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 – This image at sunrise in 2025, looking east from Dataw Island, might capture what the Sams family experienced from the front “piazzas” of their three-part home back in 1825 [photo by Bill Riski]
3- Sams-Verdier fan chart centered around Barnwell Berners Sams, our Beaufort County Auditor at the time of his death in 1886 [created by Bill Riski]
2 Moments in History
The Grandparents married in 1761 and 1785
On the Sams side, William Sam—a successful planter who would move his family to Beaufort and buy Datha Island—married Elizabeth Hext in 1761 near Charleston. They had seven sons, one of whom was Dr. Berners Barnwell Sams. He married Elizabeth Hann Fripp and had eleven children by her, including his eldest son, Berners Bainbridge Sams, born in 1814.
On the Verdier side, John Mark Verdier—the successful merchant and namesake of the Verdier House on Bay Street married Elizabeth Grayson in 1785. They had four children, including Dr. James Robert Verdier, who married Elizabeth Fickling ~1818. Together, Dr. Verdier and Elizabeth raised a large family, including their oldest daughter, Sarah F. Verdier, born in 1820.
Their Grandchildren were married in 1842
In 1842, the families united when Berners Bainbridge Sams married Sarah F. Verdier. Through that marriage, Sarah became the daughter-in-law of Dr. B.B. Sams of Dataw Island and his second wife, Martha Edwards.
Though Sarah Verdier Sams was born and raised in the iconic “Marshlands” house on the Point, it’s easy to imagine her visiting her grandparents’s elegant Bay Street home. And it’s just as easy to imagine that her father, Dr. James Verdier, and her father-in-law, Dr. B.B. Sams—both physicians, both prominent men of similar age, both widowers who remarried—knew each other well. Perhaps they didn’t just allow the match between their children… perhaps they arranged it.
A visual representation of these generations is shown in the fan chart above. I chose to show the generations from the perspective of BB & Sarah’s last child, Barnwell Berners Sams. At the time of his death in 1886, he was the Beaufort County Auditor.
Sidenote: In COMBEE: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War, by Edda L. Fields-Black, published Feb 2024, the author mentions two slaves by name who were in the household of B.B. Sams and his wife, Sarah. The book was recently named the 2025 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History.
1 Memory Preserved
“History flows out of a wellspring at the beginning of time and tumbles ever onward, always just behind us, nipping at our heels. History touches our lives in small and large ways. Acknowledging the fact that people from the ancient past can affect you today is both humbling and thrilling. And that is what makes it all so infatuating.”
Grant Piper
February 2024
Bill Riski: Grant is an active freelance writer on a variety of topics for a broad readership. I follow his history articles on Medium. Always thoroughly researched and interesting.
Sources
Why I Love History, by Grant Piper, Feb 2024 on Medium.
The Sams Genealogy, maintained by Bill Riski of the Dataw Historic Foundation, has been continually researched and updated since 2000.