Reading Suggestions

South Carolina A History by Walter Edgar. University of South Carolina Press, 1998.

The first ten chapters give an excellent exposition on life, culture and politics in South Carolina’s pre-colonial and colonial eras. Understanding this history provides readers insight into the lives of the Heywards who lived then.

 

 

 


Historical Atlas of the Rice Plantations of the ACE River Basin–1860 by Suzanne Cameron Linder.  South Carolina Department of Archives and History for Archives and History Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, and the Nature Conservancy, 1995.

hist-atlas2 This massive coffee-table book describes the rice plantations in the basin of South Carolina’s Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto rivers as they existed in the year 1860. It contains pictures, plat diagrams and ownership histories of almost a hundred plantations, many of which were owned by Heyward descendants.

 


Seed from Madagascar by Duncan Clinch Heyward.  University of North Carolina Press, 1937.

seed-from-madagascarThe author, a one-time governor of SC and a great-grandson of Nathaniel Heyward (b.1766), recounts his family’s long tradition of rice planting on the Combahee River and his own memories of rice planting there after the Civil War.

The image at left shows the cover of the book as re-issued by the University of South Carolina Press in 1993. This version contains  a long introduction by scholar Peter Coclannis.


Heyward. by James Barnwell Heyward II. Privately published about 1930.

red-book-coverThis remarkable work of genealogy and family history is known among Heywards as “The Red Book.” The author spent a lifetime researching his own ancestors as well as his wife’s. The book brings the immigrant Daniel Heyward’s descendant tree up to Generation 8, giving biographical information about most of the descendants. He frequently describes people in terms of their “magnetism,” “presence,” “intellect,” “individuality” and “force” and speculates as to how such qualities might be inherited.

Heyward gives a long and detailed account of the acquisition of the family coat-of-arms by Daniel Heyward (b. 1720) and his son Thomas. The author also tells us the remarkable story of the “adventuress” Susan Cole and her impact on the family fortune.


The Colonial History of the Heyward Family of South Carolina, 1670 – 1770 by James Barnwell Heyward II.  McQuiddy Printing Company, 1907.

colonial-historyThe author examines the wills of the Heyward pioneers and builds a descendant tree of the first six generations of the Heyward family. Read it online here.

 

 

 

 


Twilight on the South Carolina Rice Fields 1862 – 1871 by Margaret Belser Hollis and Allen H. Stokes. University of South Carolina Press, 2010

twilight-in-sc-rice-fieldsThe book, according to its dust jacket, “collects the revealing wartime and postbellum letters and documents of Edward Barnwell ‘Barney’ Heyward (1826 – 1871), a native of Beaufort District and grandson of Nathaniel Heyward, one of the most successful rice planters and largest slaveholders in the South.”

In the letters written to his wife from 1866 to 1868 Edward Barnwell Heyward describes his efforts to finance and restore rice planting operations at his Combahee River plantation after the devastation of the Civil War. He reports his success in using freedmen for labor, but he comes into conflict with his relatives who own adjacent plantations. Unfortunately, the conflict is not resolved because he falls ill and dies in 1871 at the age of 44.


Colonial Governor William Glover and His Descendants by James Bolan Glover, V.  Southern Historical Press, 2017.

william-gloverWilliam Glover of the title is the great-grandfather of Wilson Glover, husband of Margaret Heyward (b. 1753), head of the Heyward family’s E-branch. As a result, the entire E-branch of the Heyward family is contained in this 1,600 page volume. The author estimates that Heyward descendants occupy about a third of the book.

Considerable biographical detail is given for thousands of the individuals contained in this book,  which supersedes the author’s 1996 work, Colonel Joseph Glover (1719 – 1783) and his Descendants: Thirteen Generations of the Glover Family.


Ancestors and Descendants of Nathaniel Heyward (1766 – 1851) South Carolina Rice Planter by Thomas DeSaussure Furman. The Reprint Company. 2003.

ancest-nat-heyThis is a 200-page genealogy of the Heyward family’s C-branch. Descendants are organized in the genealogical “modified register” format. Biographies are given for many of the descendants and their spouses.

 

 

 


Charleston Ghosts by Margaret Rhett Martin. University of South Carolina Press, 1963.

charleston-ghostsThere are eighteen ghost stories in this 105-page book. At least two of them involve Heyward family members.

Margaret Rhett Martin (1891 – 1982) , the author, was the wife of Julius Heyward Taylor, a great-great grandson of Nathaniel Heyward, head of the family’s C-branch.

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