PENDLETON — The Pendleton Historic Foundation has been recognized by the Palmetto Trust for Historic Preservation, the SC Department of Archives and History, and the Office of the Governor for their exceptional efforts in preservation and interpretation of cultural heritage in South Carolina.

The 2015 Stewardship award was presented by the Lt. Gov. Henry McMaster to Timothy Drake and Jacqueline Reynolds, Pendleton Historic Foundation board members. The award citation recognizes the Foundation’s reconstruction of an original slave cabin at the Woodburn Plantation to share the story of the African-American slaves and tenant farmers who helped maintain the farm during the 1800s and 1900s.

The Pendleton Historic Foundation is building on this recognition and enhancing its educational mission by collaborating with Dr. Rhondda Thomas of Clemson University to produce a documentary on the life and legacy of Pendleton’s Jane Edna Hunter.

Born in a former slave cabin on the grounds of the Woodburn Historic House in 1881, Ms. Hunter remains relatively unknown in her home state. Hunter was an African American nurse, lawyer, activist, and fundraiser who founded the Phillis Wheatley Association in Cleveland, Ohio, to assist young African American women in the Great Migration to the North in the early twentieth century.

Despite these accomplishments and the scholarships that her National Phillis Wheatley Foundation still provides to African American women in South Carolina, she receives little recognition in her home state. The documentary on Hunter seeks to change that by sharing her incredible story and legacy of service, compassion, and work to a wide audience in her home state and beyond.

Woodburn Historic House is located at 130 History Lane in Pendleton. Call 864-646-7249, e-mail pendleton.hf@gmail.com or by visit www.pendletonhistoricfoundation.org for more information.

Timothy Drake and Jacqueline Reynolds, Pendleton Historic Foundation board members, are shown with the 2015 Stewardship award received by the group.
http://pickenssentinel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/web1_phfstewardshipaward.jpgTimothy Drake and Jacqueline Reynolds, Pendleton Historic Foundation board members, are shown with the 2015 Stewardship award received by the group. Courtesy photo

Staff Report