The Section Boat: A Sumter Sportsman’s Legacy

In an era before outboard motors or trucks with trailers, hunting and fishing boats often became waterlogged and too heavy to move. Even if a sportsman could move his boat, bad roads to the river, and lack of space on a train or in a wagon made the transport of boats even more difficult. That is until the invention of the section boat by a Sumter man named Edward Richardson “Toot” Sanders. Mr. Sanders was born in 1845 in Sumter and was a Confederate Civil War veteran, master carpenter, and machinist. A shorter man, Toot always sported a bushy mustache and “several layers” of clothes no matter the weather, according to his family.

An avid sportsman Toot spent much of his time with his friends traveling in, and hunting around the Wateree River. After years of encountering all the typical problems of moving a boat to and from the river, around 1900 Toot used his skills as a master carpenter and machinist to create a unique solution. By constructing 3 small boats that could be nested inside of each other, then bolted back together to form one long boat, the section boat was born. This solved the logistics problems many hunters had previously dealt with.

Typically carved from cypress or longleaf heart pine, the section boat rapidly gained popularity all around South Carolina for its ease of use and transport. Some section boats reached up to 16 feet or more in length when bolted together, and many featured unique attachments or designs. The compact nature of the section boat also gave rise to a new breed of hunting dog, the Boykin Spaniel. The dogs small stature, hardy nature, and skills as a retriever made it an ideal hunting dog for the sportsmen who traveled the Wateree in section boats. The rise in the breeds popularity directly corelates to the invention and production of section boats in and around Sumter County. A humble man Toot never patented his design or profited off it, preferring instead to simply enjoy it with his friends. Toot Sanders passed away in 1922, and soon after as trucks to haul boats became more popular and affordable for hunters, the section boat gradually fell out of use. Today section boats are all but a myth on South Carolina waterways, with one of the very few known section boats residing at the Sumter County Museum, currently being restored for display.

Images include Toot himself, a section boat diagram (top), and one of Toot’s hunting parties in 1904. Information for this post was sourced from “The Last Section Boat: Raised From The Dead” by Mike Creel of The Resource, “Tales Of Toot” By Jacqueline Ulsh of The Sumter Daily Item, and Boykinspaniel.org.

Big Bertha: Sumter County’s Iconic Tow Truck

John Evans Garage, now known as Evans Trailers in Sumter, South Carolina, has operated for more than 100 years. Despite no longer serving as a car repair garage, Evans once operated one of the most iconic tow trucks in the County: Big Bertha. Big Bertha was a Ford Model-A tow truck from the early 1930s. She would have featured a 40-50 horsepower 4-cylinder diesel engine, with a 3 speed manual transmission. While her color is unknown to the Museum, she was emblazoned with the words “Turn Em Over Boys Big Bertha Don’t Care” on both sides of her tow bed. She also featured a large sign on her roof that read “BIG BERTHA”. Evans Garage used Big Bertha to tow more than just cars, as there are photos of her hauling large tree stumps, and other organic materials. The exact length of Bertha’s service and her fate are unknown, but dating on photos suggests she was in use until at least the mid 1940s.

Photos of Big Bertha are available to view at the Sumter County Museum, and John Evans Garage now known as Evans Trailers, is located on Highway 15 in Sumter.

Phil Edwards: Success On and Off the Court

Phil Edwards was a successful businessman, philanthropist, and near lifelong Sumter resident. In addition to his achievements as Vice President of the Williams Furniture Corporation, he served as the executor of the Martha Williams-Brice Estate. Its because of Mr. Edwards that many prominent buildings around South Carolina bear the Williams-Brice name. Among these are the University of South Carolina Williams-Brice football stadium, and the Williams-Brice Recreation Center at Coastal Carolina University.

But perhaps the achievements that Mr. Edwards was most proud of, were those on the tennis court. An avid and lifelong tennis player, Mr. Edwards played competitively into his senior years. He was at one point the top ranked male tennis player in South Carolina, and often competed in mixed doubles matches with his wife Flora. The Edwards became mixed doubles champions at tournaments around South Carolina, and Mr. Edwards continued to win singles matches well into his 70s.

Mr. Edwards can be seen in the first photo on the left, serving the ball in the second photo, and his wife Flora can be seen in the third photo below on the left as well. These and other photos and stories of Mr. Edwards are available to be seen at the Sumter County Museum.

Marion Seabrook's "Rhyme and Reason of American History" Book of Poems

Poems about historical events are not that uncommon, but entire books about a countries history told through poems certainly are.

The Rhyme and Reason of American History by renowned Sumter lawyer and historian, Marion Seabrook, is one of those uncommon books. Written in 1928, Mr. Seabrook’s work begins with the American Revolution, and covers events like the Gettysburg Address, Transcontinental Railroad Completion, and World War I. It also contains a poem for each of the original 13 states, and each year of the US Civil War!

All of the poems were written by Mr. Seabrook, and it is unknown how many copies were produced. The Sumter County Museum’s copy of The Rhyme and Reason of American History is available for viewing, and is a great way to see history combined with poetry.”

The Edison Phonograph

American inventor Thomas Edison is responsible for many famous creations, but his favorite was the phonograph. Edison devised his earliest phonograph prototypes in the mid 1870s, and by 1877 he had invented a device that could both record and playback sound. This early device worked by imprinting the vibrations of sound it picked up onto tinfoil cylinders with a needle. It could then play back those vibrations up to 1 minute long. 

Edison had initially not intended for the machine to be used for music. Many of the uses Edison envisioned we have today, like audio books, voice dictation for writing, and clocks that read out the time. When Edison began to market and sell the machine in 1878, recording music quickly became the most popular use for it. By the turn of the century you could record up to 4 minutes of sound on wax cylinders, and prerecorded music was being marketed and sold to the public. However, the cylinder method of recording died out relatively quickly. By 1915 even the Edison Company had mostly stopped producing them. By 1929 cylinder playing phonographs had been discontinued altogether in favor of record players.

Recently at the Sumter County Museum we uncovered a 1903 Edison phonograph in our collection! Its in pristine condition, and we believe its in working order. While we don’t currently have any wax cylinders to play on it, we’re hoping to acquire some to play in the next few months! Once we’ve got a new cylinder or 2, you can expect to see the phonograph belting out tunes in the Williams Brice House.

Sources for this post include: “The Fabulous Phonograph: From Tin Foil to High Fidelity” by Roland Gelatt, “America on Record: A History of Recorded Sound” by Andre Millard, and “Edison Cylinder Records 1889-1912” by Allen Koenigsberg.

"Their Children Rise and Call them Blessed:" One Sumter Family's Story of Love and the Civil War

At first glance, Perry and Rosalie Moses appear to be an ordinary Reconstruction era couple. Perry sports a thick yet well kept beard, pocket watch, and gentleman’s bowtie. Rosalie wears a long hand-made dress, a family brooch, and keeps her hair modestly tied back. Their story, however, is anything but ordinary. Perry and Rosalie, both from Jewish families, met as a result of the Civil War. At only sixteen years old, Perry received an honorable discharge from the Citadel Military College so that he could enlist in the Confederate Army. He served at The First Battle of Bull Run, The Siege of Vicksburg, and The Battle of Fort Blakeley in Mobile, Alabama. It was because of his stationing in Mobile that he would meet Rosalie, and it was a direct result of the ensuing bloody battle that he would become engaged to her.

Rosalie’s father Jack Levy, a prominent doctor from New Orleans, had taken refuge in Mobile with his family to escape the siege on their home city. As an old friend of Perry’s father, Andrew, Dr. Levy took it upon himself to look after Perry to the best of his ability when he discovered the boy was stationed in Mobile. The Levys often hosted Perry for dinner, where he would meet and become close with their daughter, Rosalie. During the Battle of Fort Blakeley, Confederate forces were defeated and Perry was wounded. He was taken to a field hospital where he was visited by Dr. Levy, who asked him to come his home, where he could receive better care. Perry agreed on the condition that he be allowed to marry Rosalie, a condition to which she readily agreed.

The two were married the very next day, remarkably the same day that General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox. Because news of the war’s end traveled so slowly, and fighting was still going on, the wedding ceremony had barely finished when an old servant hurried into the room exclaiming “Run Cap’n run; the Yankees are after you!” Perry was then forced to flee and it would be another three long months before he would see his new bride again. After being reunited, the couple lived in many different places as their fortunes fluctuated. First in Sumter, South Carolina, then in Lafayette, Louisiana, where five of their seven children were born. They then relocated to Beltbuckle, Tennessee, where their last two children were born. In all these places, Perry had affectionately named their homesteads ‘Rosedale’, after his beloved wife. After crop failure doomed their homesteading effort in Tennessee, the family returned once more to Sumter where Perry started a saw mill, a lumber business, and eventually a successful cotton oil mill.

Perry and Rosalie were married more than fifty years until Perry’s death in 1916. They were well-liked and respected members of both their large family and of the Sumter community. The couple were buried in Temple Sinai Jewish Cemetery and their gravestones were inscribed thusly: “Their children rise and call them blessed”. The epitaph is truly fitting as a tribute to the lives of two extraordinary people.

The main sources for this post were “The Story Of A Good Life” by Dorothy Phelps-Bultman, a descendant of the Moses’s, and “It Takes A Heap O’Living” By Ruth J. Edens. These photos and many more of the family can be seen at the Sumter County Museum.