The Angel Oak is the central figure in this history of John’s Island, South Carolina. By tracing the occupants of the land from the Cussoe Indians to a colony of Quakers, the story of early Carolina unfolds around the grand tree. The land upon which Angel Oak grows was owned by the Weight family.  From indentured servant to prosperous planters, their lives exemplify the land of opportunity afforded settlers to Carolina colony in the 1600’s. It is in 1810 that Isaac Weight’s daughter Martha married “Justus Angel of Charleston, gentleman” bringing the name Angel to the island, plantation and tree. The lands surrounding the Big Oak produced rice before the Civil War, cotton into the twentieth century and were not sold out of the family until 1959.

The booklet contains an original interview with Septima Clark, which describes her life as a teacher on John’s Island before she became the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement”, and island folk tales related by David Jones.

Today, Angel Oak Park is open to the public. The massive live oak, which gives the park its name, is over 25 feet in circumference,