Bill - Dataw Historic Foundation

Slavery on Datha Island

Bill — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 20:35:27 +0000

This post consolidates several items published by Dataw Historic Foundation members about slavery on Dataw. This first summary is currently on exhibit in the History and Learning Center. Below it…

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Cemeteries – The Distance Between Them

Bill — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 14:15:06 +0000

The Sams Family Cemetery and the Cotton Dike Cemetery: Two Burial Grounds, One Island, and What Memory Owes to Both Dataw Island: People, Places, and Legacy Both cemeteries are located…

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Small boat. Large war. Quiet connections.

Bill — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 02:30:09 +0000

Dr. Lewis Reeve Sams Jr., the Etiwan, and Robert Smalls
Old newspapers sometimes open unexpected doors. A brief 1851 reference in the Charleston Mercury to “Dr. Sams” traveling aboard the steamer Etiwan seems minor at first glance. Yet that small notice links three very different stories: a Sea Island planter-physician, a working harbor steamer, and one of the Civil War’s most daring acts.

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Alexander Hamilton’s Unexpected Beaufort Connection

Bill — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 16:49:49 +0000

The theme this week is a SMALL WORLD. In the years leading up to our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain, Beaufort was a thriving shipping port. One of the prominent merchants operating along the bay in Beaufort was Peter Lavien (1746 - 1781). He moved to the town in 1765 from Sankt Croix, then under Danish rule. (Today St. Croix is part of the US Virgin Islands.) The small world connection I discovered involves his younger half-brother. The brother eventually also moved to the Colonies from Sankt Croix but landed in Boston in 1772. Today, I'm going to tell you a bit more about the families of both brothers.

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Antebellum Christmas on Datha Island

Bill — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 21:15:40 +0000

Christmas in the Lowcountry of South Carolina will be celebrated this week, as it has been for centuries. However, back in the antebellum days, the planters celebrated one way, and the enslaved in a much different way. Like the plantation system, which was imported from Britain, the Christmas traditions when the Reverend James Julius Sams (1826 - 1918) reflected on his childhood around 1835 - 1840 on Datha Island were probably more British-inspired than German. Julius begins his reflections about Christmas this way,
"Christmas was the merriest and saddest time. The merriest, because we were all together. The saddest, because the time was coming for us to part again."

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History 3-2-1 (2025-11-26)

Bill — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 17:50:55 +0000

3 Images of History 1 – Siege of Ninety Six. The fortified village of Nintey Six saw military action several times during the American Revolution from 1775 to 1781. This…

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History 3-2-1 (2025-10-28)

Bill — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 02:05:49 +0000

3 Images of History 1 – Echoes of the Sams Plantation. Visiting descendants of Dr. Lewis Reeve Sams Jr, MD, were able to view the ruins of their GGGGrandfather’s plantation…

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History 3-2-1 (2025-08-07)

Bill — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 02:05:34 +0000

3 Images of History 1 – To help beat the heat during these sweltering summer days, check out the ruins from this past January 2025 [photo by Bill Riski] 2…

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History 3-2-1 (2025-06-04)

Bill — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 20:14:23 +0000

3 Images of History Henry Ford on his Quadricycle, 1896, Detroit, Michigan [public domain] Fanny Sams Bell is third from the driver, front row. Women’s Suffragettes in Florida, circa 1907.…

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History 3-2-1 (2025-05-25)

Bill — Sun, 25 May 2025 17:12:08 +0000

Tabby Times – Spring 2025

Bill — Tue, 06 May 2025 20:16:45 +0000

This issue features articles about Frederick Tudor and his ice empire, the Piedmont Wagon in our Cannery area, and Collin Brooker and his background in tabby structures. download

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History 3-2-1 (2025-03-23)

Bill — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 19:47:58 +0000

3 Images, 2 Moments, 1 Memory Three Images of History The Marquis de la Fayette, portrayed by the remarkable reenactor and interpreter Mr. Mark Schneider, delivered a speech at the…

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BB Sams and his Tripartite Residence (built after 1760 – burned about 1880)

Bill — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 20:24:08 +0000

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.

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Tabby Times – Fall 2022

Bill — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 03:06:15 +0000

Historians and archeologists depend on human-made artifacts as clues to understanding and interpreting previous cultures. These historical objects give insight and lend credence to the influence of prior cultures on…

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Tabby Times – Fall 2024

Bill — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 03:00:37 +0000

This issue featured an article about the Yamasee tribe. Like many of Dataw’s current residents, the Yamasee Indians were migrants to Beaufort, South Carolina. download

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Tabby Times – Spring 2024

Bill — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 02:49:21 +0000

This issue featured an article about the legacy of the bateau. Dataw is an island surrounded by other sea islands. In the early days of colonial settlement, the only way to travel from one island to the next island was by boat. download

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Dataw Historic Foundation was Honored in 2024 by the Historic Beaufort Foundation

Bill — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 15:56:11 +0000

The Dataw Historic Foundation has received a major preservation award from Historic Beaufort Foundation in recognition of its work in preserving the Sams Plantation historic site and creation of an interpretive center, both located centrally on the 867-acre community of Dataw Island. Historic Beaufort Foundation Trustee Rob Montgomery and Executive Director, Maxine Lutz, presented the “Preservation Honor Award” to the Dataw Historic Foundation, accepted on the group’s behalf by their president, Marilyn Peck.

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History 3-2-1 (2025-02-18)

Bill — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 18:26:29 +0000

3 Images, 2 Moments, 1 Memory Three Images of History The CSS Virginia and USS Monitor were not the first ironclad warships but the first ironclads to battle against one…

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Marquis de la Fayette (1757 – 1834)

Bill — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 01:46:55 +0000

I recently presented a lecture on this impressive gentleman. The Marquis was 16 years younger than ‘our’ William Sams (1741 – 1798). They both were in South Carolina during the…

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Dataw Historic Foundation Bylaws

Bill — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 02:14:50 +0000

Bylaws of the Dataw Historic Foundation. Updated in December 2024 and approved by the Board of Directors.

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History 3-2-1 (2025-01-03)

Bill — Sat, 04 Jan 2025 03:49:32 +0000

3 Images, 2 Moments, 1 Memory Three Images of History Two Moments in History Moment 1—Joel Roberts Poinsett: The Man Behind the Christmas Poinsettia and His South Carolina Connections The…

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History 3-2-1 (2024-12-16)

Bill — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 02:22:12 +0000

3 Images, 2 Moments, 1 Memory Three Images of History Two Moments in History Moment 1—December 16, 1773 In Boston Harbor, Patriot leader Samuel Adams, along with about 60 members…

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History 3-2-1 (2024-11-19)

Bill — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 20:16:40 +0000

3 Images, 2 Moments, 1 Memory Three Images of History Two Moments in History Moment 1—November 7, 1860 Word of Abraham Lincoln’s election to the presidency reached South Carolina. You…

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History 3-2-1 (2024-11-08)

Bill — Sat, 09 Nov 2024 04:04:31 +0000

3 Images, 2 Moments, 1 Memory Three Images of History Two Moments in History Moment 1—1939 Puerto Rico In 1939, 500 rhesus monkeys from India were shipped to an island…

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The Hero’s Return: Lafayette’s Epic Journey Back to a Grateful America

Bill — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 00:51:24 +0000

The First Meeting of Lafayette and Washington, Philadelphia, August 3, 1777

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History 3-2-1 (2024-10-17)

Bill — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 16:09:21 +0000

3 Images, 2 Moments, 1 Memory Three Images of History Two Moments in History Moment 1—1607 As the scent of ink and freshly bound parchment filled the air in 1607,…

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History 3-2-1 (2024-09-17)

Bill — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 03:07:41 +0000

Three Images of History Two Moments in History Moment 1—September 17, 1787 the United States Constitution was signed by delegates at the final meeting of the Constitutional Convention. The war with Britain…

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History 3-2-1 (2024-09-10)

Bill — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 00:01:09 +0000

New Series of Quick Posts Inspiration I love this quote from James Clear: “To experience time travel, read. To achieve immortality, write.” He publishes The 3-2-1 Newsletter, one of the…

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Did You Know?

Bill — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 19:30:29 +0000

This series of articles was written by Joel Holden and John Colgagn circa 2011.

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Oranges – An exotic export business on Dataw?

Bill — Sun, 07 Jul 2024 16:14:00 +0000

Acres of orange groves on Dataw? Was this one of the earliest commercially produced oranges in the United States?

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Tides of Time: Navigating 40 Years on Dataw Island

Bill — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 20:17:34 +0000

Our History Afternoon in March 2024 The history sessions, organized to celebrate our 40th Anniversary, commenced at 1:00 PM and concluded at 6:00 PM, on Wednesday the 13th. All sessions…

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Songs from a Sea Island Plantation

Bill — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 02:30:19 +0000

The music of the Antebellum Era expressed the feelings of the two classes of people on Sea Island Plantations: the white plantation owners and the enslaved people. Listen to their…

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Tabby Times – Fall 2023

Bill — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 20:16:04 +0000

This issue featured an article about Victoria A. Smalls, a Gullah native of St. Helena Island. She is our guest speaker at the January 2024 Fireside Chat. This event, an…

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From Aztec Farms to Datha Island: TurkeyTales

Bill — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 20:21:43 +0000

It’s fascinating to trace the wild turkey’s journey from being domesticated by Native Americans a thousand years ago to its role in the antebellum era at Elizabeth and Berners Barnwell…

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Tabby Times – Spring 2023

Bill — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 15:19:46 +0000

St. Helena Island’s Prehistoric Secrets: Mastodons

Bill — Sat, 27 May 2023 15:21:58 +0000

The DHF is proud that we have artifacts found on Datha Island in the early ALCOA days that date back thousands of years. For example, in the display on the southwest wall of the History & Learning Center is a Paleo Indian Point that dates to 10,000 B.C. However, many have explored our area over the centuries. I recently learned from a young lady in Massachusetts that Charles Upham Shepard found an older and much larger item on St Helena Island in the 1800s; an American mastodon (Mammoth americanum) from the late Pleistocene era! This intact skeleton, found next door, pushes back our knowledge of this area by several thousand years, to at least 12,000 B.C.

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Oak Island

Bill — Sat, 22 Apr 2023 19:20:10 +0000

Oak Island is a 32-acre natural beauty sitting next door to Dataw Island. Native Americans frequented the island about 1,000 years ago. Fast forward 800 years to the BB Sams / LR Sams plantation era, and it was an adventure spot for James Julius Sams and his brothers Horace and Donald. As Sea Island cotton took off as the “finest in the world,” BB Sams decided to build a system of dikes between Dataw Island, Oak Island, and the two marsh hummocks to the north (i.e., Pine Islands).

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The Green Taffeta Silk Dress

Bill — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 16:00:01 +0000

This week’s theme is HEIRLOOMS. The Dataw Historic Foundation is fortunate because the Sams descendants have entrusted us with several family heirlooms. This week features the story of two other items donated to the Foundation, a green silk taffeta Victorian gown and a shawl circa 1860. Ginny Hall-Apicella and BIll Riski recently presented the history of the dress to our Dataw Island residents.

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Natasha Boyd visits Dataw Island

Bill — Fri, 14 Apr 2023 13:26:06 +0000

The Event Natasha Boyd, the author of Indigo Girl, was the guest speaker at the Dataw Historic Foundation Author’s Luncheon in early April organized by Rosemary Patterson, DHF Publicity…

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Bill Riski’s Contact Info

Bill — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 00:35:06 +0000

Sky-High Survey: Delving into Dataw’s Historic Cotton Dikes

Bill — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 13:26:46 +0000

Of the people, By the people, For the people

Bill — Sat, 19 Nov 2022 19:44:49 +0000

Thursday, November 19, 1863, at about 3 PM, as the sun broke through the clouds, President Abraham Lincoln gave his two-minute address to the 15,000 gathered for the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, PA. We’ve all read it, studied it, and seen it (on the wall at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.) I’m going to discuss the Gettysburg Address in a moment. The most interesting part of his speech is often skimmed over, "..of the people, by the people, and for the people.." First, I thought a summary of the Sams family members who served in the Confederate States of America army would provide some interesting context for you.

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Enslaved People of South Carolina & Datha Island

Bill — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 13:58:38 +0000

Sad State of Education in 18th & 19th Century South Carolina

Bill — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 01:00:30 +0000

Virginia B. Bartels summarizes the history of education in South Carolina very well. "Much of the 300-year history of our public schools is a tragic tale of fits and starts, marked at times by inspired leaders, but too often mired by problems of class, race, war, poverty, and geography."

I believe receiving a good education is a primary reason so many Sams could rebuild their lives after the Civil War's devastation. However, they received this education because they were lucky enough to be born into a family that could afford to pay for a good education in a time and in a place where this was not common. The sad state of childhood education in Beaufort in the antebellum era was not just about money. You may be surprised to learn that British tradition also played a vital, negative role.

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Water in Motion

Bill — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 08:30:52 +0000

Water in motion is beautiful—most of the time. But once in a while, it grows from a rising tide into a boiling hurricane. Water indeed defines much of the character of our Lowcountry. It flushes and nurtures the marsh. Defines the borders of our island. And pushes us away when a hurricane approaches.Most of you reading this know about the beauty of the waters around Dataw. It’s a contributing reason I live here. The “beast face” of water is fortunately seen less often. This week I’m going to tell you about, by far, the most massive hurricane this area has ever experienced—the hurricane of 1893. And I’m going to tell you a little know story of Ting Sams Colquhoun’s ancestors that met their death in that hurricane.

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19th Amendment – Rights of Suffrage for Women

Bill — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 14:10:17 +0000

This article is in honor of our 19th Amendment, which changed our country dramatically.

The Amendment’s journey from Seneca, New York, to our U.S. Constitution was long and torturous. Dataw Island has four people connected to the Women’s Suffrage Movement: Sarah Barnwell Elliott, Kate Gleason, Fanny Sams Bell, and Conway Whittle Sams. Sarah was a women’s suffrage movement leader at the state and national levels. Kate was the great industrialist who purchased Dataw Island in 1927. Fanny was one of the millions of women across the nation who proactively worked for women’s rights. Conway, a lawyer in Virginia, was vehemently against giving women the right to vote!

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Declaration of Independence in America Led to Riches in Beaufort

Bill — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 01:22:24 +0000

William Sams fled with his family to the Beaufort area from Charleston in 1783. He left Charleston because of the Confiscation Acts of early 1782. They likely picked Beaufort due to family connections. As our past DHF president John Colgan might say, it was the second time the Sams were on the wrong side of history. But similar to the first time, this move was a blessing in disguise. The following 80 years would bring great wealth to Beaufort, South Carolina, and the Sams. This short article is about how we won our independence from Great Britain, seen through the lens of local South Carolina's concerns and consequences.

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The Sams & Our Presidents

Bill — Mon, 04 Jul 2022 11:00:23 +0000

Sometimes taking a long view of history provides an insightful perspective on the lives of others. A few years ago, I compiled a timeline of U.S. Presidents who were in office during the antebellum era of the Sams of South Carolina. I focused on William Sams and two particular sons, Lewis Reeve Sams and Dr. Berners Barnwell Sams, M.D. The timeline starts in 1783, when William Sams, at 42, left Wadmalaw Island and moved his family to Beaufort and Datha Island. It ends with the Great Gun Shoot / Big Skedaddle of 1861. The graphic integrates the lives of William, Elizabeth, Lewis Reeve Sams, and his brother Dr. Berners Barnwell Sams, M.D. — with — the terms of our first 16 presidents

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Sarah Reeve Gibbes (1746-1825)

Bill — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 21:12:28 +0000

Peaceful Retreat plantation home of Robert Gibbes and his wife Sarah (Reeve) Gibbes. On the Stono River, John’s Island, SC. There is so much to say about this woman. She…

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Closure

Bill — Tue, 07 Jun 2022 10:10:30 +0000

We have often told you how the events of Nov 7, 1861, led to the immediate evacuation of all plantation owners from Beaufort District. And you've heard most lost everything as a result. The Federal government, of course, fully intended to shut the door on the old South. A war was going on, and both sides needed to fund their war efforts. For the Federal government, the legal steps started with the Direct Tax Act of August 1861, which levied taxes on all states and was amended in June 1862 to include the rebellious states as well. This led to Federally appointed tax commissioners arriving in Beaufort later that year. Foreclosures on South Carolina homes and land followed. This included all of the Sams real estate in the Beaufort District. However, there is more to the story. Thirty years later, the Federal Government compensated the Sams heirs and others for their confiscated real estate.

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Lower Coast American Indians

Bill — Tue, 31 May 2022 16:00:49 +0000

Like all of the United States, the Lowcountry was inhabited by indigenous peoples when Bonum Sams II (1663 ~ 1743) and John Barnwell (1771 - 1724) immigrated here in 1681 and 1701, respectively. Long before William Sams (1747 - 1798) bought Datha Island in 1783, the conflicts between Europeans and American Indians had played out here in the Lowcountry. The American Indians were gone from this corner of South Carolina. It may surprise you to know that nineteen American Indian tribes lived in our area at one time. We are reminded of the American Indians by the river/estuary names even today.

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Horace Hann Sams (1829 – 1865)

Bill — Mon, 23 May 2022 16:00:11 +0000

Horace Hann Sams (1829-1865) is one of the four Beaufort men I wrote about earlier who died in the Civil War. Today I dig deeper into Major HH Sams life and legacy. It becomes clear from contemporary accounts about him what drove this southern soldier in our American Civil War. Those he left behind were deeply affected by their loss. To paraphrase novelist Mitch Albom, his death ended a life, not a relationship. His older brother Rev. James Julius Sams, carries his sorrow into the memoir he wrote 40 years later.

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High Above Morgan River: Documenting the Legacy of Lewis Reeves Sams’ Home

Bill — Mon, 16 May 2022 03:09:50 +0000

By now, most of you will have received the Spring Edition 2022 of the Dataw Historic Foundation’s Tabby Times. This is the “live” version of the beautiful cover article written…

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Tabby Times Spring 2022

Bill — Sat, 14 May 2022 14:38:36 +0000

Crypt of Sarah (Fripp) Sams (1789 – 1825)

Bill — Thu, 12 May 2022 20:47:18 +0000

Several years ago (2006 - 2009), DHF had some preservation work done to the brick wall around the Sams Family Cemetery near the plantation house tabby ruins. We discovered several buried pieces of marble, and the adventure began. This is the story of the final resting place of Sarah (Fripp) Sams (1789 - 1825), the first wife of Lewis Reeve Sams (1784 - 1856).

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Sams Family Cemetery – Datha Island, South Carolina

Bill — Tue, 03 May 2022 02:00:30 +0000

I told you recently about the tripartite plantation house of BB Sams and his wife Elizabeth (Fripp) Sams. These ruins are always the highlight of the DHF docents' tours to residents and visitors. The other site of interest is the Sams Family Cemetery, a short distance from the ruins. I wrote about this 200-year-old cemetery on Datha Island just two years ago, and there has been an exciting development. Synthesizing the research Teresa (Winters) Bridges (Sams descendant) has done in the last two years with the results of the ground-penetrating radar survey performed in 2005, I can say with confidence that her ancestor John Sams (1769-1798) is buried here on Datha.

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The Many Sams Plantations

Bill — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 13:00:39 +0000

For centuries the ultimate enabler of an individual's wealth was land ownership. This was certainly true in the Lowcountry, as rice, lumber, indigo, cattle, and cotton crops created tensions over land. One of the early and successful indigo plantation owners on a sea island was Robert Sams (~1706 - 1760), father of "our" William Sams (1741 - 1798). Robert was a planter up on Wadmalaw Island. As the American Revolution took a toll on the sale of indigo dye cakes to the British, a new sea island-compatible crop was arriving. Sea island cotton's exceptional quality and world events in France and England drove Europe's demand. It was first grown commercially on Hilton Head in 1795, and by 1810 nearly all the suitable cotton land in our area was spoken for. This brings us on a fast trip to the Datha Island plantation brothers, Lewis Reeve Sams (1784 - 1856) and Berners Barnwell Sams (1787 - 1855). They inherited Datha Island from their father and mother once they came of age, in 1805 and 1808, respectively. LR Sams had Datha Point plantation on the north, and BB Sams had Datha Inlet plantation on the south.
As Dr. Rowland tells us in his first volume of The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina (1514 - 1861) by 1850:
"Dr. Berners Barnwell Sams had 2,097 acres and 174 enslaved people on Datha and Lady's Island…His brother Lewis Reeve Sams had 1,467 acres and 166 enslaved people on adjoining property…"
It wasn't Datha alone that afforded the brothers, and their children, the luxury of elegant homes in Beaufort. It was the totality of their holdings.

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Four Young Men

Bill — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 13:00:23 +0000

Sometimes luck is due to your hard work. Other times it comes from factors that cannot be explained or are beyond your control. Wars have a way of stringing together events that leave in their wake both the fortunate and unfortunate. This week I identify four Sams who died on the eve of, or during, the Civil War. They range in age from 16 to 36. There were many more Sams who served and came home to live another day. These four did not.

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Robert Oswald Sams (1841 – 1930)

Bill — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 13:00:37 +0000

April holds a special place in the history of the United States. From where I sit today, in the heart of the South, its significance cannot be overlooked. On Friday, April 12, 1861, the Battle of Fort Sumter began the Civil War. In addition, April events bookend the American Civil War. On April 9, 1865, "the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia in the McLean House in the village of Appomattox Court House, Virginia signaled the end of the nation's largest war." We are fortunate to have some first-person insights into both ends of the war. They come from Robert Oswald Sams, the grandson of "our" Lewis Reeve Sams.

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Dr. Miles Stanhope Sams (1860 – 1933) – Renaissance Man

Bill — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 01:00:28 +0000

This week in my 52 Sams in 52 Weeks series the theme is TRAVEL. Several weeks ago, I happened to bump into a Sams that had moved to Japan. So I penciled him into Week 20 - TRAVEL, suspecting he might be an exciting story. Miles Stanhope Sams (1860 - 1933) was the grandson of Lewis Reeve Sams and his first wife, Sarah Fripp.

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Slavery and Datha’s Enslaved by Jane Griffith

Bill — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 11:00:12 +0000

The Sams family's success and prosperity could not have been achieved without the hundreds of enslaved men, women, and children who worked silently tilling the land, harvesting the sea island cotton, building the structures, and serving their Sams masters in many ways. Datha's enslaved peoples were an undeniable and vital part of this island's plantation era history. Their lives and work on plantations on Datha Island, Ladys Island, and St. Helena Island spanned three generations of the Sams family.

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Strong Women – Four Examples

Bill — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 13:22:03 +0000

Women's History Month was 'born' in 1987, though its roots go back to 1911. So many Sams women, and we don't know enough about them. It seems reasonable to assume they all were strong to survive the circumstances of their southern antebellum era. For most women, their role in the family in the 19th century was still defined by the husband [Hussung, 2015.]

Here are four particular women who persevered, even excelled, despite the challenges they encountered back then: Elizabeth Fripp Sams, Sarah Stanyarne Sams Sams, Ma Lilly, and Kate Gleason.

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