Studio has just begun for the semester and this past week we have been diving into site research! On Tuesday, we visited our project site, Stephen Washington Park, where we met with a Department of Parks representative. He shared a brief history of the Park and the Honey Hill community. Since then, we’ve continued our research, digging into historical records to better understand the area.
From a past Clemson led analysis of the park, we started to have better understanding of the areas history. The Honey Hill community located on James Island, then called “Boone Island”, is a historically African American settlement that rose after the Civil War. At this time, many freed African Americans settled on land near their former plantations. Creating their own self-sustaining practices, they worked to harvest fish, crab, shrimp, crops, and their own distinct communities.
The foundation of the Honey Hill neighborhood was thanks to Plenty White, a formerly enslaved man who was the primary landowner. His role in this community established a legacy of African American land ownership on James Island. During the 1800s, there are many recorded notable property transactions between African Americans on the island which allowed for economic independence and allowed for Honey Hill’s survival. Plenty White is considered to be the founder of Honey Hill and his legacy helped establish the first African American churches and schools in the area.
The Stephen Washington Park itself opened in 1997 by Stephen Washington and is home to a baseball field and playground. The goal for our studio project is to help revitalize the park where we will be designing and building a picnic pavilion in the next few months!
