Old Charlestonian

Introducing John Bennett! 

John Bennett

John Bennett was born on May 14, 1865 and died December 28, 1956. He was an whose career is best known for his children's books. John was very talented and even illustrated these books himself! This was because at a young age, he learned to draw and became skilled at cutting silhouettes. During the years of his early teens, he struggled and ended up dropping out of high school. His next path was working for a newspaper and by then was established as a freelance author and illustrator. with some mental health and drug addiction factors holding him back, he made a strong recovery and his career started to bloom. 

By the date 1895, he had written and published a few books. Mainly intended for children. One of his best known books is called Master Skylark and is considered a classic for children's literature. One of his illustrations from the book is below:

Master Skylark illustration

As Bennett aged, he began to experience more health problems so he was advised to move down to Charleston SC in the year of 1898. There, he met his wife Susan Smythe who was born into a well known Charleston family. His goal while in South Carolina was to promote culture in the city, he started to incorporate black folk tales into his literature and combined these with the Gullah language  publishing books with these new concepts and ideas was definitely a risk Bennett was willing to take.  The Charleston upper class began to ostracize him due to their opposite opinions of black culture. His  addiction to drugs resurfaced and he ended up taken a break from his writing for a while. 

During the time of the two World Wars, Bennett partnered with some other authors and founded the Poetry Society of South Carolina. Overall, he had a very successful career with some bumps along the road which is to be expected with any writer. 

As I was walking around Magnolia Cemetery, I came across on a ordinary headstone and thought that there might be a bigger story behind it. Fortunately there was and I got to learn and research all about the life of John Bennett. 

John Bennett's headstone