 A number of notable persons worked and patronized the Planter's Hotel including the noted 19th Century actor Junius Brutus Booth (father of actors Edwin and John Wilkes Booth).African-American Civil War naval hero and U.S.Congressman Robert Smalls, who stole a steamboat in the harbor and sailed it out past the Confederate held Ft. Sumter and turned it over to the blockading Union Fleet, served as a waiter in the hotel's dining room prior to the war.