By Harvey S. Teal, this article originally appeared in the Chronicle-Independent on May 15, 2013, as “A Matter of Conscience: Remembering May 17, 1923.”

In 1929, my family moved from Chesterfield County to a farm adjoining the farm of Donald Holland’s parents in the Cassatt community. I was a year old at the time but before many years passed, Donald and I established a friendship lasting until Donald’s passing in 2003.

By the late 1930s, I became aware of Donald’s parents and oldest sister, Margaret, being survivors of the Cleveland School Fire tragedy due to hearing them discuss the matter from time to time. On several visits with Donald to his grandparent’s home located about a half mile from the Cleveland School Fire site, I occasionally heard the matter discussed.

In May 1948, I accompanied Donald to Beulah United Methodist Church for a memorial service on the 25th anniversary of the fire. I will give more details about this service later in this column.

The fire received much attention immediately after it happened. Money was collected for survivors, the Red Cross was on the spot and a book on the tragedy quickly appeared. Monuments were erected and in the ensuing years, memorial services were held and articles appeared periodically in the local newspapers. As time passed the tragedy received less attention. Survivors picked up the pieces of their broken families, community, and lives and moved forward.

Beginning in the 1990s, as many of the survivors began to pass away, the tragedy received more attention. The Kershaw County Historical Society produced a publication and held two programs at which survivors were present and recounted their stories of that fateful night.

When Donald led a movement which secured funding for refurbishing the school monument, landscaping the site, restoring the fence and gates and refurbishing the monument at Beulah United Methodist Church where most of the 77 were buried in a mass grave, there can be no question as to how much this matter was in Don’s consciousness. Right before his death, Don was in discussions with Dale Hudson about publishing Dale’s book he was writing on this great tragedy.

In my book, Partners with the Sun, South Carolina Photographers, 1840-1940, published in 2001, I reproduced two photographs of the aftermath of the fire taken the next day by Columbia photographer John A. Sergeant. One pictured the ruins of the school and the other portrayed the shrouded bodies awaiting placement in the large grave prepared to receive them.

In 2002, when the cloverleaf four miles north at the exit on I-20 at Highway 521 into Camden was dedicated and named for Donald Holland’s granddaddy, the subject of the fire was discussed and publicized again. Yet again was the matter publicized when the county historical society produced a program on John C. West’s career as senator, lieutenant governor, governor and ambassador to Saudi Arabia; and later dedicated a historical marker to him located between his ancestral home and his family home of a later time. John lost his father in the Cleveland School fire which occurred when he was about nine months old.

In May and June of 2010, the Camden Chronicle-Independent published two columns I wrote about the fire and the last two known survivors, Harold (Mac) McCaskill and Pearl Godwin Tiller. Unfortunately, Pearl passed away about a year ago, leaving Mac as the last known survivor. In 2011, the new Kershaw County History devoted more than two pages to the Cleveland School Fire tragedy.

This tragedy was brought to my mind again about two weeks ago when I discovered the program for the 25th anniversary memorial service of the fire I attended with Donald Holland in 1948, 65 years ago. I did not remember saving it. The program, on two mimeographed sheets, listed special music, scripture readings, two hymns and a memorial address by Rev. Henry Collins.

On May 2, 2013, the Kershaw County Historical Society received a telephone call from Rachel Miles of Rembert enquiring if the society planned any program or would do anything to memorialize the 90th anniversary of the fire and to recognize her Uncle Mac McCaskill as the last known survivor. May this sketchy recap and review of some of the past recognitions and memorials of the Cleveland School fire tragedy do what Rachel has requested.

In good conscience, I could not avoid writing this column. Over the years, this tragedy has been too much a part of my past and that of many close friends to let this anniversary go by without comment and recognition. We salute you, Mac, and wish you the very best at this time in history.

(Harvey S. Teal is the author of the Kershaw County Historical Society’s regular monthly column, which will appear next June 3. He is an occasional contributing columnist to the Chronicle-Independent, Camden, S.C.)

By Harvey S. Teal, this article originally appeared in the Chronicle-Independent on March 29, 2013, as “Travels of a Historical Document .”

On June 9, 2012 at a Civil War show in Columbia, S.C., I browsed along from one dealer table to the next searching for Civil War relics in my fields of interest. As I examined the items on the table of the Broadfoot Publishing Company, with much excitement and anticipation I opened a folder labeled, “Immortal Six Hundred — original manuscript.” When I realized I was examining a Lieut. William E. Johnson Jr. 1864 manuscript list of the Immortal Six Hundred, goose bumps arose on my arms.

I was quite familiar with the Johnson Family and the overall history of the Immortal Six Hundred. In a previous Chronicle-Independent column, I described how the Union Army placed 600 captured Confederate officers on Morris Island in front of the Union batteries firing on Fort Sumter and Charleston. Johnson and other officers created a list of the 600 hundred.

In 1961, I had purchased from Mrs. Dan M. Jones on Mills Street in Camden about 300 manuscripts of William E. Johnson Sr., her ancestor. Here was I, 51 years later, examining an extremely important Civil War historical document of his son, Lieut. William E. Johnson Jr. I could feel the “Hand of Providence” guiding me as I quickly negotiated a price with the dealer and walked out of the show, an excited new owner of this Johnson Family document.

On the cover of the document was this note, “Return to W.E. Johnson (son of Lieut. W.E. Johnson by whom this Record was kept), Fair St., Camden, So. Carolina. June 12, 1911.” Who had borrowed the list? Who wrote the mysterious, cryptic initials “B M E” on one corner of the list cover? When and how did the list get out of family hands? Where had the list been for more than 100 years?

A few weeks ago, Ben Schreiner gave me the answer to the question of who had borrowed Lieut. Johnson’s list. In the July 1911 Confederate Veteran, the editor reported receiving Johnson’s list and added, “…which has been published in The Veteran.” However, a search of The Veteran failed to verify this claim of publication.

Apparently the list was returned from The Confederate Veteran in Nashville, Tenn., to the Fair Street address indicated on the cover of the list. This was the home of the Lieutenant’s son, W.E. Johnson III and his family. The lieutenant’s granddaughter, Henrietta, would have been about 34 years old at the time.

In the 1950s-60s, I visited Henrietta a few times and got to know her casually. She loaned me a photograph of William M. Shannon to copy for use in Rides about Camden, Pen Pictures of the Past, a pamphlet I edited. During this period, Joan Inabinet knew Henrietta possessed the Civil War prisoner of war letters of Lieut. William E. Johnson Jr. since Henrietta gave her a copy of one of them. She likely also had his diary and Immortal Six Hundred list at the time.

It is known that the family of Dick Littlejohn, a Spartanburg collector, gave the 23 Lieutenant W.E. Johnson, Jr. prisoner of war letters and his diary to Wofford University in 2010. How did they get into Littlejohn’s hands? The answer is not known but here is the likely scenario.

In the 1950s-60s, one B.M. Ellison of Lancaster frequently visited Henrietta McWillie Johnson, seeking to buy from her pieces of Alexander Young silver and other items such as manuscripts. Mrs. Dan. M. Jones, Henrietta’s cousin, and antique dealer Norman Fohl both related this to me on several occasions.

In a combined purchase/donation to the South Caroliniana Library in 1981, Ellison turned over to the library a scrapbook and about 48 manuscripts written to or from William E. Johnson, Jr. or to William M. Shannon which Johnson had collected when the famous Cash-Shannon duel occurred on July 5, 1880.

Johnson came into possession of these items due to being Shannon’s second in the duel. Johnson’s son had married William M. Shannon’s daughter, Catherine McWillie Shannon. Ellison acquired these materials from Henrietta McWillie Johnson.

In 2005 a member of the B.M. Ellison Family gave the South Caroliniana Library 19 W.E. Johnson Jr. manuscripts from the Ellison estate, another example of Johnson materials Ellison acquired from Henrietta McWillie Johnson.

Ellison likely also purchased Johnson’s Civil War letters and diary from Henrietta and later sold them to collector Dick Littlejohn. This purchase also likely included Johnson’s Immortal Six Hundred list since the initials “B M E” appears on the cover. The list, however, never went to Wofford University but wound up in the hands of Broadfoot Publishing Company.

Wofford University has since sold the envelopes from the 23 Lieutenant Johnson prisoner letters to a dealer who sold them to about a dozen collectors scattered across the United States.

In any event, it is clear the roster traveled to and from many places: Morris Island; Fort Pulaski; Hilton Head; Fort Delaware; Liberty Hill; Holly Hedge and Fair Street in Camden; Nashville, Tenn., and wherever Broadfoot Publishing Company carried it. It is also clear it had multiple owners — Lieutenant W.E. Johnson Jr.; his son, W.E. Johnson III; granddaughter, Henrietta McWillie Johnson; B.M. Ellison; Broadfoot Publishing Company; and Harvey S. Teal.

Lieutenant W.E. Johnson Jr.’s Immortal Six Hundred roster has survived all of these travels to at least nine cities, through multiplies states from Georgia to Delaware then back to South Carolina and from South Carolina to Tennessee, sea voyages to Fort Pulaski, Hilton Head, and Fort Delaware and through the hands of at least six different owners.

Lieutenant Johnson’s roster was on display at the Kershaw County Historical Society program on March 24, 2013, at Holly Hedge. At that meeting, Harvey S. Teal transferred ownership of Lieutenant William E. Johnson Jr.’s roster of the Immortal Six Hundred to The South Caroliniana Library and the State of South Carolina. On that day it made its final journey to its final home.