Victor Morawetz purchased Fenwick Hall in 1930 and began an extensive restoration project. The Works Progress Administration documented the house. This permanent record provides insight into the history of the house. In 1972, Helen Igoe Blanchard purchased the property and had it listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In general, Johns Island remained a rural, predominately African American, farming community until the late twentieth century.
In 1930, Victor Morawetz purchased the main house of Fenwick Hall and some surrounding acreage. He began to restore the abandon house which was damaged and badly in need of repairs. Charleston architect Albert Simons was hired to complete the restoration. The work at Fenwick Hall helped spark a city-wide historic preservation movement, which led to a national call for preservation. The house was documented by the Historic American Building Survey, preserving the house on film in perpetuity.
Helen Igoe Blanchard purchased the property in 1943 and had it listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. This list includes properties that are determined to be historically significant.
A portion of the original Fenwick property, Seven Oaks, was purchased by an African American man named Quash Stevens in the early 1900s. He subdivided the large lot and sold parcels to Black farmers on the island—common practice across the island.
The complete collapse of the Sea Island cotton market in the early 1900s left many owners of large plantations desperate for money. Many owners subdivided their large landholdings and sold them in 10 to 20-acre lots. For some Black Johns Islanders, this was an opportunity to purchase land and build new communities.
Although the area around Fenwick Hall had its first school for African American children by the 1880s, educational opportunities were still limited. The first secondary school for Black students in the greater Charleston area was the Avery Normal Institute established in 1865.
In 1914, Septima Clark attended the Avery Normal Institute to become a teacher. In 1916, she started teaching reading and writing to children and adults on Johns Island. She worked with W.E.B. DuBois at Atlanta University in the 1930s and earned her bachelor’s degree from Benedict College in Columbia, SC in 1945. When Ms. Clark returned to Charleston to take care of her mother, she was unable to find work as a teacher because of her connections to the NAACP.
In 1954, she was hired as the full-time director of workshops at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee. She used her experience teaching adults on Johns Island to develop the curriculum. Among notable students was Rosa Parks, who helped to start the Montgomery bus boycotts a few months after taking a course.
Clark widened her influence through development of the Citizenship School curriculum, which sought to teach adults to read across the South. In addition, the schools’ curriculum taught students how to participate in civic life, including how to fill out voter registration forms. The schools also helped to develop leaders who would go on to lead the civil rights movement.
Esau Jenkins founded the Progressive Club in 1948 on the former lands of Fenwick Hall. The organization encouraged local African American citizens to register to vote by implementing the Citizenship School curriculum, which he learned while attending the Highlander Folk School. In 1959, Jenkins organized the Citizen’s Committee of Charleston County. The committee was dedicated to the economic, cultural, and political improvement of Charleston’s African American population. The Progressive Club is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of its historical significance.
