How a Beaufort church plans to remember Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman could be returning to Beaufort.

Tabernacle Baptist Church plans a sculpture to recognize the abolitionist’s role during an 1863 raid along the Combahee River that freed hundreds of slaves, a church news release said. An estimated $500,000 monument is being discussed with sculptor Ed Dwight, the Colorado artist who crafted the African American History Monument in Columbia and other works recognizing black history.

Tabernacle Baptist is the burial place of Robert Smalls, who was born a slave and became a Civil War hero and Congressman. A bust of Smalls is also on the church grounds.

The nearby Arsenal building houses the Beaufort Regional Chamber of Commerce visitor center and the Beaufort History Museum.

“The monument would tie in with everything on Craven Street,” Tabernacle Baptist pastor Kenneth Hodges said in the release. “It is already a place frequented by visitors. You can stand (in front of the church) and see walking tours, bus tours and carriage tours.”

The church would provide the land and private money would pay for the sculpture, Hodges said in the release. He estimates the project would take about four years to complete.

There is little record of Tubman’s time in Beaufort County, Beaufort historian Stephen Wise told The Beaufort Gazette and The Island Packet this year.

On the night June 1, 1863, Tubman joined Col. James Montgomery on an armed steamer sailing from Beaufort, according to the book “Rebellion, Reconstruction and Redemption, 1861-1893: The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina, Volume 2,” written by Wise and fellow historian Lawrence Rowland.

The expedition reached the Combahee the next morning. Rice barns and empty mansions were burned and fields flooded, the book said.

Tubman went ashore and helped fleeing slaves, at one point carrying two pigs for a sick woman with a child. As slaves boarded the ship, Montgomery asked Tubman to sing, the book said.

After returning to Beaufort, slaves gathered in a Baptist church, and Tubman gave a speech. Some historians believe the group gathered at Tabernacle Baptist, the church’s news release said.

Penn School national monument proposed

Penn School has been proposed as a national monument to the Reconstruction Era as part of the National Parks System.

U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn introduced the bill May 26, with Rep. Mark Sanford as its co-sponsor.

Penn School, on the St. Helena Island site of what is now Penn Center, was founded in 1862 as one of the first schools for freed slaves. The campus is designated as a National Historic Landmark District.

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

A National Park Service spokesman said this week the department doesn’t comment on bills until asked to speak to a congressional committee.

This story was originally published June 1, 2016 at 12:30 PM with the headline "How a Beaufort church plans to remember Harriet Tubman."