Archibald Hamilton Rutledge 1883-1973

First Poet Laureate of South Carolina

Archibald Rutledge was born on October 23, 1883 in McClellanville, South Carolina to Henry Middleton Rutledge and Margaret Hamilton Seabrook Rutledge. In 1907, he received a M.A. from Union College. From 1904 to 1937, he was a Professor of English at Mercersburg Academy in the mountains of Southern Pennsylvania. He returned to his old rice plantation home at Hampton in 1937.

He began writing in his late teens until he was well past eighty. He wrote hundreds of stories and articles for magazines, as well as books of poetry and collected writings. Most of his writings are about the Low Country of South Carolina. He wrote about wrens, mockingbirds, rattlesnakes, alligators, turkey, deer and ducks. He also wrote about the land and people who lived during his lifetime. His writing is nostalgic with a profound love of the land and its wildlife.

He was named Poet Laureate of South Carolina beginning in 1934 by legislative action. Rutledge was also South Carolina's elector to the Hall of Fame. Before he died, he recorded seventy-five of his poems for the Library of Congress. In addition, over sixty of his poems have been set to music. During his lifetime, Mr. Rutledge received seventeen honorary degrees. He was also the recipient of more than thirty medals, including the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing.

In 1971 – Archibald Rutledge and his family gave Hampton Plantation to the South Carolina State Park Service. It became a State Historic Site and was opened to the public

He died on September 15, 1973,weeks before his ninetieth birthday in the same room he was born in.

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LIFE'S EXTRAS

by Archibald Rutledge

A wonderful little book of meditations which illustrates Rutledge's love of nature, his deep faith and his spiritual vision. This is a sweet little book of reveries on the blessings that lie in the little unnecessary things of life. Creation supplies us with just two kinds of things: necessities and extras. This book is one of the extras for which the reader will resolve to be a better person. Great for gift giving and personal inspiration, this book was once given by Henry Ford to all twenty-five thousand of his employees.

Includes line drawings by Rutledge. 45 pages. 1988.

Hardcover, ISBN 13: 978-0-87844-080-1; ISBN 10: 0-87844-080-1, $11.95

HOME BY THE RIVER
by Archibald Rutledge HOME BY THE RIVER

by Archibald Rutledge

The story of Rutledge's return after 44 years to Hampton Plantation, his boyhood home. Built in 1730, the stately mansion and its extensive grounds and woodlands are now one of South Carolina's state parks. The restoration of this house and reminiscences about Rutledge's early years there captures the unique spirit of Hampton.

Hampton Plantation whose two-thousand acres spread along the southern bank of the great Santee River in coastal South Carolina had been in the Rutledge family since 1686. From this house, the British Colonel Banastre Tarleton stole the parish Bible and prayer book. It served as the headquarters of General Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox of the Revolution. Once, when surprised by "No-Quarter" Tarleton, he broke the arm off the ebony Chippendale chair in which he was dozing.

Here lived Edward Rutledge, the Signer, and John Rutledge, the able Governor of South Carolina. In 1791, when George Washington made his triumphal tour of the South he stayed at Hampton.

This is the book that earned Rutledge a Nobel Prize nomination and has been in print continuously since 1941. 196 pages. 1983.

Hardcover, ISBN 13: 978-0-87844-032-0; ISBN 10: 0-87844-032-1, $18.95

From the book:

"At the age of fifty-six, after an absence of forty-four years, I returned to the country where I was born...Hampton Plantation, in the coastal country of South Carolina, forty miles northeast of Charleston, is the ancient home of my ancestors and because, since my return, so many adventures have befallen me, I believe it worth while to record them. There is a theory that those who gamble can't win, but the fact of the matter is that those who do not gamble can't win....

Nowhere else in the world has nature been kinder to her children than in those regions where the great plantations were formed out of the Eden-like wilderness of the Low Country. And that charm is an eternal one: though the civilization that it cradled and nourished has passed away, the charm survives. The home remains lovely after the guests are gone."

ARCHIBALD RUTLEDGE, The Man and His Books