Cheesy Grits: A Visit with the Bard of Edisto

Jane is always on the lookout for interesting places to run, and wouldn't you know it: she found a 5K Run on Edisto Island. I of course was always up for a return trip to Charleston—especially if going on down to Edisto was sure to be in the mix.

Part of the reason I was eager to return was that the previous time Jane and I visited Edisto, I had wanted to call on the Bard of Edisto, Nick Lindsay, but was too shy. Ever since then, I had deeply regretted not looking him up to introduce Jane to him, as I doubted that he ever thought he would meet a living relative of Johnny Thorne, one of the two Black kings of Edisto. Perhaps this time, I could fix that—after all, nobody in my part of the world—or his—is getting younger.

This is how it happened: there being no hotels on Edisto Island, we stayed on the western edge of Charleston the night before the race. The forty-minute drive from our lodging to the site of the race in Edisto Beach seemed to take almost no time at all, and then, just as quickly, the runners were away. I lolled about the finish line, watching a woodpecker in a tree and wondering how far I might have to walk to get better cellphone reception.

A smidgen less than a half-hour after the start, the great-great-grandniece of John Thorne chugged across the finish line with her usual smile, as both running and racing make her happy. We stayed for the awards ceremony and were pleased but not surprised when she was announced as the winner of her age group. "Not surprised" because (a) she's good, and (b) there weren't very many runners in her age group anyway.

The age-group winner and great-great-grandniece of John Thorne of Edisto receives
her first place medal at the 2014 Edisto Beach 5K from Dan Carter,
Executive Director, Edisto Beach Chamber of Commerce

It was our incredibly good fortune that the annual Edisto Eats festival was taking place the same day as the race. We repaired over to a parking lot shared by the local—and sole—grocery store (of late a Piggly-Wiggly, now a Bi-Lo), a restaurant, the local liquor store, and maybe some other places. The vendors were just getting set up, but I managed to score some sweet tea jelly and two bottles of Bing cherry cider. And some lunch, which was some sort of meat stew that had been cooking so long that it had almost no texture and a slightly pinkish hue to boot; it nevertheless tasted great over rice. I do wish I had asked what all was in it. I'd eat it again in a heartbeat, even if I found out it was possum stew. (I'm pretty sure it wasn't cooter pie.)

So then it was time to either head back north or try to find the Bard of Edisto. I had hated myself for the past year for not going boldly up to his door, and I wasn't going to let that happen again. Through the magic of my portable Google machine, I fished a name and telephone number out of the ether for a Lindsay who lived on Edisto Island. I called the number and held my breath.

A woman, who turned out to be his wife DuBose, answered and said that yes indeed this was Nick Lindsay's number and passed the phone along to him. I told him a bit about who we were and why we were there and asked if we could come by to visit. He was delighted to say yes.

Jane and I spent about two hours with Nick and Dubose, who are both in their late 80s. Nick was not only pleased to meet the great-great-grandniece of Johnny Thorne, but even more pleased to learn that she had married an Amish Mennonite—me—as Nick had taught poetry at Goshen College long enough to have learned a great deal about Mennonites and Amish. So we chatted about John Thorne and I was delighted to tell him where Thorne had come from and who his family in Charleston was and how Jane was related to him and so on.

And he in turn regaled us with how he had gathered some of the stories that he had compiled for his oral history of Edisto Island, where he and DuBose have lived since the mid 1950s—and are still considered recent arrivals. (As his son would later explain, Edistonians speak of the "been-heres" and the "come-heres", only in Gullah, it's the "bin-yas" and the "come-yas", with the Lindsays and the rest of us being of course the latter.)

I was especially pleased to show Nick one of my most treasured family history findings: the deed noting the sale by the Black King of Edisto, John Thorne, of a small lot (6.7 acres) to Albert Bliging in January, 1879. I had seen the document advertised by a South Carolina antiquarian and of course snapped it up. Here is what the first page looks like:

Front page of deed transferring a plot on Edisto Island from John Thorne to Albert Bliging
Executed in January, 1879

After about two exhilarating hours, we took our leave, but not before I took a picture of Nick and Dubose and the great-great-grand-niece of one of the two Black Kings of Edisto, Johnny Thorne.

Nick and Dubose and the great-great-grandniece of
John Thorne, one of the two Black Kings of Edisto Island
Taken at the Lindsay residence on Edisto Island, March, 2014.

It was a very rare day—a day in which worlds collided in ways I could not have imagined.