On the first Saturday of every month since before the Civil War, the Beech Island Farmers Club has met "to discuss agricultural subjects and partake of a barbecue."
Descendants of the founder, former South Carolina Gov. James Henry Hammond, and original members meet with others who have joined through the years to carry on the tradition that began the first Saturday of January 1856.
Augusta lawyer Paul Dunbar, a great-great-grandson of Hammond, who built Redcliffe Plantation in Beech Island, is one of the 100 current members who carry on the tradition in a building whose walls are filled with history and photographs of members of the all-male club.
Though an active member, Mr. Dunbar's photograph isn't among the hundreds lining the walls.
"You have to be dead to be on the wall," he explained. "I haven't cooperated yet."
One photograph shows President William Howard Taft leaving the old Bon Air Hotel.
The caption reads, "They were leaving the Bon Air in their 1909 White Steamer for the Beech Island Farmers' Club, the first car to come to this club. John D. Rockefeller was also with him."
Another photograph shows the president's car on the Sand Bar Ferry crossing the Savannah River. In the distance is a shady, tree-lined lane.
Another photo shows the presidential party and Taft "enjoying the barbecue" beneath the trees outside the clubhouse.
"This would have been around 1909, 1910," Mr. Dunbar said.
"And here's a picture of William Howard Taft in front of the original building."
Caption: "William Howard Taft in Beech Island Agriculture Club, seated in front of original building in conversation with Maj. Harry Hammond. Other people unidentified."
Another large photograph is of Cyrus H. McCormick, the inventor of the reaper.
"He was the one that started the International Harvester Co," Mr. Dunbar said.
Also on the wall is a framed resolution the club passed when Robert E. Lee died in 1870 .
"Whereas the Northern blast brings to us the withered leaves of autumn has also borne the sad intelligence that Gen. Robert E. Lee is dead. Be it therefore resolved that we lately soldiers sitting amid the crumbling ruins of our homes, our fortunes, our institutions and our liberties are filled with feelings of profoundest grief for this pillar of our state, this mighty tower of strength to us in time of sorest trial is also fallen and the sad and solemn echoes that awaits of a past that has no present that it may be no future still thrills us to the utmost fiber of our being."
On May 4, 1946, a celebration was held at the original clubhouse, and a photograph of some of those attending includes Ransom J. Williams, the governor of South Carolina; D.W. Watkins, the director of Clemson College's Extension Service; A.D. Atkinson, the club's oldest member ; A.L.W. Wiggins, Hartsville, S.C.; Dr. J. Robert Lewis; and Gardelle Lewis, the head of the Trust Department at Georgia Railroad Bank.
Each month when the members get together, minutes of the previous meeting are read. The order of business is written out and taped to a table because there are no officers in the club. Instead, a member is nominated each time and elected to preside over the meeting, Mr. Dunbar said.
"So they call the club to order," he said. "They read the minutes of the last meeting. Then they read the minutes of the meeting a hundred years ago.
At this year's May meeting, for instance, they read the minutes from May 4, 1907, Mr. Dunbar said.
"J.H. Westbrook was in the chair," he said. "He was elected. The minutes of the last meeting were read, the roll was called and other routine business gone through. The subject of the next debate, 'The Best Way To Protect The Fertility Of Our Lands' and R.B. Dunbar - that would have been my great uncle - to open the debate, and then they would have had a debate on that subject."
The minutes of that 1907 meeting read, "And R.F. Hutchinson opened the debate, delivered a most interesting, instructive and practical address on the subject. And then Maj. Henry Hammond - that would have been his rank in the Civil War; he had been a major in the Confederate Army - delivered a learned and exhaustive address on the subject. Both the address of Maj. H. Hammond and Mr. Hutchinson were valuable and it would have been well to have had them printed in the press of the day. There being no other business, on motion, the club adjourned. J.C. Gardener, Secretary."
The first Saturday in May, women are invited to the barbecue. The barbecue is cooked all night over live coals in a shed beside the concrete block clubhouse.
The original clubhouse, which was built from virgin cypress wood, was set on fire by an arsonist and burned during the 1960s.
"The subscribers agree to unite in forming a society to be called the Beech Island Farmers Club which will meet the first Saturday of each month at the Beech Island Academy to discuss agricultural subjects and partake of a barbecue. We agree to pay each five dollars per annum in advance to support said society. The first meeting to form said society to take place at the academy on the first Saturday of January 1856."