Castle Guardian Matthew Locke led a five-member team of volunteers on Saturday, November 30 to conduct one final clean-up of historic Castle Pinckney before year’s end.
Yale Huett, using his small boat and beginning at 8:45 a.m., made three round-trips to transport the team to Shute’s Folly in Charleston Harbor where the fort is located.
“Our objective was to finish clearing and to burn the last of the summer growth, and to begin clearing topsoil from the concrete footprint of the old warehouse and associated buildings,” Locke said. “We also needed to change the flag flying over the fort, and to work on clearing plant growth from the fort’s exterior reinforcement wall, which was constructed the protect the magazine.”
Volunteers joining Locke included: Eric Caldwell; John Fisher, curator of archaeology, Charleston Museum; Stuart Morgan; and Michael Sarvis. The five volunteers used shovels, pruning shears, gas-powered blowers and edgers to cut and clear the remaining growth within the fort, along the upper section of its walls, and from the reinforcement wall.
Then, around 12:30 p.m., they piled debris in the center of the fort and conducted a controlled burn. But the burn was much smaller than the one a previous group of volunteers conducted in the fort on November 2 that billowed three towering plumes of smoke above the fort, and attracted so much attention from boaters, tourists, locals and even the U.S. Coast Guard.
The volunteers then lowered the South Carolina flag, and hoisted the Confederacy’s First National Flag, the “Stars and Bars,” for a couple of hours. (See post of Nov. 4, 2024)
The 32nd Annual Confederate Ghost Walk was held on Oct. 11 & 12 at Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston. And Michael Sarvis, who participated in the recent cleanup, has participated in one of the annual walk’s scenarios in each of the past 22 years.
With help from Matthew Locke and John Fisher and five other participants, Sarvis directed the creation of a new scenario for this year’s annual ghost walk titled “Chaos and Choices” that depicted a Confederate Hospital at the time Charleston was abandoned in 1865 near the end of the Civil War.
The scenario was ranked best by participants in this year’s event.
Sarvis’s team was awarded the Stars and Bars flag that has flown during the past year over the Defenders of Charleston Monument in the Confederate section of the cemetery. So, he and other volunteers hoisted the flag over Castle Pinckney for a couple of hours before replacing it with the Gadsden flag at 2:30 p.m.
The yellow Gadsden flag, which currently flies over Castle Pinckney, depicts a timber rattlesnake above the words, “DONT TREAD ON ME”. It is named for Chistopher Gadsden, a South Carolina delegate to the Continental Congress and brigadier general in the Continental Army, who designed the flag in 1775 at the beginning of the American Revolution (1775-1783).
The rattlesnake symbolized the unity of the 13 colonies. In fact, Benjamin Franklin had previously used the symbol for his “Join, or Die” woodcut in 1754.
“The majority of the growth has now been cleared from inside the castle and burned,” Locke reported after his team completed its work on Saturday. “About 20 percent of the warehouse’s concrete footprint has been cleared of topsoil that previously covered it, and other plant growth has been cleared from the fort’s exterior.”
Work never ends at Castle Pinckney.
“We’re planning to conduct a follow-up workday in January, and hope to finish clearing the warehouse’s concrete footprint, and remove any remaining growth and soil from the fort’s exterior reinforcement wall,” Locke said. “We also hope to begin permanently removing the grass and other plant growth from the top of the wall to prevent further growth before spring.”
He then thanked members of The Castle Pinckney Historical Preservation Society, Sons of Confederate Veterans and all boat captains for their support and dedication during the past year that has helped preserve the historic Castle Pinckney site.
Hello from Castle Pinckney!
