The Edisto Center - 547 Highway 174 - Edisto Island, SC 29438 - (843) 869-1885 — Store Hours: Monday - Saturday 10:30 AM -5:30 PM; Sunday: 2:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Books about Edisto, Lowcountry & Gullah
Featured Selections
Edisto
- Edisto: A Sea Island Principality
- Tales of Edisto
- Edisto Island: A Family Affair
- She Came to Edisto Island
- And I'm glad
- 'Pon Top Edisto
- Rumbling of the Chariot Wheels
- Edisto Island 1663 To 1860
- Edisto Island 1861 to 2006
- Cooking in the Lowcountry
- Edisto: A Guide
- Prince of Edisto: Brigadier General Micah Jenkins CSA
- Fossil Vertebrates Beach & Bank Collecting
Lowcountry
- Great Sea Island Storm
- Pigs On The Patio: My Life Riding Herd on a Lowcountry Plantation
- Road Ends In Water
- Story of Sea Island Cotton
Gullah
Great Sea Island Storm
The Great Sea Island Storm of 1893.
William and Fran Marscher
C: 2004
$25.00 paperback, hardback not available
This book describes the destructive hurricane which in August of 1893 struck Beaufort, the Lowcountry sea islands as well as Charleston. Winds of up to 120 miles per hour and a ten- to twelve-foot storm surge were responsible for the deaths of some 3,000 people in the Beaufort area. This is the storm that devastated Edingsville Beach on the northern side of Edisto Island - wiping out the entire beach. This book is exclusive to the Beaufort area with some reference to and photos of other Lowcountry areas and Charleston B/W photos. Index. Bibliography. 125 pages.
And I'm glad
And I'm Glad
An Oral History of Edisto Island
Transcribed by Nick Lindsay
Photographs by Julia Cart
C: 2000
$24.99 paperback/hardback not available
Oral histories of Sam Gadsden and Bubberson Brown, descendants of slaves, who relate their knowledge of the slave culture during the 1800's: Reconstruction; the African-American legacy to the island and their personal struggles in the Twentieth Century. Six-part introduction by Mr. Lindsay; and a Nigerian psychologist, Sam Ozuzu, provides information regarding the West African customs still relevant to Edisto. B/W photos. 192 pages.
Edisto Island: A Family Affair
Edisto Island
A Family Affair
Amy S. Connor and Sheila L. Beardsley - for the Edisto Island Historic Preservation Society
C: 1998
$19.99 paperback/trade, hardback not available
Pictorial history of the first families, homes and island life. No text. B/W photos; photo explanations and descriptions. 128 pages.
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Edisto: A Sea Island Principality
Edisto
A Sea Island Principality
Clara Childs Puckette
C: 1978
$19.95 hardback/dust jacket, paperback not available
A history of Edisto Island from the Revolution to present day. B/W photos. 92 pages.
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'Pon Top Edisto
Pon Top Edisto: Cookin' Tweenst the Rivers
Women of Trinity Episcopal Church
C: 1997
$19.95 hardback
(comb binding inside spine)
Proceeds from this cookbook benefit the preservation and restoration of Trinity Episcopal Church. Some recipes carried over from the original Edisto Island Favorite Recipes. Of particular interest are the recipes contributed for the Plantations section. This cookbook was the regional winner for the Tabasco Community Cookbook Award. Original illustrations. B/W photos. Index. 284 pages.
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She Came to Edisto Island
She Came To Edisto Island:
A New England Woman's Diary in Dixie - 1865
Mary Ames
Reprinted 2002
$17.00
hardback, paperback not available
The diary of Mary Ames who came to Edisto through The Freedmen's Bureau of Boston to teach local slaves after retreat of the plantation owners upon occupation of the island by Union troops. One illustration. 125 pages.
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Tales of Edisto
Tales of Edisto
Nell S. Graydon
Photography by Carl Julien
C: 1955 revised
$18.95 paperback trade, hardback not available
Stories preserved among the early generation of residents; island life and slave life and customs. B/W photos of plantation homes, churches. 171 pages.
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Rumbling of the Chariot Wheels
Rumbling of the Chariot Wheels
I. Jenkins Mikell
C: 1923
Reprinted 2007
273 pages
$17.95 pb
"Doings and Misdoings in the Barefooted Period of a Boy’s Life on a Southern Plantation." This is the memoir of I. Jenkins Mikell during and after the Civil War on Edisto and the Upstate when he was a young boy, not old enough to enlist and fight in the war. His remembrances include not only the Civil War but other historic events of the time, plantation and particularly the slave life and customs including his abiding friendships and respect of the Black race. Also, he refers to legendary Edisto stories including the visit of Lafayette and the matriarch Hepzibah Townsend who assisted the local Blacks to erect the first Baptist Church on the island. Also, dialogue written in Gullah.
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Edisto Island 1861 to 2006
Edisto Island 1861 To 2006 Ruin, Recovery And Rebirth
Charles Spencer
C: 2008
$24.99
This is the second volume of Charles Spencer’s History of Edisto which he wrote in conjunction with the Edis
to Island Museum. This book covers the Civil War on Edisto and locals who fought or served the war effort, the Reconstruction Era more extensively, and finally Edisto in the Twentieth Century. Postscript, Notes, Selected Bibliography, Index, Maps, b/w photos. 224 pages.
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Edisto Island 1663 To 1860
Edisto Island
1663 To 1860
Wild Eden To Cotton Aristocracy
Charles Spencer
221 pages
C: 2008
$24.99 pb
Edisto was home to the Edisto Indians and a wide variety of wildlife before the French and Spanish had a presence with the eventual settlement by the English and Scottish planters who established plantations that prospered until the Civil War. Much of the book covers the Antebellum period of the plantation aristocracy, slavery, and the sea island cotton era up to the Civil War. Postscript, Notes, Selected Bibliography and Index.
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Cooking in the Lowcountry
from the Old Post Office
Jane & Michael Stern & Recipes by Phillip Bardin
C: 2004
$19.99
The Old Post Office Restaurant was established in 1988 and has been going strong for over twenty years. It has survived serving Lowcountry cooking with its signature stone-ground grits accompanying the entrees in the historic Edisto Post Office having impressed publications in the past as THE NEW YORK TIMES and TRAVEL AND LEISURE. Not only do you get Chef Philip Bardin’s Lowcountry recipes but, of particular interest, the unique history of the old Edisto Post Office and General Store, also the local foods and those affiliated with the restaurant over the years, such as ‘Mr. Percy’, the oysterman. Index, color and b/w photos. 212 pages.
Gullah Lyrics
To Carolina Low Country Spirituals
Society for the Preservation of spirituals
C: 2007
$12.95 Spiral Bound pb
This book contains the Gullah lyrics of 94 spirituals collected in the Carolina Low Country between 1922 and 1931 by the Society for the Preservation for Spirituals, a group of Charlestonians who organized to sing as well as preserve the songs they loved since childhood in the Gullah dialect which they feared would eventually be lost to more contemporary musical trends. It has been an ongoing mission since its inception to preserve the traditional style of performing this music, to collect the spirituals and pass the tradition to the next generation. The Spiritual Group began public performances in 1923 and continue today to keep African-American spirituals in the Gullah dialect available to the music industry and interested public as well as its historical contribution and significance. 119 pages.
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Gullah Stories on CD
Gullah
A Breath of the Carolina Low Country
Dick Reeves
C: 1963
$17.95 CD
These are stories told in Gullah by Mr. Reeves, a Charlestonian, which are mostly humorous.
Mr. Reeves provides background for his stories and some explanation as to the social, historical, and economic conditions of the time period. Very entertaining.
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Spiritual Society Field Recordings
Spiritual Society Field Recordings, 1936-39
CD $14.95
Nineteen spirituals performed by African-American churches in the Carolina Lowcountry. This CD was recorded and produced by The Society for the Preservation of Spirituals. In addition, they performed six spirituals.
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Spiritual Society Concerts
Spiritual Society Concerts— 1936-95
2 disk CD $24.95
CD contains fifty-six spirituals from the Carolina Low Country performed by three generations of an amateur family singing group: the Society for the Preservation of Spirituals (Spiritual Society).
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Fossil Vertebrates Beach & Bank Collecting
M.C. Thomas
C: 1968 Revised:
1997 Fourth Printing
$8.00 paperback, hardback not available
Fossil Vertebrates
Indigenous to Edisto. Contains: Part I, Beach Collecting. Areas covered are the history of paleontology as relates to the finding of fossils in the coastal environment; elephant material, bison, horse, camel, deer, wolf, peccary, glyptodont and armadillo, sloth, raccoon, rhinoceros, turtle and tortoise, alligator, whale, porpoise, sea-cow, bony fish, cartilaginous fish, shark teeth, and invertebrates. Part II, Bank Collecting provides a commentary on locating fossils on land. Coastal States Containing Fossils on Their Beaches. Recommended Reading. B/W photos of fossils. 72 pages.
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Edisto: A Guide to Life on the Island
Cantey Holmes Wright
1988 self-published
C:2006
156 pages
14.99
This book is retitled and updated from the original ‘Guide to Edisto’ self-published by the author in 1988. Of particular interest is a list of the old Edisto plantation homes and outbuildings that exist today and a list of homes that were destroyed by fire or torn down in Part One. Also, are several old photos of Edisto from a personal collection not documented elsewhere. Old Edisto recipes of the author’s family ; book seems much the same as originally published, including a foreword by Alex Sanders, then President of the College of Charleston. Bibliography and Suggested Reading List. B/W photos.
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Prince of Edisto: Brigadier General Micah Jenkins CSA
James K. Swisher
C: 1996
248 pages
19.95 pb
Micah Jenkins is descended from one of the oldest Edisto Island families and became an outstanding regimental and brigade commander in Lee’s army. Jenkins fought in the battles of First Manassas, Williamsburg and Seven Pines and commanded the Palmetto Sharpshooters. He commanded Hood’s division in Georgia and later resumed command of his South Carolina Brigade. He was tragically slain by friendly fire during the Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia at the age of 29. As a Citadel graduate, he worked to establish the Kings Mountain Military School in the Upstate of South Carolina. He was regarded as a brave and intelligent leader whose skills were often overlooked. Contains the following: Notes; Bibliography; Index; Maps, B/W Photos.
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Pigs On The Patio: My Life Riding Herd on a Lowcountry Plantation
Liz Tucker
C: 2007
206 pages
22.00
Liz Tucker, a deeply rooted ‘transplant’ to the Lowcountry, has written a delightful memoir of the days when her young family lived at Limerick Plantation near Charleston. She describes her family as ‘eccentric’, her husband as “The Saint’, and many stories explaining ‘…where we thought we lived a somewhat normal life … just in the country.’ She currently resides near Edisto Island. Cover Art/Clay Rice.
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Road Ends In Water
Eliot Dudik
C: 2010
92 pages
29.95 pb
This book is a collection of color photographs which focus on the area of Highway 17 between Charleston, SC, and Savannah, GA, in the heart of the ACE Basin. This area is rapidly developing and the road is being widened to accommodate commerce and tourists. These photographs distinguish the region’s culture from that found north and south and relays the inhabitants’ devotion to and dependence on this environment which they are beginning to lose. This book is a tribute them and the life they’ve been deeply rooted in for generations that has provided a sense of community and emotional and physical connection to the environment they have admired and championed. ‘While the road ends in water, it began there as well.’ –Eliot Dudik
Also poetry, and an explanation of ‘praise houses’ and religious practices that have become extinct.
This is a limited edition of 1000 copies; all copies are signed and numbered.
See banner on our Home Page: Bud, Russell Creek; 1st photograph in ‘Road Ends in Water’.
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Story of Sea Island Cotton
Richard Dwight Porcher and Sarah Fick
C: 2005
542 pages
30.00 pb
This book traces the journey of sea island cotton from the Andes and the Caribbean to favorable growing conditions found on the islands from North Carolina to Florida, concentrating on the South Carolina sea islands where the highest quality fiber was produced. This book is divided into two parts (1) the history of the sea island cotton industry ; and (2) presentation of descriptions of the plantations, architecture and biographical information about the owners, including fifteen Edisto Island plantations. This book is comprehensive and is an excellent reference for those in pursuit of genealogical information. Contains the following reference sources: Illustrations including Figures, Plates and Tables; Appendix of Patents, Scientific Names of Plants, Plantation Families including Properties and Their Residents, and Family Names; Bibliography; Index.
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Blue Roots
African-American Folk Magic of the Gullah People
Roger Pinckney
C:2003, second edition
18.95 pb
This book includes a brief history of the ‘Gullah’ slaves (a term possibly derived from ‘Angola’ located on the southwest coast of Africa) imported to the sea islands and other locations along the Eastern Seaboard through the twentieth century. Much of the early development in the Lowcountry, i.e., Hilton Head and Beaufort, was accomplished at the expense and unfair advantage of the Gullah property owners witnessed by Mr. Pinckney. He explains the Gullah culture belief in herbalism, spiritualism and black magic, known as ‘voodoo’, to which the Gullah refer to as ‘the root’. Stories throughout of the legendary ‘Dr. Buzzard’, who along with Beaufort County Sheriff, J. E. McTeer, later author of ‘The High Sheriff of the Lowcountry’, were the respective ‘root doctors’ in the Lowountry. Bibliography, Index, Diagram, B/W photos. 148 pages.
When Roots Die
When Roots Die: Endangered Traditions on the Sea Islands
Patricia Jones-Jackson
C:1987
24.95 pb
This is a social history of the Gullah people along the sea islands of South Carolina and Georgia, with a concentration of research for this book on James and Wadmalaw Islands. This book addresses the daily social structure with other influences of the economy and demography. The majority of this book concerns their folk literature with emphasis on the storytellers and Gullah tales passed down; also the creative expressions in sermons and prayers. She provides a short history of the Gullah, or the ‘sea island language’; also, a more extensive look at phonetics, grammar and technical areas of the dialect. This book does not address any religious history, their contributions to Lowcountry economy, or herbalist or spiritual practices, i.e., ‘root medicine’. Also, excellent foreword by Charles Joyner. Notes, Selected Bibliography, Index, Map, B /W photos. 189 pages.
Row Upon Row
Row Upon Row: Sea Grass Baskets of the South Carolina Lowcountry
Dale Rosengarten
C:1986 Revised and Reprinted
15.00 pb
This book is a result of a traveling exhibition of sea 
grass baskets by McKissick Museum -USC, and the National Endowment for the Humanities during the years 1988-1989 to promote southern folk art. This book was published after an 18-month study of sea grass baskets which evolved from an agricultural craft upon its inception in the Carolina Lowcountry. Included is an extensive history of basketmaking and the basketmakers, and the economic changes that evolved; as well as instruction on how to make a basket, the utensils and supplies necessary. Also, interviews with many basketmakers. Catalog of Baskets including photographs and notation of the materials used. Bibliography, B/W photos, Map, photos of Alice R. H. Smith watercolors. 72 pages.
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Spirituals of the Carolina Low Country
Society for the Preservation of Spirituals
C:2004
12.95
This book contains the music and Gullah lyrics of 49 spirituals collected in the Carolina Low Country between 1922 and 1931 by the Society for the Preservation for Spirituals, a group of Charlestonians who organized to sing as well as preserve the songs they loved since childhood in the Gullah dialect which they feared would eventually be lost to more contemporary musical trends. It has been an ongoing mission since its inception to preserve the traditional style of performing this music, to collect the spirituals and pass the tradition to the next generation. The Spiritual Group began public performances in 1923 and continue today to keep African-American spirituals in the Gullah dialect available to the music industry and interested public as well as its historical contribution and significance. 119 pages.
