Mary Kirk Pinckney Easterling Powell
Written by Michele Roldán-Shaw
local author and beloved matriarch of the prolific Pinckney family, would have been 100 years old this month. She passed away on September 2, 2009, 
at the age of 99. Mary Powell grew up in Bluffton, on the Okatie River bluffs of Pinckney Colony. She learned early on the importance of family, history and heritage, and she carried this with her through life. Her three books about Pinckney Colony—Over Home, Back Over Home, and Back Home Roots—are not only invaluable records to members of the Pinckney family, but also wonderful resources to anyone interested in local history.
Mary had fifteen brothers and sisters, and all around her in the idyllic setting of rural Bluffton were extended family members: grandparents, aunts and uncles and over ninety first cousins alone. She graduated from the University of South Carolina with a degree in education, and later earned her master’s in remedial reading. She married James Barnes Easterling and together they had three children. They lived in Greenville and Columbia, but after her husband died in 1970, Mary knew it was time to return to her beloved Beaufort County. She worked as the Beaufort County Reading Supervisor and became very involved in the community, often giving presentations to share her knowledge about local history. She was constantly organizing family reunions that brought together the many disparate branches of the Pinckney family, whose members seem to be as numerous and far-flung as stars in a galaxy. She was also very dedicated to restoring family cemeteries and erecting historical markers throughout the area.
In her preface to Back Over Home: The Heritage of Pinckneys of Pinckney Colony, Bluffton, South Carolina, Mary said of her research, “In this long and adventurous quest a common and familiar beat oftentimes could be discerned as if being transmitted from one generation to another expressing a closeness to the land and nature; a feel for music, dance and poetry; and a love for God, Country and fellowman. An inheritance so bountiful and inexhaustible as these endowed gifts had to have been hand turned with hearth care within these magnetic family centers, linking “Over Home” with “Over Home” down through the ages.”
In 2005 at the age of 96, Mary published her third book, Back Home Roots: A Missing Chapter in the Story of Pinckney Colony, which focused on the legacy of the blacks at Pinckney Colony. In November 2005 the Bluffton Breeze caught up with still nimbleminded Mary (don’t we all wish to be that way at 96!) and interviewed her about her new book, as well as her unique perspective on Bluffton life.
On her genealogical work: “If you do research on your family, the Lord will bless you. He’ll lay down the red carpet for you. It keeps your mind active and it’s a lot of fun for me.”
On the vastness of the Pinckney family: “We’ve tried to count the other generations, the cousins once-removed and all that, and eventually you just give up. I bet there’s a thousand of them! But we just claim kin, it doesn’t matter.”
On development: “I think the land is one thing that draws people together. Of course, the Pinckneys never thought that land would be sold for development. We thought it would be agricultural forever. I know we can’t expect things to stay the same forever, but I wish the developers would try to appreciate what Bluffton is and try to keep it as friendly as we can.”
On researching and writing Back Over Home: “I know some people would be afraid to do what I’ve done, but I never hesitate to go talk to the blacks. For me, it’s just going over to a friend’s house for a visit.”
On white-black relations in Pinckney Colony: “Everything on the farm was cooperative and that’s the way we got along. They helped with the dairy and then they got dairy products, like milk, butter and clabber. When they went fishing, they’d bring us fish and we’d give them lard to fry it in. At hog-killing time, all the black women and men would come to help and they got things from the hog-killing. There was never any money exchanged; the only ones that were paid regularly were the field-hands who tended the fields.”
Why some people can’t just get along: “Because they don’t know each other. And they’re not forgiving. When we were growing up in Pinckney Colony, all the blacks and whites knew each other’s families, and we grew to love and understand one another. Families who didn’t grow up that way are the ones who have hatred and resentment in their hearts because people fear what they don’t understand.”
On living in Bluffton: “We need to count our blessings. We live in the Garden of Eden. That’s what Bluffton is, the Garden of Eden, and we have so many blessings.”
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