Charleston County · Marker 10-108
Hunter's Volunteers
SW corner of Grimball Rd. and Riverland Dr., James Island vicinity
Front inscription
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 inscription
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.