Photography – Page 36 – Random Connections

A Feud, a Mule, a Senator, a Potter, and a Ghost Town or Two – Part Two

November 14, 2013November 14, 2013 Tom 5 Comments

History and Genealogy, Local, Photography, Rambling

In the previous post I described how a mule kick killed eight people, and we explored the Little Stevens Creek area. In this post fellow singer and explorer Tommy Thompson and I ventured further into Edgefield County seeking out pottery and abandoned churches.

Edgefield has long been known for its amazing pottery. ETV’s History Detectives even did a segment on one of the “face jugs” from the area. Of course, I was not as interested in the pottery itself as in the town that grew up around the industry. Landrumville, aka Pottersville was located just north of Edgefield. Robert Mills’ 1825 Atlas shows its location.

I wanted to see if I could find it. The site is on the National Register of Historic Places. However, since it is still an active archeological dig, all of the location information has been redacted. There are lots of scholarly articles on the site. But, just like the NRHP listing, any article I could find said that the kilns were on private property, and that the address was restricted.

As a workaround, I took the Mills map and tried to overlay it onto Google Earth. Matching the roads and landmarks from 170 years ago was not an easy task, but in the end I came up with an approximate set of coordinates. Even if I couldn’t reach Pottersville exactly, at least I would be able to take a photo of the area.

A Feud, a Mule, a Senator, a Potter, and a Ghost Town or Two – Part One

November 14, 2013November 15, 2013 Tom 15 Comments

History and Genealogy, Local, Photography, Rambling

I decided this is going to have to be a multi-part post. Otherwise, dear readers, you will be scrolling for an uncomfortable amount of time. We saw an amazing amount of stuff on Tuesday’s photo trek, and it all has an equally amazing amount of back-story.

Fellow Chorale member Tommy Thompson sent me an interesting story entitled “How A Mule Kick Killed Eight People.” The story was about a feud in Edgefield County, and we decided that we absolutely had to head down that way for a photo trek.

Of course, as interesting as the story of the feud was, a single location just doesn’t work for a photo trek. So, the night before I loaded up my GPS with several possible targets in the Edgefield area. The next morning I rendezvoused with Tommy down on Augusta Road, and we headed south.

There is always so much along this road that is of interest, and it’s tempting to stop and take photos of every rustic barn and old house. I’ve long found that if I allow myself to get distracted like this, I never reach my destination. Sometimes that’s a good thing, but sometimes not. We drove straight on through Greenwood and turned onto Highway 178. This route took us to the community of Epworth. There are some interesting old buildings there, and my great-great grandparents are buried only a couple of miles north of there. There is also the old Epworth Camp Meeting site. The only distraction I allowed was a brief turn onto the Epworth property so Tommy could see the old tabernacle and cabins. I had photographed and explored it before, so we kept going.

To Helen Back

November 8, 2013November 8, 2013 Tom 6 Comments

Photography, Rambling

Keith wanted to head out for a photo trek. Thursday seemed like a good day for an exploration, so we swung through Clemson and picked up Ken, and the three of us headed for the mountains of North Georgia.

The weather was not promising. We had a 30% chance of rain, and as Keith and I left Greenville raindrops were falling on my windshield. However, it looked like the front would blow through quickly. By the time we got Ken and continued on our way, blue skies were breaking through to the west.

From Clemson we took 123 through Westminster and continued on until we got to the Tugaloo arm of Lake Hartwell. Our first stop was Old Madison. This is on my list of ghost towns, and the last time I was here was with Laura and her mother. I wanted to explore a bit more. The old Madison School building was in much worse shape that when I came through last. The roof had collapsed. We didn’t take any photos of that, but I probably should have just for documentation. We did stop and took a few pictures of the old Madison Baptist Church, a white-framed building with a classic steeple that seems to be in regular use.

Exploring Jacks Township

November 6, 2013November 6, 2013 Tom 11 Comments

History and Genealogy, Photography, Rambling

For November I wanted to make a major push on my book so that I could get early drafts submitted to publishers. That means spending lots of time in libraries and calling up lots of local historical societies to check some of my research. I’d made arrangements to meet with Elaine Martin in the genealogy section of the Laurens County Library. I wanted to find out some information about the ghost town of Renno and the surrounding Jacks Township. Since our appointment wasn’t until the afternoon, that gave me the morning to explore the area once again.

Jacks Township is one of nine townships established in Laurens County in its early history. The area is located on the far eastern corner of the county. Large portions of it are in the Sumter National Forest, and as I was growing up the area always seemed very remote and mysterious. Years later as an adult that impression has not changed. That little wedge, including parts of Newberry and Union Counties, strikes me as a place where tales of imagination are born.

Laurens County Townships
from The Laurens County Scrapbook

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Autumn Paddle on Lake Oolenoy

November 3, 2013 Tom No Comments

Family, Paddling, Photography

After a front blew through, it looked like the weekend was going to have spectacular fall weather. My sister, Beth, called and asked if I had any adventures planned. I thought for a bit, and said, “Let’s go kayaking!” So, Saturday morning Beth, my nephew Philip, and I headed up to Lake Oolenoy at Table Rock State Park.

Traffic was crazy on the way up. Apparently the Greenville News had said that this was the peak of the leaf season, and that it would be gone soon. There were lots of leafy looky loos out and about, slowing down traffic and being a nuisance in general. All of the iconic overlooks along Highway 11 were packed.

We reached the lake and unloaded the boats. Neither Beth nor Philip had ever paddled, so I gave them some quick instructions. My brother Stephen joined us, so I launched those two to head out and practice while I helped Stephen get his boat unloaded.

Dupont Forest in the Fall

October 25, 2013 Tom 1 Comment

Photography, Rambling

The beautiful weather this week has made me want to get out and take photos of fall foliage. I especially wanted to catch some shots of the early morning light. So, Wednesday morning I headed up toward the mountains in search of some color.

My first stop was Caesar’s Head. I had planned to do some time-lapse photography. However, time-lapse is made more interesting with clouds, and this morning there weren’t any to speak of. I took a few shots from the overlook, with fall leaves framing the view. I also took a couple of shots across The Dismal toward Table Rock. Little pockets of fog had settled into the valleys across the Piedmont.

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2013 Upper SC State Fair

October 25, 2013 Tom No Comments

Entertainment, Local, Photography, Rambling

I really hated that I couldn’t stick around at the South Carolina State Fair a couple of weeks ago to get some photos of the rides at night. The lights are always amazing, and are perfect for long-exposure photography. So, I decided the next best thing would be to head to the Upper South Carolina State Fair on a weekday evening and take some shots.

When I arrived the parking lot was a bit sparse. I found a place right next to the gate. It was a Tuesday evening, and I wasn’t expecting huge crowds. However, this place looked like a ghost town. I’d like to chalk it up to being an off night. The Upper State Fair is a bit sleazier than the State Fair, and the lack of people just exacerbated the problem. It was downright creepy.

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An Autumn Paddle on an Inefficient River

October 15, 2013October 15, 2013 Tom No Comments

Paddling, Photography

South Edisto River-035 — South Edisto River

Saturday was the second Saturday of the month, and time for another Lowcountry Unfiltered adventure. However, in this case Upcountry outnumbered Lowcountry. Matt was the lone adventurer from the lower part of the state. Alan and I would make up the Upcountry contingent. Marc would join us from Columbia. After bouncing around several ideas for paddling venues, we decided upon something relative mid-state, equally inconvenient for all of us. We would be paddling a section of the South Edisto River beginning at Aiken State Park.

I got an early start and picked up Alan along the way. Our route left the Interstate at Newberry, and took us down through the country past Batesburg-Leesville, Wagener, and other small towns. We passed lots of interesting old stores, churches and other buildings, and both of us wanted to stop and take photos in the rising sunlight. However, we had an appointment to keep.

Our original plan was to paddle from the state park to Keadle Bridge. I had measured it at about 12 twisting river miles – quite a paddle. When we got a call from Matt saying that he was Windsor bridge, and for us to meet him there, I was relieved. That would cut four miles off of the trip, and make it more reasonable. I adjusted my GPS and we headed on down for our rendezvous.

Windsor Bridge was down a dirt road in the heart of Aiken horse country. There were lots of horse farms along the route. The river access itself was a single lane boat ramp covered in trash and graffiti.

A Visit to the State Fair

October 14, 2013October 14, 2013 Tom No Comments

Entertainment, Local, Photography, Rambling

State Fair Tilt Shift — South Carolina State Fair

For years I’ve wanted to visit the South Carolina State Fair. I’ve passed by the empty fair grounds so many times on my way to meetings at SCETV. Once I even attended a meeting while the fair was in session, but didn’t have time to stop. This year, now that I don’t have obligations during the week, I was determined to make it happen. I called Dwight, since he lives in Columbia, to see if he wanted to come along.

We had planned to do this on Thursday, but I had looked at my calendar wrong, and discovered a conflict. Yes, retired people do have scheduling conflicts. Fortunately, Dwight was able to shift his schedule, and we were able to head down on Thursday.

October 9 was opening day. Gates opened at noon, so we headed on over and got into a VERY long line.

However, the line split into several openings, so when the time came, it moved more efficiently that we thought it would. At noon a recording of the Star Spangled Banner played over the loudspeakers, and we were off.

Our first stop was not the ticket booth, but a security check-point. There was a magnetometer and the works. I was loaded down with camera equipment, but the thing that held me up was my little Barlow knife. They wouldn’t let it through. I could either surrender it, or walk it back to the car. Knowing that the line was moving fairly quickly, I chose the latter rather than lose a knife. Fortunately, the security lady let Dwight hold my place in line so I was able to skip ahead.

Even though the gates were open at noon, only the exhibits opened at that time. The midway wouldn’t open until 3:00. That was OK, though. I had been lamenting the demise of all of the agricultural exhibits at the local county fairs, so that’s where we would have started anyway.

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Fine Art America

October 5, 2013 Tom 1 Comment

Photography

I had noticed that several of my photographer friends had posted photographs to FineArtAmerica.com for sale. I decided to give it a shot. I passed a milestone on Flickr, with over 23,000 images, so I figured someone might be interested in purchasing a copy. So, my some of my photos can be found for sale … Read More “Fine Art America” »