Specialty Research Service Examples
Goss Family Investigation - James Island, South Carolina
In 2020, Mr. Philips completed a year-long study of the Goss family of James Island, South Carolina. The family members were seeking information on their grandparents and great-grandparents. Mr. Philips determined that they were descendants of Isaac Goss of Shallot, North Carolina. Mr. Goss escaped slavery during the Civil War and enlisted in the United States Navy. Later he married Margaret Oliver of Georgetown. The couple made their home in Wadmalaw Island and later James Island. The current Goss family members descend from Isaac and Margaret Goss. Through research and application to the veterans administration, Mr. Philips was able to help them obtain a VA headstone Isaac Goss' service during the Civil War.
(Client: Barbara Goss Brown and Goss Family, James Island, South Carolina)
South Carolina Geodetic Survey County Line Project
In 2014, Charles Philips as Program Manager and primary historian of the County Line projects at Brockington partnered with Cornerstone Surveying and Engineering of Summerville, South Carolina to provide historic research and surveying of South Carolina's Lowcountry county lines. Awarded the bid from the South Carolina Geodetic Survey [SCGS].
Mr. Philips has served as primary researcher for the historic county lines from Georgetown to Beaufort. His work has been to provide the surveyors with original locations of the lines as ordered by the State Legislature and how those lines worked out on the ground. Once Mr. Philips work is submitted to Cornerstone, they conduct a ground survey based on the best historic plats and markers. They prepare a plat and submit the plat to the SCGS. Then a public hearing is called to discuss the survey and answer questions from the interested parties. Once the survey is approved by both counties, it is enacted into law and becomes the accepted county line. Work has included lines between Charleston, Berkeley, Dorchester, Beaufort, Jasper, Hampton, Allendale, Barnwell, and Orangeburg counties. The project is ongoing through HSL, LLC.
The map adjacent shows a 1943 US War Department map with the county line between Allendale and Barnwell counties that was researched and confirmed during this project.
(Client: Cornerstone Surveying and Engineering, Inc., Summerville, SC)
Collins-Fulford Marsh Grant Investigation
In 2019, Jane P. Collins and Catherine P. "Betsy" Fulford requested of Mr. Philips a review of several marsh parcels to which they had title. They wanted to determine if overflow lands in Nassau County, Florida they claim could be traced to a Spanish Period (1790-1821) land grant. The two sisters desired to know if marshlands purchased by their parents in the 1960s were their lands fee simple. In Florida, the state recognizes only fee simple ownership to tidal overflow wetlands if they can be traced to a Spanish Land Grant. The tract in question was some 90 acres of marshes along the west side of Amelia Island in the Amelia River tidelands.
Although Mr. Philips could identify the highlands adjacent to the marshlands as belonging to an Eighteenth-century Spanish Land Grant, his research showed that the marshlands owned by the sisters were never granted by the Spanish but by the State of Florida to the railroad in 1867. The research revealed that the sisters did not have fee simple title to their marshlands. As a matter of course the State does not disturb claims of ownership of marshlands without King's Grants, but also does not recognize them as fee simple.
The photo shows some of the overflow lands to which Jane Collins and Catherine Fulford claim title.
(Client: Philips Enterprises, Fernandina Beach, Florida)
