Memoirs of Litchwood “I Have Things to Tell.”

Memoirs of Litchwood “I Have Things to Tell.” Francis Butler Simkins Remembers the Edgefield of His Youth. An Edgefield County Historical Society Publication. MEMOIRS OF LITCHWOOD Edgefield County Historical Society “I Have Things to Tell” History and Mission Francis Butler Simkins Remembers the Edgefield of His Youth The Edgefield County Historical Society, founded in 1939, is one of the oldest historical societies in the State. Its mission is to promote By Francis Butler Simkins the study of the history of Edgefield County and its people. Toward that end, it has published a number of books and pamphlets pertaining to the County. It has also been responsible for the preservation of a number of historic sites and buildings and the marking of numerous historical sites throughout the County. In addition to its role in preserving and promoting the rich history of the County, the Society has always been committed to using our rich history to make Edgefield County more interesting and attractive to tourists, prospective residents and businesses so as to bring recognition and economic vitality to the region. Toward that end, it has operated over the years the Discovery Center Museum, Magnolia Dale House Museum, the Old Edgefield Pottery, the Village Blacksmith and Car- penter’s Stand. It also sponsors the Edgefield History Class which has been meeting every Sunday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. for more than twenty years. This Class is a casual gathering of persons interested in local history who discuss various subjects over coffee and cookies. For more information, call the Society office at 803-637-2233. In 2009 the Class authored The Story of Edgefield. It is also engaged in writing The American Revolu- tion in Edgefield – from Ninety Six to Augusta which the Society hopes to publish in the next several years. The Society welcomes all of those interested in the history of Edge- field County to join its ranks. Membership applications can be obtained from the Society at P.O. Box 174, Edgefield, SC 29824. Thus, during its more than seventy-five year history, the Edgefield County Historical Society has brought much to the County in terms of historical and cultural interest, and has promoted, sponsored and sup- ported many efforts to make the County a better, more attractive and more interesting place in which to live or visit. We look forward to the future with enthusiasm and excitement. Edited and Annotated by the Edgefield County Historical Society Introduction Copyright © The Edgefield County Historical Society 2016 Francis Butler Simkins was one of the most renowned Southern his- torians of the twentieth century. Born in Edgefield, South Carolina in ISBN 978-0-692-66533-6 1897, he grew up in a household of distinguished ancestry, but limited Manufactured in the United States of America means. His father’s ancestors were among the founders of Edgefield; his mother’s ancestors were of Charleston and New York aristocracy. Under the influence of a mother resentful of her limited circumstances, and a kindly, but alcoholic father, Simkins grew to maturity in this small The Edgefield History Class village in the edge of the South Carolina piedmont. Bettis C. Rainsford Despite its small size, Edgefield is one of the most historic towns in Mary G. Altalo, PhD Tricia Price Glenn the Nation, having produced many significant leaders of South Carolina and the Nation. Simkins grew up knowing some of these leaders, and Brenda Bancroft Jane Gunnell, JD being imbued with stories of all them. It is not surprising, therefore, that Patty Barrett Barney D. Lamar he chose a career of writing and teaching history. William M. Billy Benton Helen H. Laughery Donald Broderick Craig W. McMullin In the fall of 1914, Simkins entered the University of South Caroli- na where he studied history under the Professor Yates Snowden. After Ike Carpenter Teresa McMullin graduation he went on to Columbia University where he obtained his James O. Farmer, PhD Vernon Miller masters and doctoral degrees. Later he taught briefly as a visiting or Helen W. Feltham Carrie H. Monday regular professor at the Citadel, Randolph-Macon Women’s College, John “Rooney” Floyd Haigh S. Reiniger the University of North Carolina, Emory University, Farmville State Teachers’ College, Louisiana State University, the University of Missis- Elizabeth Francis Ralph M. Scurry sippi, Princeton University, Mississippi State University, the University Odus B. Francis Joanne Smith of Texas and the University of Massachusetts. But most of his long Clarice Wise Henry T. Snead academic career was at Longwood College in Farmville, Virginia. Over the course of his career, he authored a number of books, including The Tillman Movement in South Carolina (1926), South Caro- lina during Reconstruction, with Robert Woody (1932), The Women of the Confederacy (1936), Pitchfork Ben Tillman (1944), The South, Old and New: A History, 1820-1947 (1947), A History of the South 2nd ed. (1953), A History of the South 3rd ed. (1963), The Everlasting South Copies of this book may be purchased from the Edgefield County (1963), and A History of the South 4th ed., with Charles Pierce Roland Historical Society for $25.00 plus $3.00 for handling and mailing. (1972). Contact the Society at telephone number, 803-637-2233; His 1932 South Carolina during Reconstruction was heralded for email address at [email protected]; or its revisionist approach in which Simkins and Woody presented Recon- U.S. mail address at P.O. Box 174, Edgefield, SC 29824. struction as a period of many positive accomplishments and the Re- publican governments of that era as something other than all bad. This often spoken. I was pleased to be able to give the Singletarys a tour of book challenged the Dunning School which had previously character- the town with particular reference to the Simkins sites, including the ized Reconstruction as an unmitigated disaster. Thus, Simkins in his Simkins cottage on Columbia Road, Trinity Episcopal Church and Wil- early career was viewed as a liberal. In his later life, during the onset of lowbrook Cemetery. That so eminent a man as Singletary would make the Civil Rights movement, he was viewed as a conservative and a tra- a special effort to visit the hometown of his professor who had taught ditionalist. This metamorphosis has caused him to be compared to the him more than a half century earlier is, in itself, a remarkable testament character, Atticus Finch, in To Kill a Mockingbird, but who, after being to this, our most famous historian. the hero of the Southern liberals in the 1960 book, became a defender of segregation in the recently-published sequel Go Set a Watchman (2015). Francis Butler Simkins had taught history for over forty years when However, to those who come to know Simkins, it is apparent that he he died in Farmville in February of 1966 at the age of 68. He was buried just reveled in challenging conventional wisdom both in his approach to in Farmville, but, through the efforts of his nephew, Augustus Tompkins Reconstruction in 1932 and in his reaction to the Civil Rights movement “Gus” Graydon, is memorialized in Edgefield with a marble plaque in in the 1960s. Trinity Episcopal Church. He was, through and through, a product of Edgefield, and is revered here as one of our most illustrious native sons. During his career Simkins received many honors: the Dunning Prize, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Fleming Foundation Lecture- In 2002, when the historian James S. Humphreys was in Edgefield ship, a number of other awards, and election in 1954 as president of the working on his doctoral thesis on Francis Butler Simkins (which was Southern Historical Association, which later honored him by establish- published as a full-blown biography in 2008), he made us aware that ing the Francis Butler Simkins Prize awarded each year for the best first Simkins had written an autobiographical manuscript which had never book in Southern history. been published, but which was stored in the library at Longwood Uni- versity. We realized that this could be of real significance to our further Simkins was married twice and had one son by his second wife, understanding of early twentieth century Edgefield. We immediately Francis Butler “Chip” Simkins, Jr. He lived for most of his adult life in contacted the Director of the Archives and Records Management De- Farmville, Virginia where he taught at Longwood College, now Long- partment at Longwood, Ms. Lydia Williams, and she graciously made wood University. He was renowned for his often eccentric behavior us a full copy of the document. which was wonderfully chronicled in an article by Grady McWhiney in The Southern Partisan in the second quarter of 1995. But, most impor- When we received the document we were immediately en- tantly, Simkins was greatly beloved by his many students. thralled. Simkins had provided us, in the first six chapters of his manuscript, with a most interesting, detailed and entertaining view of Edge- One afternoon in September of 2000 as I left my office on the Edge- field at the end of the nineteenth century and the first several decades of field Town Square, I noticed an elderly couple walking down the street. the twentieth century. In subsequent chapters he recounts the remainder Believing them to be tourists, I approached them and introduced myself, of his life, including his years as an undergraduate at the University of offering to help them or provide any information that they might need. South Carolina, as a graduate student at Columbia University in New The man introduced himself as Otis Singletary, an eminent historian and York, as a teacher at Emory University, Louisiana State University, and longtime president of the University of Kentucky.

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