-born lumberman raised in Vermont, came to Georgetown as the new president of Atlantic Coast Lumber Corporation from Hambleton, West Virginia, where he had been general manager of Otter Creek Boom and Lumber Company, one of the largest lumber concerns in that state. Clifford had large interests in gas, oil, and other commodities. However, his chief concern was his lumber business, of which he made a distinguished success. He was seventeen years of age when he began working in lumber mills as a sawyer. Ambitious and closely attentive to his business, he soon worked his way up to executive positions and became proficient in all branches, with a “thorough mastery of methods and details.” [Thomas Condit Miller, Hu Maxwell, West Virginia and Its People (Lewis Historical Publishing Company), 1913: 3.]

EDGAR LEE LLOYD

Edgar. Lloyd (1874-1933) was from Maryland. He came to Georgetown with Atlantic Coast Lumber Corporation (ACL), formed in 1899 and incorporated in 1903. At a time when Georgetown businessmen were seeking alternatives to the culture of rice, ACL was the brainchild of wealthy New York financier and international businessman Charles Flint, who sought to make this region of the South “lumber country.” A few years after ACL was founded, Charles Flint turned the lumber business over to Minneapolis lumberman Freeman S. Farr, who served as the first president and a leading stockholder of the Atlantic Coast Lumber Corporation, as receiver of Georgetown Lumber and Timber Company and Georgetown and Eastern Railway, and as treasurer of the Oneida Timber company and the Southern Mercantile company—all newly-organized South Carolina Corporations.

Sixth Owner of the Kaminski House: Arthur Morgan

Arthur Morgan (1816-1878) and his wife, Louisa LaMotte Morgan (d. 1897), moved to Georgetown in 1854. Their children were born the same year, twins Katherine LaMotte Morgan (1854-1934) and Joseph LaMotte Morgan (1854-1904). The family was described as Roman Catholic but “half Irish and half French” due to Louisa Morgan’s French Huguenot family origins. Arthur Morgan was from a family of Irish immigrants who settled in Georgetown. His brother, John Morgan (d. 1866), a merchant, was the father of William Doyle Morgan (1853–1938), who would serve as intendant and mayor of Georgetown from 1891 to 1906. Arthur Morgan partnered in Morgan & McQuaid, a shipping and commission firm located on Front Street at the site of what in 1888 became the J.B. Steele Building, now the River Room Restaurant.

Seventh Owner of the Kaminski House - George R. Congdon

George R. Congdon (1837-1903) was born in Georgetown. His father, William Prior Congdon, had come from Rhode Island to Georgetown prior to his birth, and established a mercantile house known in town for more than half a century under the successive firm(s) of Congdon & Tilley & Hazard & Co.

Fifth Owner of the Kaminski House: Thomas Daggett

Thomas West Daggett (1828-1893) owned the property of what is now the Kaminski House Museum for less than a year, but he makes for one of the more interesting owners. Daggett, born in Bedford, Massachusetts, came south when he was sixteen years old and found work in Charleston as an apprentice in a machine shop. The skills he learned qualified him as an engineer. This led him to Darien, Georgia, to run a sawmill. He soon returned to manage Francis Marion Weston’s rice mill on Waccamaw Neck at Laurel Hill, one of the plantation properties that today comprise Brookgreen Gardens. He leased the mill and was the miller, which he advertised to the outlying region in the newspaper. At the start of the Civil War, Daggett served as a captain in the Waccamaw Light Artillery. He entered Confederate service as an ordnance officer and was eventually made responsible for all the coastal defenses from Little River to Georgetown.

Fourth Owner of the Kaminski House:

Mary Vernon was the second wife and widow of Henry Vernon, who first married Florida Guerry, of Sampit, in 1808. Florida died sometime before 1818 when her brother, Isaac Guerry and husband, Henry Vernon fought in court over two slaves left Florida in her mother’s will. [Henry Junius Nott, David James McCord, Nott and McCord's Reports of Cases Determined in the Constitutional Court of South Carolina: Containing Decisions from November Term, 1817, to November Term 1820, Inclusive (M'Carter & Dawson), 1860, 1:42: See Isaac Guerry v. Henry Vernon.] There is and entry in Records of the Georgetown Methodist Church 1811-1897 that notes the baptism of Rachel Francis Vernon, the daughter of Henry Vernon and Mary his wife, in 1822.

Third Owner of the Kaminski House:

Magdalen Trapier (1777-1852) inherited the house on the Bluff from her Aunt Elizabeth Trapier Martin in 1817. Like many Georgetown region girls, Magdalen attended school in Charleston. In the Wilkinson-Keith Family papers at the College of Charleston, there is a letter dated December 10, 1785 from Samuel Baldwin, a Princeton graduate and schoolteacher who opened a classical school in Charleston. He writes to Paul Trapier, Jr. regarding his grand-daughter, Magdalen, as a pupil. Baldwin praises her disposition, and her rapid acquisition of knowledge. [Wilkinson and Keith Family Papers, 1785-1920, Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston at https://lcdl.library.cofc.edu/lcdl/catalog/lcdl:40601].

Elizabeth Trapier (1745-1817) had owned what became the Kaminski House property for over a decade when in 1778, she married widower Edward Martin (d. ca.1787), originally from England. Martin was first a merchant in Charleston, where he formed a mercantile partnership with Englishman Thomas Shirley. Their firm, Martin & Shirley, was active in the importation of enslaved workers (1763-1765), and they partnered in shares of a sloop, a brigantine, and two schooners.

Many people owned the house over the decades before Harold and Julia Kaminski purchased the property in 1931. Who were they? That’s what I wanted to know. So I did a deep dive into the human history of the property to see what we could learn.

It’s Census Time! Heiman Kaminski first appeared in the United States Federal Census in South Carolina in the year 1860.

The Kaminski House Museum has decided to keep the lights on the lawn ON during these challenging times. We would love to see our fellow businesses and our neighbors join us by showing their community support by decorating their windows or lawns with lights or candles. It is our hope that our community can come together (using appropriate social distancing) and find comfort and hope by #lightingourpathforward.