Lowcountry Hurricanes Read online

  Lowcountry Hurricanes

  South Carolina History and

  Folklore of the Sea from

  Murrells Inlet and Myrtle Beach

  (More Tales from Brookgreen Series)

  by

  Lynn Michelsohn

  Cleanan Press, Inc.

  Roswell, New Mexico USA

  Copyright 2004 Lynn Michelsohn

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  The Flagg Flood: The Flagg family battles the hurricane of 1893

  Every Sixty Years: Cousin Corrie’s hurricanes

  About the Storytellers: The Hostesses of Brookgreen Gardens

  About the Author

  A Selection from Gullah Ghosts

  Other Books by Lynn Michelsohn

  Preface

  During the middle of the Twentieth Century, two charming “sixty-ish” Hostesses at Brookgreen Gardens—the lovely sculpture park created from four historic rice plantations in the South Carolina Lowcountry near Myrtle Beach—told these stories. I hope you enjoy these tales from “Cousin Corrie” Dusenbury and “Miss Genevieve” Chandler as much as I did.

  Lynn Michelsohn

  ~

  The Flagg Flood

  The long glass display case in the Museum at Brookgreen Gardens held more than just postcards for sale. There, the Hostesses, Miss Genevieve and Cousin Corrie, also displayed mementoes and artifacts related to the history of Brookgreen and the Lowcountry.

  One photograph of an old man with long white hair and a bushy white beard drew frequent attention from visitors. They regularly identified him as Walt Whitman and inquired about his connection to Brookgreen Gardens. Miss Genevieve patiently explained that this was not the famous poet, but Brookgreen’s long time resident and much beloved physician, Joshua John Ward Flagg, usually called “Dr. Wardie.”

  When visitors showed interest, Miss Genevieve encouraged Cousin Corrie to talk about his sad history and the story of what local people called “The Flagg Flood.” Miss Genevieve usually finished the story herself, recounting Dr. Wardie’s life after that tragic hurricane.

  Cousin Corrie began her story …

  Alice Flagg awoke uneasily to the stormy gray morning of Friday, October 13th, 1893. Now approaching spinsterhood, she kept house for her widowed father in their Wachesaw Plantation home called the Hermitage. The sturdy, two-story structure stood by the seashore marshes at Murrells Inlet on the Waccamaw Neck. (In case you don’t know, the Waccamaw Neck is the twenty-mile-long strip of mainland between the Waccamaw River and the Atlantic Ocean along South Carolina’s coast near Myrtle Beach.) This Alice had been named for her long-deceased aunt who once lived in that same house—and perhaps still does.

  Looking out her bedroom window at the wildly unsettled weather, Miss Alice’s uneasiness increased. Lashing rain could herald a dangerous storm! The seacoast was no place to stay during a cyclone, which is what they called hurricanes back then. But what to do? Even suggesting a move to a safer location would raise her father’s ire. And Dr. Allard Belin Flagg’s ire frightened Miss Alice almost as much as the prospect of a deadly tempest.

  Dr. Allard, of the Hermitage, and his daughter Alice, belonged to an old, proud Lowcountry family. Most Flagg men reveled in their aristocratic tradition, but Dr. Allard’s autocratic ways were legendary, even within the family. Fifty years earlier, his pride had led him to suppress what he considered a highly undesirable romance between his young sister, the first Miss Alice, and a socially inferior Horry County turpentine operator. Some claimed his ruthless actions led to Alice’s tragic death, but that’s another story.

  The doctor had always dealt as sternly with his children as he had with his sister. Once, as he sat conversing with a neighbor, his young son, Allard III, ran into the parlor calling excitedly, “Father! Father!” Dr. Allard silenced the boy with one intimidating look. When Dr. Allard at last concluded his conversation, he turned to his increasingly agitated child. Finally given permission to speak, the boy burst forth. “Father, the house is on fire!”

  Over the years, Miss Alice had learned to approach her father cautiously with suggestions or requests. He looked upon any challenge to his authority with special disfavor, even a challenge from Mother Nature. Alice knew she would have to express herself carefully that stormy morning.

  Most days, Miss Alice and Dr. Allard could look out across the saltwater marsh from their mainland home and see Flagg family beach houses dotted along the strand of the sandy barrier island called Magnolia Beach—today’s Huntington Beach—just like today, we can see houses on Garden City Beach across the marsh from Murrells Inlet. Dr. Allard’s older brother, Dr. Arthur, and his large family summered there. Dr. Allard’s son, the one who had brought the news of fire, now grown up and called “Cousin Allard” by his relatives to distinguish him from his father, also summered there. A few additional local families maintained summer houses on the pleasant barrier island as well.

  The esteemed Dr. Arthur practiced medicine on the Waccamaw Neck, serving planters and their families, along with their plantation workers. Additionally, he planted rice on his own small holdings near the center of the Neck. He had quickly become a respected leader in the community, and in All Saints Episcopal Church whose parish included all of the Waccamaw Neck.

  Dr. Allard, of the Hermitage, had also become a community and church leader. He achieved less prominence than his brother, however, because of the more isolated location of his Wachesaw Plantation, on the northern edge of the parish, and because of his reclusive—perhaps even, odd—nature.

  Every year during the “sickly season” of summer and early fall, Dr. Arthur moved his entire family, by now including children and grandchildren, from his small mainland plantation with its swampy rice fields out to Magnolia Beach on the barrier island. There, cooling sea breezes made the Southern heat more bearable. The absence of standing water also reduced the threat of malaria carried by the mosquitoes so common inland.

  In Dr. Arthur’s time, the cause of malaria remained unknown. In fact, he and his medical colleagues believed foul summer air from swamps, “mal aria,” caused the illness. The result was the same, no matter what the cause. Whites who remained inland during the sickly season often became ill and died. Those at the seashore stayed healthy. Therefore, Dr. Arthur and his family followed the long-standing custom among Waccamaw Neck planters and made the move to Magnolia Beach early every summer.

  Dr. Allard, on the other hand, didn’t need to make such a move. He already lived right on the mainland seashore at Murrells Inlet, far from the swampy “malaria” inland. Besides, the reclusive widower enjoyed his daily life at the Hermitage, headquarters of the plantation he had received as a gift from his uncle, early Waccamaw Neck Methodist minister James Belin. In his old age, childless Parson Belin had given Wachesaw to his favorite nephew, Dr. Allard—although it’s hard to imagine how Dr. Allard could have been anyone’s favorite anything.

  Dr. Allard also remained at the Hermitage because he preferred to keep a little distance between himself and all those folks out on Magnolia Beach. Since losing his wife, a daughter of Colonel Joshua John Ward, South Carolina’s richest rice planter in the 1850s, Dr. Allard had increasingly isolated himself from friends and relatives alike. He had been able to live quite comfortably, devoting himself to reading and quiet study, in large part due to improvements to the plantation made possible by his wife’s generous inheritance from her wealthy father.

  Miss Alice, much like her father, also enjoyed the solitude of the Hermitage and usually remained there as well. Unlike his father and older sister, Cousin Allard enjoyed the company and outdoor activities on Magnolia Beach so he usually joined his relatives on the barrier island.

  This sto
rmy October morning, driving rain obscured any view of the island from those on the mainland. Since dawn, winds and rain had been increasing steadily, along with Alice’s anxiety. To speak? Not to speak? At last, she approached her father. “Sir, perhaps, do you think we might possibly want to contemplate moving inland, away from the threatening ocean.”

  Coldly, Dr. Allard considered his daughter’s suggestion. He considered the storm.

  No. Leaving was silly! No sense in disrupting his routine. They would stay. Decision made. There could be no real danger here on the shore … Now, the Flagg families out on that narrow, lowlying Magnolia Beach were much more vulnerable to wind and waves …

  So, that dark Friday morning as they looked out at the storm, Dr. Allard, and even Miss Alice, worried more about what might be happening out on Magnolia Beach than about their own situation on the mainland. They added a prayer for the safety of all to their morning devotions, then sat down to a hot breakfast.

  As longtime family servants Aunt Cincy and Maum Katherine brought steaming plates of fried eggs, shrimp, and grits swimming in melted butter into the Hermitage’s dining room, both women glanced nervously at the rain beating against the tall windows behind Miss Alice’s chair. Dr. Allard seemed unconcerned about the weather. He gazed steadily down the polished mahogany table at some object just above eye level on the far wall. Miss Alice, on the other hand, jumped as each increasingly fierce onslaught rattled the windowpanes.

  ~

  Out on the barrier island, Dr. Allard’s brother, Dr. Arthur, also appeared unconcerned about the worsening weather. In spite of the risk of violent storms, planters usually remained at the shore until late October or early November when the first hard frost signaled the end of the sickly season.

  This older gentleman delighted in the small summer community of relatives he had established near the century-old summer house where his grandmother Rachel, Mistress of Brookgreen Plantation, had once encountered her long lost fiancé, returned from the dead (another story). He intended to remain at Magnolia Beach for at least a few more weeks.

  Dr. Arthur and his wife Georgeanna, another daughter of the wealthy rice planter Colonel Joshua John Ward, had raised three sons on the Waccamaw Neck. After the War Between the States, Dr. Arthur bought small portions of Springfield Plantation and adjacent Brookgreen Plantation, where his grandmother once entertained both President George Washington and British General Lord Cornwallis—not at the same time—using the money left to his wife by that wealthy father. These two plantations, as well as Dr. Allard’s Wachesaw Plantation, had weathered the disastrous conflict fairly well. Most of the former slaves considered the plantations their home and remained there as paid workers after Freedom. All three plantations continued to produce large crops of rice each year.

  Although Dr. Arthur and Georgeanna’s boys had only received spotty formal schooling, their well educated parents instructed them in a variety of classical and practical areas. In addition to Greek and Latin, they learned to manage the plantation and to participate in community affairs. Following family tradition, all three sons attended the Medical College of South Carolina in Charleston, the fifth, sixth, and seventh members of their family to become physicians.

  When the eldest son, Dr. Arthur, Jr., graduated from the Medical College, he returned to the Waccamaw Neck and began practicing medicine here. He married, started a family, and built a summer house on Magnolia Beach next to his father’s.

  The second son, Dr. Wardie, also returned to the Waccamaw neck after graduation, but lived with his parents here on Brookgreen Plantation in the old home that once stood where the Alligator Bender Pool stands today. Unlike his two brothers, this young man never seemed interested in female companionship, preferring books to the social whirl. This new physician threw himself into helping his father “doctor” local patients and quickly became a favorite because of his kind and gentle concern for all, both black and white. Each summer, Dr. Wardie moved with his parents to their beach house where he could indulge his passion for reading during long days of leisure.

  Only Dr. Charlie Flagg, the youngest of the three boys, did not remain in the Lowcountry. After his graduation, he struck out west to establish a medical practice in Camas, Washington, where his descendents still live today.

  Days at Magnolia Beach had been long and lovely throughout the summer and fall of 1893. All generations of Flaggs enjoyed the sea breezes and relaxed way of living in their little community. They visited with family and neighbors. Sometimes, they made expeditions up to Murrells Inlet or down to Pawley’s Island. Other relatives often joined them for extended stays.

  Occasionally, Dr. Arthur traveled back to his plantation to conduct business or to check on the progress of crops, but during most days he relaxed at the beach, reading medical journals or working on the official All Saints Parish Registry. An important church leader, he had served for many years on the Vestry—that’s the governing board—of All Saints Episcopal Church. As senior member of the Vestry, he took on the responsibility for recording all church member births, deaths, marriages, baptisms, and confirmations. That summer, he brought the Parish Registry to the seashore with him to update it.

  Earlier church members had brought a beautiful sterling silver chalice and engraved bowl to South Carolina from England for use during communion. Church services rarely took place during the summer, so Dr. Arthur also carried the silver along with him to Magnolia Beach for safekeeping.

  Mrs. Flagg had set herself a recording task while at the seashore as well. She brought along the Flagg family Bible to enter births and deaths within the family and among plantation workers during the past months. This, along with managing the household, kept her busy.

  That household had grown larger than usual in October of 1893. In addition to herself, her husband, her son, and their servants, three of Mrs. Flagg’s teenage nieces had joined them for the month of October. Ann, Pauline, and Elizabeth Weston were children of still another of Colonel Ward’s daughters. Mrs. Flagg delighted in their visit. She even had her piano carried over from the plantation house so the three could practice their music every morning.

  The only unpleasantness of that summer at the shore came from the polite but very definite tension between the elder Dr. Arthur and one of his neighbors, a Mrs. Hasell, widow of his colleague, friend, and former brother-in-law, Dr. Lewis Hasell.

  Now these connections get a little complicated so listen closely. Mrs. Hasell was Dr. Hasell’s second wife. Dr. Hasell’s long-deceased first wife had been yet one more of Colonel Ward’s daughters, one of seven he fathered, in addition to his three sons (each of whom commanded the Waccamaw Light Artillery for a time during the War Between the States, but that too is another story). In his will—which later caused never ending complications for his family—Colonel Ward followed the custom of the day and divided his plantations among his sons while leaving substantial suns of money to each daughter. Women couldn’t be expected to manage property, don’t you know. In fact, even the money his daughters inherited actually went to their husbands for “safekeeping.”

  Although Dr. Hasell’s first wife didn’t inherit any land from her father, Dr. Hasell had come to purchase the majority of Brookgreen Plantation through her connections—and with her money. That included Dr. Arthur’s grandmother Rachel’s beach house.

  When Dr. Hasell died, the second Mrs. Hasell inherited Brookgreen Plantation and that century-old beach house. She was now spending the summer there with her entire household and several guests. The lovely old home, built of ancient cypress and sturdy pine heartwood, sat farther back from the strand than the other houses. From its high perch behind the sand dunes, it overlooked both the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the creeks and marshes between Magnolia Beach and the mainland to the west.

  Now this second Mrs. Hasell came originally from New York. Some say her outspoken Northern ways did not sit well with Dr. Arthur. Others say the doctor disliked the fact that she was independently wealthy, much wealthi
er than he was. Still others say he resented her owning most of what he viewed as his family plantation along with its treasured beach house. For whatever reason, tensions ran high, but of course, Southern chivalry prevented any open hostility. Still, relations between the two households were not friendly.

  In spite of the lovely weather that season, all knew that devastating hurricanes could strike the Carolina coast at any time. One big storm had already come ashore farther south that summer in August. It drowned hundreds in Charleston but did little damage at Magnolia Beach. Here, it only seemed to usher in the cooler days of early fall, often the most pleasant time of year at the seashore.

  So, that mid-October morning, both the elder and the younger Dr. Arthurs and their households were still enjoying their usual lazy season at Magnolia Beach, as was Mrs. Hasell. Cousin Allard also remained in his own small cottage up the beach from the others. Of course, all the household servants remained with their various families.

  No one expected trouble.

  ~

  None of those at the elder Dr. Arthur Flagg’s house had slept well that Thursday night. Rising winds and pelting rain woke them repeatedly but none worried much. Their beach house had weathered many an October storm.

  At first light on Friday, Dr. Arthur sent several of his uneasy servants back home to his plantation on the mainland. His manservant, Anthony Doctor, chose to remain with the family. Housekeeper and cook, Adele Duncan, born a slave on Brookgreen Plantation, always devoted herself to Flagg family needs. She and her helpers, Betsy and Kit, also stayed at the beach to carry on with their daily chores.

  Maum Adele’s first responsibility was always getting breakfast on the table by precisely nine o’clock. Today was no different. Dr. Arthur consulted his gold pocket watch as he sat down, satisfied to see his directives being followed as usual.

  Around the breakfast table, Dr. Arthur, Dr. Wardie, Mrs. Flagg, and her teenaged nieces discussed leaving Magnolia Beach themselves. None felt any great urgency to do so. The discussion ended abruptly when Anthony brought in the unsettling information that rising waters had cut off any passage over the causeway to the mainland, leaving no choice but to remain.