Wedding & Event Venue Near Camden, SC.

CAMDEN, S.C. (WIS) - After 51 years under the scope of a Camden hospital, the Karesh Long Term Care center has secured its own space. The long-anticipated move came after two decades of discussion and two years of construction for the stand-alone facility off Liberty Hill Road.

The $40 million project was made possible through state funds secured through the Kershaw County Health District. This, according to its Board Chairman Derial Ogburn.

Now titled Karesh at Beechwood, approximately 88 senior residents were relocated from their longstanding facility within the MUSC Health Kershaw Medical Center on Wednesday.

Less than 24 hours in, residents told WIS the new facility was “unbelievable” and far better than its previous location.

90-year-old Thema Bodiford invited us to her new room where WIS Channel 10 was already playing.

“At first, I would say, thank the Lord that they got together, such a beautiful place as this. It’s like being in a hotel… I’ve had some visitors in my room, and they want to take the bathroom home with them,” said Bodiford who moved into the Keresh thirteen months ago.

Karesh at Beechwood is a 95,000 sq. ft. facility that holds 132 beds. The complex is split into three “neighborhoods” that are still being furnished.

“We did try very hard in the hospital to make it more of a home life. And it’s hard to get away from that institutional look. So today, the biggest difference - the care will remain the same, but we have more of the furnishings of an actual home,” said Loretta Wrigley, Director of Nursing.

Karesh Administrator Scott Neal said the expansion comes after a statewide demand for senior living care.

“We have a large waiting list now to get into Karesh. And we will be going through that list as we speak. So, there’s definitely a need here,” said Neal.

Karesh added at least 50 new nurses and certified assistants to the 100-plus staffers carried over from the previous facility.

This new home for 132 seniors includes free-standing departments for food service, laundry, and housekeeping.

“I just love it here. Everyone is so nice. At Karesh wing they were good, but the place is nothing like this one. Kershaw County’s got a lot to be proud of to have this facility in it,” concluded Bodiford.

Neal said they will start admitting those with immediate needs as soon as possible.

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Camden boys tennis snapped its championship drought with a dominating performance on Saturday.

The Bulldogs defeated Daniel, 5-1, to win the Class 3A championship at the Florence Tennis Center.

It is Camden’s second state championship in program history with the other coming in 1992. The Bulldogs were making their first championship appearance since 2010.

Camden’s three previous championship appearances came under Hall of Fame coach Roger Smoak, who won more than 500 matches and is second in the state in wins.

Smoak was in attendance at Saturday’s championship match.

“He is a mentor to our boys and to us,” Camden coach Abby Baytes said. “We love having him around.”

The title is the second for the school this season as Camden’s girls basketball team defeated Wren in March.

It also comes in Baytes’ first year as head coach. She replaced Pamela Smoak, Roger’s daughter, as head coach, and took the job in February right before the season started.

“Piece of cake right?” Baytes joked about winning a title in her first season. “We always knew we could do it but to be here and be reality, it is surreal.”

Baytes inherited a strong team that made it to the Lower State championship before last season but lost to Oceanside.

The team had one senior in the team’s starting rotation, Alex Hinton and two strong players at the top in David Pope and Slade Funderburk. Hank Greenway, Hinton and Wilson Nash, a linebacker on the football team, the team’s No. 3-5 players, stepped up big and didn’t drop a match in the playoffs.

The Bulldogs defeated Beaufort, Waccamaw and Philip Simmons in the postseason to make it to the championship. Camden finished at 13-2 with only losses to Class 5A schools River Bluff and Spartanburg.

“It is kind of unreal if you sit here and think about it,” Hinton said. “We all played well as a team and have been playing well all year. And we got it done. That is all that matters.”

Hinton said he was unsure how to act as he was getting ready to storm the court to celebrate with his teammates. Funderburk clinched the title with a 6-3, 6-2 win.

Then, Pope won his match 6-3, 6-4 to end it as the celebration spilled onto the court and ended with Hinton picking Pope up and Baytes getting doused with water.

“It is something we have been waiting for since we were little,” Hiinton said. “It is everyone’s dream and a dream-come-true-type thing.”

Daniel was making its second straight championship appearance. The Lions lost in the championship to Oceanside Collegiate, which won the 2A title Saturday.

Daniel coach Zaina Nait Omar thought her players might have played a little tight in the championship match.

“I told them we played too tight and that the other team played as if they wanted to win,” Nait Omar said. “They got to learn the lesson from that and they got to learn next when they want to win something, they have to go out and take it.”

Singles: David Pope (C) def. Allen Hong, 6-3, 6-4; Slade Funderburk (C) def. Andrew Mogge, 6-3, 6-2; Hank Greenway (C) def. Brian Truong, 6-2, 6-2; Alex Hinton (C) def. Ian Burton, 6-1, 6-0; Wilson Nash (C) def. Brooks Dunn, 6-2, 6-4. Doubles: Nolan Garrett/Aidan Rollins (D) def. Brett Elliott/James Burns, 6-3, 6-2.

At Dr. Eddie Floyd Florence Tennis Center

Saturday

Class 5A: JL Mann 6, Summerville 0

Class 4A: Myrtle Beach 5, Riverside 1

Class 3A: Camden 5, Daniel 1

Class 2A: Oceanside Collegiate 6, Academic Magnet 0

This story was originally published May 6, 2023, 4:43 PM.

Archaeologists with the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology at USC have studied the Camden Battlefield for decades, but their most recent finding is the discovery of a lifetime.

The SCIAA team found the remains of 14 Revolutionary War soldiers at the historic Camden Battlefield and Longleaf Pine Preserve, the site of a 1780 battle that claimed more lives than any other in the revolution.

“I was standing over the grave of a soldier who woke up that morning not knowing it was his last,” says Doug Bostick, executive director of the South Carolina Battleground Preservation Trust. “It’s a surreal experience that connected me with military history (in a way) that I’ve never felt before.”

The trust preserves historic battle sites across the state, including the Camden site. Together with SCIAA and a handful of other invested organizations, researchers are piecing together what this discovery means for South Carolina's history and what we know about the deadliest battle of the American Revolution.

Steven D. Smith, research professor and lead on the Camden site, says the project aims to learn more about the lives of Revolutionary War soldiers, excavate remains that were endangered from human discovery and rebury them with dignity.

Many people do not realize that historic battle sites are often cemeteries because fallen soldiers were buried where they fell during the Revolutionary War and are still there, says SCIAA archaeologist James Legg, who has studied the Camden battle site since 1980.

Beginning in 2020, SCIAA archaeologists discovered the bodily remains and personal artifacts of several soldiers who fought at the Battle of Camden buried in shallow graves. This year, the Battleground Trust and SCIAA finalized plans to excavate the site.

Working from September to early November, the archaeologists unearthed 14 individuals in seven graves, including one which held five bodies. The shallow gravesites provide insight into burial practices during the war.

“The burials were very cursory in nature,” Legg says. “Prisoners of war were likely made to bury the dead in extremely shallow graves — we’re talking 12 to 14 inches deep. Some of them even showed evidence of plow marks from 20th century farm machinery, that’s how poorly these soldiers were treated.” The manner and location of the graves informs the history of the battle itself, including the participants and the skirmish areas. Artifacts found with the skeletal remains, such as uniform buttons, reveal the soldiers’ allegiances: 12 Continental, one British and one Loyalist.

Outside of the findings’ historical significance, Legg says this new evidence of battle helps solidify the reality of the war, which can be difficult to conceptualize outside of history books.

“It’s almost like a mythology, the Revolution, like a story we all agree happened, but may not feel that it was real. These gravesites make it real.”

Once the graves were identified and assessed, a SCIAA team carefully removed the soldiers’ remains to a lab for further study.

Carlina de la Cova, bioarcheologist and professor of anthropology, said many of the remains were extracted in blocks of soil to limit further damage. De la Cova, along with forensic examiners from the Richland County Coroner’s office, will X-ray the skeletons to learn about out each soldier’s age, height, cause of death and experience of battlefield trauma.

Several of her former students, now working at the coroner’s office, have volunteered to help with the project. Using dental evidence, they’ve already identified the ages of many of the soldiers. At least one half of them were under 35 years old, including two teens estimated to be ages 14-16. The Continentals came from Maryland or Delaware, and the British soldier was from Scotland.

“When we think about the independence of this nation, we think about the Declaration of Independence, we think about Washington crossing the Delaware, but here in South Carolina we have this very tangible evidence that tells the human side of that story,” de la Cova says.

While de la Cova values what she and the other researchers can learn from the fallen soldiers, she says her other focus is identifying the soldiers based on their biological profiles so they can be honored with a proper burial.

After the forensic data is collected, the soldiers will be reinterred in sealed vaults at the locations where they were found on the Camden Battlefield, Bostick says. S.C. Battleground Trust, Historic Camden and Kershaw Country are planning a service for April 2023.

“These are America’s first veterans,” Bostick says. “We think it’s important for the public to be able to see and understand all the things that will happen.”

Until then, the USC researchers will continue to learn what they can from the boys and men who gave the ultimate sacrifice.

“I felt honored to be there, to connect with the men who gave their lives for the liberty that we all enjoy today,” Bostick says. “They gave their lives for what they believed in.”

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Two of them are believed to have been between 14-16 years old and from Maryland.

Credit: South Carolina Battleground Trust Association

CAMDEN, S.C. — The remains of 14 Revolutionary War Soldiers during the Battle of Camden were recently uncovered in shallow graves.

Now, the South Carolina Battleground Preservation Trust says they are uncovering more on identifications and are preparing for proper burials.

According to the Trust, the remains, some less than six inches below the surface in seven separate locations across the battlefield, were located during site research, carefully excavated, and removed over an eight-week period beginning in September.

Through preliminary field examination, the archeology team believes:

Since then, they've begun to uncover ages, identities, and origins.

"We know the ages of all the soldiers," said South Carolina Battleground Preservation Trust CEO Doug Bostick. "They are young, sadly. Two of the soldiers are between 14 and 16 years old."

The two that were aged 14-16 years old, he says, are believed to have been from Maryland, based on artifacts retrieved.

"The loyalist from North Carolina has Native American ancestry that's determined by the incisors that he had in his teeth," Bostick said. "So, this particular group of Loyalists from North Carolina came out of the area where the Lumbee Tribe was pretty prevalent, so it might be he was a Lumbee Indian."

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As for names, Bostick says they are closing in on one of three for the British 71st Regiment of Foot, Fraser's Highlanders. As for the others, it will take some time as they are taking DNA tests from those who have called saying they believe they are related.

"We're just starting the DNA process," Bostick said. "The identification of these remains will extend into the Fall, so this will go past the April re-interment. When these soldiers are re-interned in April, we'll mark them with a simple headstone that says "Unknown Continental Soldier," but later, when we identify some of them, we will come back and put a headstone with their name on them."

As they continue the search for information, plans for a proper ceremony have been come together.

"We've invited every embassy or consulate of everyone who fought in this battle," Bostick said. "So, we have the French involved, there were French officers serving with the Patriot Army. Certainly, we had the British there, of course, but we also had Germans there."

The ceremonies will kick off on Thursday, April 20, with a precession through Fort Jackson. They will pass by all the public schools from Columbia to Camden.

The next day, April 21, there will be a concert from U.S. Army's old band.

Then, on Saturday, April 22, there will be two ceremonies to honor the soldiers.

CAMDEN, S.C. (WIS) - A team of archaeologists uncovered the remains of multiple revolutionary war soldiers from the Battle of Camden.

The South Carolina Battleground Preservation Trust announced on Veterans Day the discovery of 14 soldiers at the site. The trust acted on behalf of the Historic Camden Foundation and contracted the South Carolina Insitute of Archaeology and Anthropology.

The team of archaeologists included members of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, biological anthropologists from the Richland County Coroner’s Office, and USC.

The battle on Aug. 16, 1780, was a victory for the British on the southern front of the Revolutionary War. The rout happened after Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates marched into South Carolina intending to free the area from British occupation.

As Gates approached Camden, the British commander Charles Cornwallis took to the field against him.

Changes in leadership after the battle altered the course of the war. This led to Maj. Gen. Nathanael Green being promoted to command in the south. The British army was eventually pushed back and evacuated from Charleston, SC in Dec. 1782.

“These young men demonstrated their allegiance in an intense battle for liberty. They are truly America’s first veterans,” said Doug Bostick, CEO, of the South Carolina Battleground Preservation Trust.

An initial examination led the teams to believe that twelve bodies are Patriot Continental Soldiers from Maryland or Delaware. One is likely a North Carolina Loyalist and one served with the British 71st Regiment of Foot, Fraser’s Highlanders.

Many of the remains were discovered less than six inches below the surface at seven sites across the battlefield. They were removed from the ground over an eight-week period that started in September.

University of South Carolina Research Professor and Principal Investigator Dr. Steven D. Smith described how the continental soldiers were found in mass graves, while the British soldier appeared to be ceremonially buried.

“[It was] a hot August day and the losers weren’t there to bury their dead and the winners were, the British, and I don’t think they took much time in digging graves,” he said.

Bostick described finding some soldiers being found face down.

SCIAA archaeologist James Legg led the onsite field team, “The work we are doing honors their sacrifice by shedding light on details that are not yet documented in the historical record and by providing them with decently marked graves for the contemplation of battlefield visitors.”

The Richland County Coroner’s Office said it is one of only two offices in the state with forensic anthropologists. Dr. Bill Stevens the deputy coroner said the team will work over the next five months to identify the soldiers and gather information on them.

Smith said information is limited, but it does appear two soldiers were teens.

Planning is underway for reinterment ceremonies for April 20-22 in 2023 in Camden.

Bostick said, “When these young men marched into the darkness on that summer night in 1780, they did so out of love for their country despite the consequences that may befall them. Our intent is to lay them to rest with the respect and honor they earned more than two centuries ago.”

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