Hunter's Volunteers

Front: This site once beloned to Hunter’s Volunteers, an African American militia est. on James Island by 1877. Part of the S.C. National Guard, the unit kept an enlistment of 30-40 men tasked with helping preserve civil order. Most of them were farmers or laborers. The unit was disbanded in 1891 after trying to stop the arrest of a Black man in Charleston but was reinstated in 1892. Reverse: In 1899, Hunter’s Volunteers bought this site from Sarah Grimball and Henry Grimball. Over time, the unit became more of a mutual aid society and social club than a military outfit. In 1897, a year after being disarmed by the state, members chartered the Hunter Volunteer Charitable Society. A two-story wooden building razed in the 1960s served as their lodge and may have originally been an armory.