Beaufort, Port Royal continue push to mark Reconstruction

This story was updated to correct the traffic count at Naval Heritage Park.

As the National Park Service prepares to unveil a comprehensive review of significant Reconstruction Era sites later this year, Beaufort and Port Royal hope to mark their roles in the story.

In Beaufort, Mayor Billy Keyserling and a group of historians and scholars are still working to open a Reconstruction center downtown. The group has a pending grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities, Keyserling said, and someone willing to donate a building.

Port Royal wants to be considered for its own national monument and interpretive center recognizing the town’s role in Reconstruction.

During the period after the Civil War, millions of former slaves began life as free people and white Southerners dealt with the Confederate defeat and end of slave labor.

Beaufort County is thought to be one of the leading areas in the South for sites important to Reconstruction. Thousands of slaves were freed here early in the Civil War and spawned one of the first schools for freed slaves, an early self-governed black community and the Army’s first black regiment.

“There are 100-plus pieces of the puzzle,” Keyserling said. “It’s only a complete puzzle if everyone works together.”

The National Park Service conducted a year-long study of Reconstruction sites and published a handbook in March for park rangers and historians. The agency plans to release a comprehensive review later this year identifying landmarks central to the story.

In a letter to U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn last month, Port Royal Mayor Sam Murray said Naval Heritage Park could accommodate an interpretive center to exhibit the town’s role. The park is adjacent to Naval Hospital Beaufort, the site where the Emancipation Proclamation was read to freed slaves under what is known as the Emancipation Oak at Camp Saxton.

In a resolution passed in April, the town said it was central to the Port Royal Experiment, during which former slaves independently worked the land after plantation owners fled Union troops.

The town plans to appoint a panel to choose the best site for a monument and interpretive center. Town manager Van Willis said this week that it would be up to council members to push congressional and state lawmakers on the idea of a marker and facility in Port Royal.

Naval Heritage Park seemed an obvious choice because of its location, the traffic flow on Ribaut Road and the fact that the town owns the property outright, officials said.

Almost 150,000 cars per week pass the park, Willis said.

“I think this is an opportunity for Port Royal we don’t want to miss,” Councilman Jerry Ashmore said Wednesday.

Keyserling said Port Royal having its own center would not be at odds with what Beaufort plans. The Beaufort center would direct anyone interested to the various important sites throughout Beaufort and Jasper counties, he said.

“It would create a collaboration for all of the many pieces,” Keyserling said, “since it’s likely the Park Service is going to say the Beaufort area has more Reconstruction history concentrated than other places.”

This story was originally published May 20, 2016 at 4:21 PM with the headline "Beaufort, Port Royal continue push to mark Reconstruction."