Charles B. Baxley, a long-time Kershaw County attorney, former member and chair of the Kershaw County Board of School Trustees, and a well-known historian who was currently serving as the chair of the S.C. Sestercentennial (SC250) Commission, passed away March 30 at the age of 72.
Baxley, who graduated from law school in 1976. He helped form what later became the Baxley, Pratt & Wells law firm the following year, working there for 45 years before retiring in 2021. During his time at the firm — currently known as Baxley, Wells & Benson — Baxley focused on business law, as well as estate planning and administration.
His long-time law partner John Wells said that while Baxley did have a heavy focus on historical research and activities, his first love was vocational education.
“Charles and his friend, Gil Woolard, who was principal of the Kershaw County Vocational School — he and Charles felt they had a burden for providing opportunities for young people to get skilled job training as opposed to a four-year degree,” Wells said. “They put their money where their mouths were in forming a vocational education committee that raised thousands and thousands of dollars to provide scholarship for young people to learn skills.”
Well said that while some people might have though it odd of Baxley, who held two degrees and worked as an attorney, to be so interested in vocational education.
“But he considered the brick mason, welder and carpenter to be his equal because they had a skill. Charles helped a lot of people get started,” he said.
Wells also had a somewhat black comedy story about one of Baxley’s early clients as an attorney.
“When I was still in law school, I was already working for Charles and he had a client charged with the murder of his older brother,” Wells said. “The defendant had been abused by his older brother … and (former) Sheriff Hector DeBruhl was the only witness and he told the jury the defendant had no choice.”
According to Wells, part of the dark humor of the case is that the murder took place on what was then known as “check day” — the third day of the month when Social Security checks were given out.
“Back then, I didn’t know this; I had never heard of it before. It also happened that ‘check day’ crossed up with a full moon. When check day came, there was a lot of crime, and when it coincided with a full moon, then you had a lot of trouble,” Wells said.
As it happened, the two brothers were fighting over a Social Security check that had been given out on the third day of the month when there was a full moon.
“So, they were not surprised when this happened,” Wells said of DeBruhl and his deputies when the murder took place. “The jury came back in five minutes with a not guilty verdict. As a young law clerk, I had to give the defendant a ride home. All the way back to Lugoff from Camden, I heard the man say over and over again, ‘Thank you, Lord; thank you, Jesus; thank you Mr. Baxley.’ ”
Another attorney who knew Baxley, and with whom he shared a love of American Revolutionary history, is David Reuwer.
“ ‘I never heard that,’ was a common cadence with which this practical lawyer and self-taught historian responded to new information about the American Revolution in South Carolina,” Reuwer said. “He both challenged the statement maker to support it and welcomed the newbie into the fellowship of the Southern Campaigns. This is how Charles B. Baxley operated with both hands — one gladly shaking an entry to join our exploits and the other cautioning you to rise to ever higher and increasing standards.
Baxley and Reuwer co-created an online magazine in 2004 called The Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution.
“It delineated the tripod elements of scholarship, fellowship and fun. Charles defined scholarship as building blocks of historic research, inquisition and field evidence; fellowship as to include anyone who would cite source material gone before us while presently lifting others up around us; and fun as joyfully sharing one another’s knowledgeable victories as we pursued historic adventures,” Reuwer said.
He jokingly said Baxley suffered from that he called, “project aggrandizement disorder,” or “PAD.”
“He cajoled and made each of us go deeper when all the rest of us thought it had been done,” Reuwer said. “He could come up with endless lists of questions when everyone else considered the subject utterly exhausted. History was neither boring, stale nor irrelevant the way Charles viewed and worked it. History is an experience, as much about the present as it was about the past. Charles achieved much of this by writing, sending and responding to multiplicative emails and countless phone calls while sitting in his ‘war room’ den at home late into the night and wee morning hours.”
Reuwer said Baxley encouraged others to think about their historical projects — question everything, council with others, provide or receive mentorship and explore new thinking.
“His queries to you could sometimes be unnerving, but if you really worked for the answers, the growth toward historic truth was rewarding,” he said.
It was, therefore, no surprise to Reuwer that former S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford awarded Baxley the Order of the Palmetto in 2006 or that current Gov. Henry McMaster appointed him as chairman of the SC250 Commission.0
“He was one of the key people who took on the gargantuan task of restoring South Carolina’s Revolutionary battlefield stories into their proper place in American history since 1856 when Senator Andrew Butler vociferously debated Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on the floor of the U.S. Senate,” Reuwer pointed out. His verbal editorials were always engaging and usually enlightening.”
He said Baxley liked playing “director,” being “sincerely effectual” at connecting people with others and those people to projects.
“His brain was way ahead of most other thinking minds, historically, and he courteously provoked when he did,” Reuwer said. “Perhaps no other single person currently had as much comprehensive breadth-and-depth knowledge about the Revolution in South Carolina as Charles.”
Reuwer added that Baxley embodied Gen. Nathanael Green’s quote, “Learning is not virtue, but the means to bring us an acquaintance with it. Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. Let these be your motives to action through life, the relief of the distressed, the detection of frauds, the defeat of oppression, and diffusion of happiness.”
“He embodied this learning for 70 plus years and shared this way to live with all the rest of us. If you were not about doing a task, he would assign you one. Charles often related that we were only as good as our current task, project or mission and persuasively demanded that we focus on it for the purpose of sharing it with others.
“Our state has lost its most caring advocate of the Revolutionary founding — a hero of history. For him, it was about accurately working the historic puzzle and conclusively moving the story forward in truth. Most substantively, many of us state residents, numerous thousands of 250th out-of-state tourists, and untold future generations of all Americans will hear and have heard of South Carolina’s significant persons, places, battles, and events of the Southern Campaigns because of Charles B. Baxley. Mirroring Christopher Gadsden, he lived for ‘What I can do for my country, I will do.’ ”
The SC250 Commission issued a statement shortly after Baxley’s passing, saying that his contributions to preserving the state’s Revolutionary War-era history led to the commission creation and other initiatives, including the S.C. American Revolution Trust. The commission noted his work not only as a historian, but attorney, and adjunct professor of law, as well as his receipt of the Order of the Palmetto.
The commission said it is committed to honoring Baxley’s vision by continuing the work he started in 2019, guiding the commission through the pandemic and its formative years.
“It was his extraordinary drive to commemorate South Carolina’s American Revolution history that brought us to this point,” SC250 Executive Director Molly Fortune said. “Moving forward, we will incorporate his passion and celebrate his decades of work in our ongoing mission to promote South Carolina’s role in the American Revolution by educating, engaging and inspiring South Carolinians and visitors.”
Glen and Joan Inabinet, authors of A History of Kershaw County, South Carolina, said their most extensive working relationship with Baxley ripened during the writing of that book.
“Charles was the Kershaw County Historical Society’s designated board member to whom we periodically reported our progress,” the Inabinets said. “He was constantly questioning, motivating, and encouraging, while remaining both far-sighted and detailed. Charles never met a good footnote he didn’t like, or a good idea he did not want to help explore.
“In various projects we have been part of with him, including a current one, he has been a friend to researchers and writers near and far who bring facts to light and understanding. Charles’s legacy of positive and worthwhile high standards will continue in those he influenced. He will be greatly missed and warmly remembered.”
Baxley served on the society’s board for 30 years, including as its president.
According to his full obituary, Baxley graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1974 with a degree in political science and then the doctorate of law degree in 1976. For more than 25 years, he served as chairman of the Kershaw County Vocational Education Foundation, was an officer and member of the Boy Scouts Indian Water Council executive board, chairman of the Kershaw County Public Defender Corporation, and president of the Lugoff Optimist Club and Kershaw County Bar Association. Baxley was also a master tree farmer, president of the Kershaw County Landowners Association, and managed his family’s forestlands.
Baxley was also a former member and chairman of the Kershaw County Board of School Trustees, serving as chairman for eight years. He served for 15 years a city of Camden municipal judge. He was also a captain in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. Baxley was a member of the Congaree Land Trust as well as the Southern Revolutionary War Institute’s advisory board. He also founded and served on the Kershaw County Education Foundation, and served as the chairman of the Battle of Camden Preservation Project Advisory Council.
Among his assistive efforts, Baxley helped the S.C. Battleground Preservation Trust with mapping 20 different Revolutionary War battlefields in the Carolinas, and helped plan new battlefield parks in Camden, at Blackstock’s Plantation in Union County, similar efforts in Moncks Corner, and the S.C. Liberty Trail.
“Charles’ vision (for SC250) went far beyond a brief celebration of fireworks and was focused on making the state’s large part in the Revolutionary War available, interesting, and accessible to all,” his obituary stated. “As you attend celebrations in the coming years, visit historic sites, or read history books, know that Charles’ vision and dedication to history continues.”
A committal service took place on Saturday in Quaker Cemetery, followed by a visitation at the Revolutionary War Visitor Center’s Liberty Hall. Baxley is survived wife Judy Carol Duncan; daughter, B. Caroline Chambers (Geoff); three grandchildren, Sage Skye, River Gavin, and Cedar Aurora; siblings, Lynn Doster (Doug) of Cameron, Ann Carpenter of Richmond, Va., and Daniel Baxley (Dorothy) of Stanton, Va; as well as numerous nieces, nephews, grand nieces, grand nephews, and many other much-loved family and friends.
