(If you are a regular reader of this newsletter, you may recall that I wrote about the Pinckneys on August 30.)
I’m teaching the last session of my Osher class called “Interpreting the Past” this afternoon. I’ve worked a lot on this class and I think it has paid off – the people in the class seem to be enjoying it, and I know I’ve learned a lot while preparing for it.
But now I have to turn my attention to a class I am scheduled to teach in the spring. The course is called “Forgotten Founders: The Pinckney Family of South Carolina.” Here’s how I described the course for the Osher catalog:
In South Carolina, few families were as well known as the Pinckneys. Wealthy and privileged, they served as local judges and as members of the South Carolina legislature. They fought in the American Revolution; after the Revolution, they served in Congress, and members of the family were Federalist party nominees for Vice President or President from 1796 until 1808. They served as ambassadors to Britain, France, and Spain during the early years of the Republic. But the Pinckney name is largely absent from the broader narrative of these years. In this course, we will explore who the Pinckneys were and how they came to be the Forgotten Founders.
I was motivated to propose this course by the research I did while I was teaching an earlier course on the 1790s in 2021. I kept running into the Pinckneys while I was preparing this class, and I became curious about them. I did enough research to decide that there was plenty of material to teach a class on this family, so I put in the proposal. The course begins on March 20. I have 15 weeks to get this class ready for public view.
I’m writing about this today because I’ll need to turn my attention to the Pinckneys by Wednesday of this week. I have a lot of reading to do in order to shape this class. On Thursday, I’ll have the opportunity to move things ahead quickly when I take a trip to DC to visit a woman named Mary Pinckney.
I’ll tell you how this came about. Two weeks ago, at the beginning of the first session of my “Interpreting the Past” class, a man named Bob came up to me before the class and told me had had something to talk to me about – but that it concerned my Pinckney class, not the class that was beginning that day. Without going into detail, it turns out that he has a connection to the Pinckney family, and that he had contacted her when he saw the catalog entry that described my upcoming class on the Pinckney family.
I wrote to Mary Pinckney, and, after a few exchanges of emails, we have plans to get together – twice – within the next month.
On Thursday, I’m driving up to DC to meet her at the Anderson House near Dupont Circle. This house is owned by the Society of the Cincinnati, the oldest patriotic society in America. Membership is restricted to descendants of military officers who served in the Continental Army. The Anderson House is the home of The American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization dedicated to promoting understanding and appreciation of the American Revolution and its legacy. This organization offers public programs, maintains museum exhibits, and conducts research at the American Revolution Institute Library. Mary Pinckney knows the people in this organization, and she has arranged a tour for us. The Pinckney family is featured in some of the museum exhibits and in the library collection. Mary will also be bringing me some files and papers she has about her famous ancestors.
I need to do some reading before Thursday so I’m a little smarter about the Pinckneys than I am right now.
But, as the TV infomercials promise – Wait! There’s More!
My new best friend Mary Pinckney is going to be in Bluffton, SC (just north of Savannah, GA) after Christmas, and we have plans to link up with her on our way home from Columbus, GA, where we’ll be spending Christmas with Kevin and his family. It’s only about a four-hour drive from Columbus to Bluffton. We’re meeting Mary for lunch on December 27, and she’s making plans for another Pinckney cousin to have lunch with us as well. Her cousin apparently is steeped in all things Pinckney, so I should get a lot of information. We’re planning to go to Pinckney Island Wildlife Refuge, because why not?
It's almost an eight-hour drive from Bluffton to our home in Williamsburg, so we’ll probably stop somewhere along the way. There are two historic homes associated with the Pinckneys – Snee Farm (just outside of Charleston) and Hampton Plantation (about an hour north of Charleston). Both of these sites have limited visiting days – Snee Farm is closed for the season (bummer!) and Hampton is open only Friday-Tuesday of each week. Our visit with Mary Pinckney will be over on Wednesday, and we won’t be able to wait around for Snee Farm to be open. I may take another drive to Snee Farm sometime in January, but I’m not sure about that. It's a long drive.
Life’s just funny sometimes.
I forgot if the Pinckneys are in your tree. Regardless, this is quite a small-world experience. Can’t wait to hear what comes of it.
Yes, how exciting! Good for you, Karen!!! 😎