Bill Riski is a retired USAF Officer and systems engineer. His hobbies include history, photography, writing, and travel. Maintaining this website is a labor of love for the Dataw Historic Foundation in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, where he and his wife now live.
Recently, tour requests have begun to pick up. So I thought it would be a good time to introduce you to the winter home of Dr. BB Sams (1787-1855) and his family. Their tripartite house is one of several tabby structures in the Sams Plantation Complex Tabby Ruins, accepted on the National Register of Historic Places on March 4, 2011. In the antebellum period, and the sea islands of Beaufort in particular, nearly all planters had a summer home and winter home. The summer home is where they lived in the hot months to get away from their plantation(s) and the diseases associated with heat, humidity, and bugs. In summer, they went to their homes in Beaufort or St Helenaville. Summer was also the prime time of the year for socializing and for children to be tutored. In winter, the planters lived in their plantation homes. So the ruins you see today on Dataw Island are of Dr. BB Sams winter home and yard.
In my recent post on Sarah J Sams, you saw restored photographs of her and her husband, Dr. R Randolph Sams. Large reprints are hanging in the Dataw Island History & Learning Center through the generosity of Teresa (Winters) Bridges. Sarah’s original image (i.e., ambrotype) holding their daughter Phoebe was taken in about 1858 when Sarah was in her early 20s. Randolph’s image (i.e., daguerreotype) shows a handsome young man upon graduation from college in 1849, also in his early 20s. What’s most interesting about Dr. R. Randolph Sams is his role in the earliest days of modern dentistry.
Reproduction of a circa 1858 ambrotype of Sarah Jane Graham (Sams) Sams (1835 – 1920), courtesy of Teresa Bridges. Sarah Jane Graham Sams married Dr.Robert Randolph Sams (1827 – 1910),…
In response to an article about Northern Datha Island, a resident who has lived here thirty years (!) commented, “I have always questioned why ALCOA did not call the Island by its real name: Datha?”
Researching this question took me on a fascinating journey from a Muskogean Indian Chief to the King of Spain to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. In the end, I can provide this answer; Dataw Island is the name of our development on a sea island in South Carolina called Datha Island.
What’s left for this journey is to explain why our sea island is called Datha Island and why our development is called Dataw Island.
You are looking at the faces of a family deeply affected by the Civil War and looking for a brighter future. This photo is dated 16th October 1866. On the back are the words, ‘Picture taken just as family was leaving S.C. for Galveston, Texas.’ Dr. Lewis Reeve Sams, Jr. (1810 – 1888) took his family ”so far away” from Beaufort, SC.
The people in this single image above span 184 years of Sams descendants; from today back to the working plantation days when B.B. Sams was growing Sea Island cotton here on Dataw Island.
Dr. Berners Barnwell Sams, M.D. (1787 – 1855) – BB Sams is named after his Great Grandmother Elizabeth Anne (Berners) Barnwell and his Grandmother Bridgett (Barnwell) Sams, according to Sams’ family descendants. Berners Barnwell Sams was the son of William Sams (1741-1798) and Elizabeth (Hext) Sams (1746-1813). He inherited one-third of his father’s Dataw Island plantation in 1808 when he came of age. We know a fair amount about Dr. BB Sams. However, today we have a much more colorful understanding of the man. In 2019 we were given a copy of an unpublished family history penned in the early 1900s by Conway Whittle Sams (grandson of BB Sams). This unpublished work contains a first-person description of Dr. BB Sams provided by his daughter, Elizabeth Exima Sams in 1905.
Barnwell was born in Dublin, Ireland, the son of Alderman Matthew Barnwell and Margaret Carberry. Matthew Barnwell was killed in the Siege of Derry in 1690 as a captain in James II’s Irish Army, which attempted to restore the last Stuart king to the English throne. The family seat, Archerstown in County Meath, was forfeited as a consequence of these events. John eventually took flight for North America in 1701. (Rowland) He became a colonist in the territory then called Charles Towne in the colony of Carolina. His timing coincided with the emergence of the rice culture and the associated prosperity.
Everyone has heard that William Sams and his wife Elizabeth Hext Sams bought Dataw Island in 1783. Both William’s paternal and maternal grandfathers emigrated from England to territory in or near “Charles Towne in the colony of Carolina” in the late 17th century. They both were seeking a fresh start, but their circumstances could not have been more different. Bonham (Bonum) Sams II came as an indentured servant; he is the subject of this week’s article. On the other hand, Colonel John Barnwell was Irish, came from a long line of government officials, and was not an indentured servant. More on him next week.
I went to Gaffney, SC, in late March when Robert O. Sams’ descendants extended an invitation to the Dataw Historic Foundation. They shared a collection of family archives with my…
