FREEDMAN, CYRUS GARVEY, BUILT HIS HOME ON THE MAY
In 1870, the Civil War had been over for several years, and most of Bluffton lay in ruin, having been burned and ransacked by Union troops seven years earlier. On the May Rivers high bluff, where a fine home had once stood, Cyrus Garvey obtained permission from his employer to build his own home.
Cyrus Garvey was an enterprising Lowcountry farmer, born into slavery in 1820, and raised on Garvey Hall Plantation, which is over 1,000 acres of land where the burgeoning Bluffton communities of New Riverside are now located. Cyrus’ mother was an enslaved plantation worker and his father was quite possibly plantation owner John Garvey, since Cyrus is listed as “mulatto” in the 1870 census. In that year, at the age of 41, Cyrus built his dream home on the bluff with his own hands.
After the war, Cyrus worked as a foreman for Joseph Baynard, who owned Montpelier Plantation, on the banks of the May River in present-day Palmetto Bluff. In fact, the location of the Cyrus Garvey House is directly across the river from where Montpelier Plantation’s fields once bordered the May, and it is not hard to imagine that Cyrus might have crossed the river by boat to work when the time and tide allowed. By the time the census was taken in 1870, Cyrus had already acquired 75 acres of land, a horse, a mule and four pigs. He married a woman named Ellie and they had a son named Isaac. Cyrus raised rice, cotton, Indian corn, peas, beans and sweet potatoes on his land, and he slaughtered and sold livestock as well. When the 15th amendment to the Constitution gave Freedmen the right to vote, Cyrus registered before the bill was yet ratified, becoming one of our state‘s first official African-American voters.
Garvey was indeed a good businessman, and he acquired an acre of land that would eventually become the site for St. Matthew’s Baptist Church in Pritchardville. On the deed of the land sale, in 1900, the illiterate man signs his name as Cyrus Garvey, once and for all establishing himself as a Garvey. The practice of taking the name of a former plantation owner was fairly common at the time, and it is evident that Cyrus had strong ties to Garvey Hall, and to John Garvey and his family name. Cyrus lived in the home that he built on the bluff for 20 years before buying the house and land from Baynard in 1890.
The very next year, in 1891, Cyrus purchased the land between his house and the river for $3.50. It is important to note that the land deed for this sale was signed by then SC Governor, Ben “Pitchfork” Tillman, who was an outspoken white supremacist. Reconstruction was not easy for a mulatto freedman, where many whites continued to shun African-Americans’ equality and rights. Only a clever and wise man could have navigated the social, racial and economic pressures of the times, and Cyrus was known to be a strongly spiritual man.
Today, Cyrus Garvin’s house still proudly stands on the high bluff overlooking the Bluffton Oyster Company and the May River below. Owned by Beaufort County, the house was lovingly rehabilitated by the Town of Bluffton and Beaufort County Land Trust with grants from public and private sources. Guided tours of the house with narrative about Cyrus Garvey are available, learn more by calling 843-757-6293
Kelly Logan Graham is Executive Director of the Bluffton Historical Preservation Society, which owns and operates the Heyward House Museum, which is the official Welcome Center for the Town of Bluffton.