FREE History Comes Alive Festival
FREE shows! A ten-day, two-weekend festival offering entertaining historically accurate storytelling. Get ready to travel in time and interact with five historical characters. Daytime indoor and evening outdoor events. You’ll laugh, cry and flat out have a great time.
For the 250th anniversary of America’s Revolutionary War – Chautauqua explores “Revolutionary Americans.” We celebrate those in the Carolinas who fought for freedom and those who continued to fight to make America a more perfect union.
Captain Henry Felder – Brought from Switzerland as a boy, Felder settled in the South Carolina backcountry. To fight British tyranny in 1776, Felder wrote a Declaration of Separation from the English King and, along with his sons, led a militia company to fight “all for liberty.”
Rebecca Motte – A prominent early Patriot supporter, Motte’s wild adventures during the British siege of Charleston included her later escape upriver to help destroy the British headquarters in her occupied home!
Edgar Allan Poe – Orphaned as a child, Poe became one of America’s great literary innovators. As an unsurpassed teller of tales he created the detective genre as well as dark romantic poetry and short stories that set new literary standards.
Mother Jones – Following the deaths of her family from yellow fever and the destruction of her business in the Great Chicago Fire, Jones became a labor leader, organizer and activist. She helped secure bans on child labor and co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World. She was called “the most dangerous woman in America.”
Paul Robeson – A two-time All-American college footballer who played on two NFL teams, Robeson completed a law degree and became a star on stage as well as a famed concert singer and an A-list movie star. He was one of the greatest inspirational figures of the Harlem Renaissance and an outspoken crusader for social justice.
