SC State House Trivia

We toured the South Carolina State House on Tuesday morning. The photo above is the south side. The statue that looks like it is standing on top of the white pickup truck is of Strom Thurmond.

Inside the Senate chamber in the State House is a portrait of Ann Pamela Cunningham (1816-1875), of Rosemont Plantation, South Carolina:

From the Wikipedia entry for Ann Pamela Cunningham:

[She] is credited with saving George Washington's beloved home Mount Vernon from ruin and neglect. In a letter to Ann Pamela, Cunningham's mother described the crumbling condition of the estate as she saw it in 1853 while on a steamship heading down the Potomac River. Cunningham was in her 30s and, having been crippled in a riding accident as a teenager, decided she would initiate a campaign to save the estate. She raised funds to purchase Mount Vernon by launching an unprecedented appeal for donations through newspaper articles directed toward "the Ladies of the South" and founded The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union, the group that still owns and manages Washington's estate, and served as its first regent. The group purchased Mount Vernon for $200,000. The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association is the oldest private preservation organization in the United States.

On one of the walls inside the State House is a plaque explaining the origin of the poinsettia flower:

Joel Roberts Poinsett (1779-1851) of Charleston, South Carolina, was a diplomat, statesman, architect and naturalist. The language on the plaque that is relevant to the flower:

President John Quincy Adams appointed him first Minister to Mexico, 1825-30. He brought the Christmas flower, named in his honor, Poinsettia from Mexico.