Singleton and Related Genealogy Pages
A history of many families.
1904 - | Name | Martha Priscilla “Priscilla/Cilla” SHAW [3, 4] | |
| Birth | 29 Aug 1904 | Alcolu, South Carolina  [4, 5] |
| Gender | Female | |
| Education | she was educated in the Sumter City Schools; she attended Agnes Scott College for a year, graduating from Cambridge, Massachusetts’ innovative and progressive Sargent School for Physical Education in 1925 [4] | |
| HIST | She served on the legislative committee to the American Municipal Association. She received national attention on ABC Television’s “Woman’s World.” She taught for 15 years and directed her own camp at Roaring Gap, North Carolina, for 25 years. She is now connected with the Alderman-Shaw business corporation in Sumter and she always finds time to serve in her church and in several civic groups. From 1929 to 1950, she was an owner and the director of Silver Pines, a private summer camp for girls in Blowing Gap, North Carolina. Businessman, former mayor's nephew announces Sumter City Council bid Improving race relations, unity are major goals of his campaign, Gifford Shaw says Posted Wednesday, May 20, 2020 6:00 am BY BRUCE MILLS bruce@theitem.com A life-long Sumterite and businessman says he hopes it's his personal growth in race relations and love for community that will move people to vote him onto a presumably open Sumter City Council seat. Gifford Shaw spoke earlier this week on his plan to file this summer and run to represent Ward 6 on council in the November general election. The ward is up for election this year, and Councilman David Merchant announced at the end of January he's running instead for mayor after Mayor Joe McElveen announced he will retire after 20 years and not seek re-election. Shaw, 64, said he's been drawn to run by a desire to serve his community and work toward greater awareness of community needs, improved race relations and unity. He said in 2017 he began to slow his business travel from a career in the building materials industry and became more involved in the Sumter community. As he got involved and met more people from different races and backgrounds, Shaw said, he began to have a greater understanding and appreciation of the overall needs in the city. In recent years, he said, he and the church he attends - Westminster Presbyterian Church on Alice Drive - have started to create a relationship with Jehovah Missionary Baptist Church on South Harvin Street in South Sumter. Also in recent years, Shaw has served on the Sumter Mayor's Compassion Committee, organized by McElveen, which seeks to increase dialogue and understanding across race and socioeconomic lines in the city. Shaw has additionally chaired the Mayor's Prayer Breakfast for the last three years and calls it "a great cooperation between government, faith, individual and community leaders." The prayer breakfast is an example of something that is working well, he said, and efforts need to be continued in a similar manner to address community needs. "We need to all work together to see the needs in our community and make people more aware of those needs," Shaw said. "Then, with understanding comes willingness of time and funding." Initially, he said, the idea to run for council came at the request of others. But then he saw a quote about his great-aunt, Priscilla Shaw, on Wikipedia. He knew he wanted to run. His aunt was mayor of Sumter from 1952-'56, becoming the first female mayor in the state and Sumter's only female mayor. The online quote says, "In 1955, Mayor Shaw's invitation to all of the ministers of the community to attend a joint meeting in an effort to ease racial tensions in the city met with a formal rebuff from the white ministers, who, in a joint letter, called such a meeting 'not wise.' Most of the white ministers did not attend." Shaw said he was born in 1955 and that now 64 years later there is still a need to come together and work at being one in Sumter. "She was one of my favorite people," he said, "and I thought, 'She would want me to be doing this.'" "What she was working toward in 1955," Shaw added, "is even what I want to continue today, and that is just a coming together of people across socioeconomic, race and ethnicity toward a greater understanding and unity in Sumter." A 1977 graduate of Clemson University with a bachelor's of science in accounting, Shaw started Shaw Components, a wood truss manufacturing plant, in 1981 in Sumter with seven employees. In 1998, the company had grown to more than 100 employees when he sold it to Builders FirstSource. He stayed on with the company as its vice president of manufacturing for 10 years. In 2009, Shaw began another building materials supply company that he sold in October 2019. Currently, he's the owner of a local commercial rental real estate firm, P&L Co., in Sumter. His great-uncle was Lt. Ervin D. Shaw, for which Shaw Air Force Base is named. City races are nonpartisan, though Shaw describes himself as "historically conservative but growing more community progressive." He said he hopes it's the knowledge of who he is as a person and where he is going that moves people to vote for him. Shaw and his wife, Marian, have three daughters and six grandchildren. He is an elder at Westminster. Shaw previously served on the Tuomey Hospital Board of Directors in 2014-'15 when it merged with Palmetto Health and currently also serves on the Tuomey Foundation Board. Ward 6 spans an area west of downtown that encompasses Swan Lake-Iris Gardens and neighborhoods to the south around Green Swamp, USC Sumter and neighborhoods around Alice Drive up to Wesmark Boulevard. One other person has expressed interest to The Sumter Item in running for the seat. Eddie Drayton, a private investigator, spoke with the newspaper in February about his mulling over the race. An article detailing the conversation can be found at www.theitem.com/election2020. The filing fee for city council seats - up for election are Wards 2, 4 and 6 - is $240, is done through the city clerk's office and will open on July 15 at noon. City races will also include other nonpartisan seats such as mayor and Sumter's school board. Only those who live in Ward 6 can run for and vote for that seat. Every city resident who is registered to vote in the Nov. 3 election can vote for mayor. Reflections by Sammy Way: Part II: Women who helped shape Sumter's history Posted Saturday, March 26, 2022 6:00 am By SAMMY WAY Sumter Item archivist and historian Reports on women of significance in Sumter County's history begin with Julia Peterkin and concludes with Emma Wilson. The Item archives and the writings of Cassie Nicholes and Dr. Anne King Gregorie served as primary resources. These individuals represent only a small segment of the women who have helped shape the history of Sumter County. Cassie Nicholes was "a native of the Privateer section of Sumter County and was the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. I.M. Nicholes. She began her formal education in a one-room, one-teacher school near Bethel Baptist Church. She entered Coker College in Hartsville at the age of 17, majoring in Latin and minoring in English. She furthered her education by attending Furman University and the University of South Carolina, where she did graduate work in English. She also studied the Old and New Testaments and elementary Greek at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Miss Nicholes' career spanned 45 years teaching Latin, French and English in schools in several South Carolina communities. While at Edmunds High, she served as adviser for the yearbook and the newspaper. She was a member of the Mayesville Baptist Church and resided in Sumter since 1975. She also wrote for the Sumter News, serving as a feature writer and feature editor. Following her retirement from public education, she authored two volumes of Historical Sketches of Sumter County." According to an article written for The Sumter Daily Item on July 22, 1990, "Mrs. Julia Mood Peterkin was born in Laurens County on Halloween night in 1880. She was the daughter of Dr. Julius Mood, a Sumter physician who founded the Mood Clinic, a predecessor to Prisma Tuomey Health Center. He also served as part-time writer and editor of The Watchman and Southron newspaper." Peterkin died in 1961 in Orangeburg and was interred in the St. Matthews Church cemetery. She graduated from Converse College at the age of 16, where she also completed her master's degree before moving to Fort Motte in Calhoun County to teach. There she met William Peterkin, heir to Lang Syne Plantation, whom she married. Dr. Harry Bellaman, who introduced her to Carl Sandburg, encouraged her to write. Her publications included Green Thursday 1924, Black April 1927, Bright Skin 1932, Roll Jordan Roll 1933, A Plantation Christmas 1934 and Scarlet Sister Mary, for which she received the Pulitzer Prize in 1928. "By the 1940's, her career as a writer was over, but her primary career remained mistress of Lang Syne Plantation the rest of her life." Martha Priscilla Shaw was born on Aug. 29, 1904, in Alcolu, a small town in Clarendon, South Carolina. "She was the daughter of David Charles and Lula Alderman Shaw and granddaughter of D. W. Alderman, who built the town around his lumber business." In 1909, the Shaw family moved to Sumter. She and her siblings, one of which was Ervin David Shaw, for whom Shaw Air Force Base is named, graduated from Sumter city schools. After graduation, she enrolled at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, for one year before moving to Sargent College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, from which she received a degree in physical education in 1925. She later completed her graduate work at Boston University. Shaw became the first physical education teacher in the Sumter city schools and served in this capacity for 15 years. She served as principal of the Girls' High School for one year, and for 25 years, she owned and operated Seven Pines summer camp for girls in Roaring Gap, North Carolina. Shaw was elected to city council in 1950 and later mayor of Sumter in 1952, becoming the state's first female mayor and one of very few female mayors in the nation. On Nov. 10, 1955, she was honored by the United Church Women, receiving a citation that read "For Your Christian Citizenship Reflected in Your Active Participation in Making and Maintaining Good Government." She was also recognized by Beta Sigma Phi as the "First Lady of the Year" in 1974. "She also received national attention through ABC television's Woman's World. She died on Feb. 9, 1981." Dr. Agnes J. Hilderbrand Wilson Burgess, "the daughter of the Rev. Benjamin Franklin and Agnes Brogdon Hilderbrand, was born in Chapin, South Carolina. She enrolled in Allen University in 1935 and completed her degree in French and journalism. Wilson obtained her masters in education from Temple University in Philadelphia and studied library science at Atlanta University. She began her teaching career in Manning and continued in Spartanburg before coming to Sumter to teach at Lincoln High School. She received a Fulbright Scholarship and taught in France during the summer of 1955. She was named S.C. Teacher of the Year in 1969, becoming the first African American to be so honored; furthermore, she was one of the five national finalists in the program. She became the sponsor of the Lincoln School newspaper Echo, which earned highest possible ratings from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association for 12 consecutive years. She wrote and directed student dramas; she was instrumental in establishing a student-announced radio program. Dr. Wilson continued to serve within the field of education in numerous state and national offices, always encouraging students to achieve their potential. Dr. Agnes Burgess died on Oct. 6, 2012." Emma Wilson (photo unavailable) "was born in Mayesville and was the daughter of Venice Wilson, an enslaved individual prior to the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. She was taught the alphabet by her master's son and soon developed writing skills. Wilson attended the Goodwill Mission School seven miles from where she lived. She was selected to attend the Scotis Seminary located in Concord, North Carolina. Wilson desired to build a school at which Black children could obtain an education and, to that end, successfully founded the Mayesville Educational and Industrial School in 1892." Wilson was hopeful that the school would become another Tuskegee Institute. "Philanthropists sent her to run the school which was often called by her name." Dr. Anne King Gregorie stated that Emma Wilson was "the only Black woman publisher in this area who published a small monthly paper which the Osteen Printing Co. printed." The publication was a small four- to eight-page paper and, according to Dr. Gregorie, "She had a difficult time in paying for it, but always managed to meet the printing bill. Miss Wilson resigned as principal of the Mayesville school in July of 1924, noting that she had been ill for two years." [1, 2, 3, 4] | |
| Occupation | in 1955 she was elected mayor of Sumter, a first woman mayor for the city and for the state, as well; she taught in the Sumter City Schools from 1925 to 1939, where she was acting principal of the GIrls’ High School for a year [4, 5] | |
| _UID | 20A0EEE2EC334B79BFF2CAF6D656A7580F6E | |
| Person ID | I127906 | Singleton and Related Families |
| Last Modified | 10 Apr 2022 | |
| Father | David Charles SHAW, Sr., b. 27 Jun 1871, Sumter, Sumter County, South Carolina d. 7 Mar 1942, Decatur, Alabama (Age 70 years) | |
| Mother | Mary Lula “Lula” ALDERMAN, b. 7 Mar 1871, Clarendon County, South Carolina d. 8 Jul 1923, Sumter, Sumter County, South Carolina (Age 52 years) | |
| Marriage | 27 Dec 1892 [4] | |
| _UID | D5923BB44ECA41018C1ADD4A1FA87D9556DE | |
| _UID | D5923BB44ECA41018C1ADD4A1FA87D9556DE | |
| Family ID | F87867 | Group Sheet | Family Chart |
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