Trails

This trail focuses on the Gullah people and the development of African-American religious and cultural traditions. During the plantation era, enslaved Africans and their descendants blended their beliefs and customs with those of European-Americans, and a distinctive form of spirituality emerged. Today Gullah culture remains a vibrant force in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.

Annie Griffen Baruch was the daughter of a wealthy, Episcopalian New York businessman when she married Bernard Baruch, who was Jewish, over her father's objections. Although they seemed happy during the early years of their marriage, she and Bernard drifted apart as he became more involved in public life. A less well-known figure than her husband or Belle, she was was a devoted mother and a gracious hostess at Hobcaw Barony when Bernard was absent. This trail focuses on her life.

Here we follow the theme of art and design at Hobcaw, as evident at Hobcaw House and Bellefield. The paintings in Hobcaw House depict scenes of coastal marshes, forests and vernacular architecture, and celebrate rural settings and the expansive holdings of the hunting estate. Equestrian themed art evokes Belle Baruch's passion for horses and riding. The design of the houses and grounds also reveals the aesthetic and practical interests of the Baruch family.

This trail features clips from the Baruch Home Movies Collection. These amateur films offer unique glimpses of the Baruch family, friends, and guests at Hobcaw Barony from the 1920s through the 1950s.

Bernard and Annie Baruch had three children: Belle, Bernard Jr. and Renee. The story of Belle, the oldest, is most relevant to Hobcaw Barony, as she became its owner and preserved it for education and research. This trail follows points in Belle's story, while it also provides biographical information about her siblings.

This trail focuses on the subtle and obvious ways African-American residents of Hobcaw Barony were treated like second-class citizens. In several recorded interviews, Minnie Kennedy explains that many of the relationships between African Americans and white people were based on cultural performance and patronizing attitudes. As we "enter through the back door," we see the ways these two cultures came into contact with each other, influenced one another, and learned to coexist.

This trail follows several generations of the Caines family, from the late nineteenth century to the present. Although they did not officially own the land, the family lived on Hobcaw Barony for many years. Brothers Bob, Pluty, Sawney, Ball and Hucks Caines had extensive knowledge of Hobcaw's woods and waters, and they hunted and fished there freely. Rather than prosecuting them as poachers, Bernard Baruch hired them as hunting guides. The exception was Ball Caines, who refused to work for Baruch and once came close to shooting him.

Following this trail, it becomes apparent that the American Civil War and its legacy form an integral part of the cultural landscape of Hobcaw Barony. From Simon Baruch, who served as a surgeon in the Confederate Army, to freedman Timothy McCants, and an attempted lynching at Hobcaw House, Hobcaw Barony has many stories to tell about Civil War and post-Civil War history.

The Foodways Trail follows the impact of Hobcaw's blend of cultures on food cultivation and preparation. Native American, African and European food traditions - and the story of their fusion - can all be found at Hobcaw Barony.

Hobcaw Barony has a number of historic structures on its grounds that have been preserved by the Belle W. Baruch Foundation. From the "big house" of the Baruch family to the modest vernacular structures of the slave villages, this trail examines the architecture, uses and methods of historic preservation of these dwellings. There is also information here about historic homes on other nearby plantations.

Minnie Kennedy, born in 1916 in one of the former slave villages on Hobcaw Barony, was the first person in her family to graduate from college. After a long, distinguished career as an educator, she retired to Georgetown and volunteered at Hobcaw as a docent and tour guide. Minnie's stories can be found all across the website, and have much to tell about Hobcaw Barony's long and diverse history. Ms. Kennedy died on January 14, 2014, at the age of 97.

Robert McClary and his family moved to Hobcaw Barony in 1937, when Robert was seven years old, and lived in one of Hobcaw Barony's former slave villages. As an adult, he returned to Hobcaw Barony on multiple occasions, volunteering as a docent and tour guide. Robert McClary's stories can be found all across the website, providing a personal perspective on Hobcaw's African-American history. Mr. McClary died on December 15, 2015, at the age of 85.

Joshua Shubrick spent his childhood in Georgetown and Hobcaw Barony, where he attended Strawberry School and frequently stayed with his grandfather, Timothy McCants, Jr., a resident of Friendfield Village. In 2004, after a long military career, Joshua Shubrick returned to Georgetown and served as a docent at Hobcaw Barony. Many of his accounts of life at Hobcaw Barony can be found within the website. Mr. Shubrick died on March 6, 2015, at the age of 82.

The theme of horses runs through the history of the Baruchs at Hobcaw Barony and beyond. Integral to hunting and transportation at Hobcaw during the early years of the twentieth century, horses became a central focus of Belle Baruch's life when she was in her twenties and thirties. She was an award-winning show jumper, and owned a stable in France. She brought her horses, their trainer and his family to Hobcaw on the eve of World War II. This trail follows that story.

Hunting and fishing for subsistence and pleasure have long been integral to life in the Lowcountry. At Hobcaw, land used for rice cultivation and hunting in previous eras sustains wildlife habitat today. Follow this trail to learn about the relationship between hunting and conservation, going as far back as pre-history and Native American practices.

Bernard Baruch's parents, both Jewish, came from different worlds. His father was an immigrant who left Prussia in 1850 at the age of fifteen to move to Camden, South Carolina. His mother was from an old Jewish-American family with roots in colonial South Carolina. This trail looks at the Baruch family's history, the story of the Jewish community in South Carolina, and the intolerance suffered by Bernard Baruch and his family.

The story of medicine as seen through the lens of Hobcaw Barony is a mix of European and African traditions. From Laura Carr, the African-American community's root doctor and midwife, to renowned hydrotherapist Simon Baruch, the medical history trail follows these narratives.

This trail reveals evidence of Native American settlement in Hobcaw Barony's marshes, as well as on high land and in the forests. Here we also follow members of the Waccamaw Indian People, as they discuss present-day issues affecting Native Americans.

The Baruch family had a tradition of philanthropy and civic activism, beginning with Dr. Simon Baruch, who made significant contributions to public health in the early part of the twentieth century. Bernard, Annie and their daughter Belle carried on his philanthropic practices. This trail tells, in part, the story of the family's dedication to the public good.

From the Woodrow Wilson administration and World War I through the beginning of the Cold War, Bernard Baruch played an important, if often behind-the-scenes, role in American politics. Many politicians visited Hobcaw Barony, the most famous being Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Baruch's daughter, Belle, was a suffragist and a coastal observer for the government during WWII. This trails traces the political history of Hobcaw and the Baruch family.

This trail examines the wealth and privilege of the Baruchs and their guests at Hobcaw Barony. From 1905, when Bernard Baruch bought the property, through the 1930s, the rich and famous - politicians, writers, artists, actors, journalists - visited Hobcaw to hunt and enjoy the Baruchs' lavish hospitality.

The story of tidal rice production and its impact on the natural and cultural landscapes of coastal South Carolina, including Hobcaw, are the themes of this trail. Enslaved Africans and their descendants carved rice fields from cypress swamps, and the rice they cultivated under dangerous, difficult conditions produced enormous wealth for white rice planters.

Stan Altman is the campus director of the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance at Baruch College, and leads the partnership between Baruch College and the Rubin Museum of Art. He served as the interim-President of Baruch College in 2009-10 and as Dean of Baruch’s School of Public Affairs from 1999-2005. He has also served as Deputy to the President, SUNY Stony Brook, and Associate Provost for Health Policy, State University of New York.

Lee Brockington is the Senior Interpreter for the Belle W. Baruch Foundation at Hobcaw Barony and an author and historian. Her published books include "Pawleys Island: A Century of History and Photographs," and "Plantation Between the Waters: A Brief History of Hobcaw Barony."

Blanche Wiesen Cook is Distinguished Professor of History and Women's Studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is the author of a three-volume biography of Eleanor Roosevelt: "Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume One 1884–1933," "Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume 2 , The Defining Years, 1933–1938," and "Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 3: The War Years and After, 1939-1962." She was interviewed for and featured in Ken Burns' 2014 PBS TV documentary, "The Roosevelts: An Intimate History."

Melissa L. Cooper is Assistant Professor of History at Rutgers University. She specializes in African-American cultural and intellectual history and the history of the African Diaspora. She is the author of "Instructor's Resource Manual--Freedom on My Mind: A History of African Americans with Documents," and "Making Gullah: A History of Sapelo Islanders, Race, and the American Imagination." She is also a contributor to "Race and Retail: Consumption Across the Color Line."

Leland Ferguson is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of South Carolina. He is the author of "Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Colonial African America, 1650–1800," and a recipient of the Southern Anthropological Society’s James Mooney Award.

Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University specializing in the Civil War and Reconstruction, slavery, and 19th-century America. His seminal study of Reconstruction, "Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877," was the winner, among other awards, of the Bancroft Prize, Parkman Prize, and Los Angeles Times Book Award. His book, "The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery" won the Pulitzer, Bancroft, and Lincoln prizes for 2011.

Harlan Greene is an author, public historian, and head of Special Collections at the College of Charleston's Addlestone Library. He won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction for his 1991 novel, "What the Dead Remember," and was nominated for the same award for his 2005 novel, "The German Officer's Boy."

Daniel Littlefield is Carolina Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. He has a special interest in American slavery and race relations, focusing on the American Colonial period, and is the author of "Revolutionary Citizens: African Americans, 1776-1804," and "Rice and Slaves: Ethnicity and the Slave Trade in Colonial South Carolina."

Dr. Valinda Littlefield is the Director of African-American Studies and Associate Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. She is a scholar of the history of women, African Americans and education, with an emphasis on Southern African-American women and African-American history from 1877 to the present.

Joseph McGill is Civil War reenactor, historical interpreter, and the founder of the Slave Dwelling Project, an organization dedicated to the preservation of extant slave dwellings. A native South Carolinian who works for the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Charleston, McGill often wears the uniform of the 54th Massachusetts, the black unit featured in the movie, "Glory."

Jon Meacham is executive editor and executive vice president at Random House publishing company. He is a former editor-in-chief of Newsweek, a contributing editor to Time magazine, editor-at-large of WNET, and author of a series of books including, "Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of An Epic Friendship".

Mary E. Miller is the author Belle Baruch's biography, "Baroness of Hobcaw: The Life of Belle W. Baruch." After a twenty-five-year career in journalism, Miller left the world of magazine and newspaper writing to enter Washington Theological Union in Washington, D.C., where she earned an M.A. in pastoral studies. She is now a spiritual director and retreat leader living in Surfside Beach, South Carolina.

Ralph Muldrow is an architect and professor of American Architecture, Architectural and Urban Design, Building Materials Conservation and Planning at the College of Charleston and the Clemson Historic Preservation Program. He is a cofounder the College of Charleston's Historic Preservation and Community Planning Program, and has numerous years of experience as an architect and preservationist,

Richard Porcher is a scholar, educator, and conservationist. He was a Professor of Biology at The Citadel from 1970 - 2003, and is the author of "The Market Preparation of Carolina Rice," and "A Field Guide to the Bluff Plantation Wildlife Sanctuary," as well as numerous articles on the rice culture and flora of the Lowcountry. Porcher was the recipient of the 2007 South Carolina Environmentalist of the Year Award, and has mentored many prominent Southeastern naturalists.

Dale Rosengarten is the founding director of the Jewish Heritage Collection at the College of Charleston Library and the Curator of Special Collections at the College of Charleston. Working with McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina, she developed the travelling exhibition, "A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life" and co-edited a book by the same name.

Karen Smith is a Southeastern archaeologist with a background in Woodland period and plantation-era research and archaeological curation at the South Carolina Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology. She is the director of the Applied Research Division of SCIAA, and worked in Monticello's Department of Archaeology, Charlottesville, Virginia for nine years before joining the Institute.

Michael Twitty is a cook, culinary historian and historical interpreter who is personally charged with preparing, preserving and promoting African- American foodways and the culinary traditions of Africa and the African Diaspora. He is the author of the food blog, "Afroculinaria," and the forthcoming book, "The Cooking Gene."

Born in 1899, at the dawn of the twentieth century, Belle Baruch grew up in an era when women couldn't vote and it was difficult - if not illegal - to be openly gay. Her sexual identity caused a rift with her brother and created distance between her and her mother, and her grandmother was opposed to women's suffrage. Belle overcame these challenges to become a powerful woman in her own right - an award-winning equestrian and a trailblazing conservationist. This trail examines Belle's life from the perspective of her struggle for self-realization.

The institution of slavery is the focus of this trail. The enslavement of Africans and their descendants, and their forced labor on the rice plantations of the Waccamaw Neck, had profound effects on the social, cultural, economic and political landscapes of the area and nation. The impact of slavery can be found in the material culture of Hobcaw Barony as well as in the stories of its people.