The Civil War ended slavery and destroyed the plantation system across the South. Formerly enslaved people built new communities for themselves.
Fenwick Hall’s former owners, including the family of Daniel Townsend, had their property confiscated during the Civil War. After the war, they were able to regain their property and the right to hold office, vote, and own property. Formerly enslaved people tried to reunite with their families by returning to their place of enslavement or placing ads in newspapers seeking lost relatives.
The state election of 1866 brought major changes to the South Carolina state legislature when Black men voted for the first time. South Carolina elected the first majority Black legislature, which brought sweeping changes with a new Constitution providing additional rights for women, a public school system for all children, mandated schools for teachers, and other democratic reforms.
There was swift backlash to the reforms by the white planter class including threats, physical violence, and the adoption of Black codes. The South Carolina Constitution of 1895 took away the right to vote from Black citizens. Its adoption ushered in Jim Crow laws, a codified system of racial discrimination that suppressed civil liberties, economic opportunities, and political representation for African Americans.
The federal government created the Freedmen’s Bureau to help support formerly enslaved people as they built new lives. The bureau established its Johns Island headquarters at Fenwick Hall.
Freedmen’s Bureau records show 18 men, 16 women, and 24 children lived on the property on February 19, 1866. All of those recorded had planted the crops in the previous season, which meant they likely were enslaved on the same land they returned to after emancipation. Some people claimed land under Special Field Order No. 15, which gave land confiscated from Confederates to formerly enslaved people.
The previous owner, Daniel Townsend, sued to have his lands restored after being pardoned for his role in the Civil War. Townsend’s lands were returned, but he had to pay a fee to anyone who had improved the land by constructing buildings or preparing fields for crops. Four years later, records from the 1870 U.S. Census show many of the same residents continuing to live in the community they created on the former Fenwick Hall property. Some of their descendants still call Johns Island home. They include Chas Simons, Chap Doctor, and Charles Simmons.
Other schools were started by local communities or missionaries. Classes were often held in Black churches and sometimes in abandoned white schools or in cotton houses on plantations.
The South Carolina Constitution of 1868 established a statewide public school system. However, it was never well-funded. By 1869, the Freedmen’s Bureau school on Johns Island averaged 100 students a month and was badly in need of more teachers and school supplies. Religious organizations continued to open schools. By 1880, there were nine elementary schools for Black children on Johns Island including Promiseland, Sandhill, Humbert’s Woods, Haut Gap, Miller Hill, Zion, Burgess, Legareville, and Wellingtown.
Wellington School was established for Black students on former Fenwick Hall lands in the 1880s.
St. Stephen AME Church was first established as “a bush tent held together by spikes” in 1879. Freedmen families came together to form a church community. They bought property on former Fenwick Hall lands on Maybank Highway in 1929. The congregation still worships there today.
