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  • MLK Weekend Ramble 2015, Part 1

MLK Weekend Ramble 2015, Part 1

Posted on January 22, 2015 By Tom No Comments on MLK Weekend Ramble 2015, Part 1
Family, Photography, Rambling
Jenkinsville School and Teacherage-012
Jenkinsville School Ruins

The Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend seems to be the perfect time for exploration. Leaves are gone from the trees so you can see hidden buildings better. In our area, usually the weather is cool, but mild. More importantly, some of my fellow explorers are off work and able to join me. Even before I retired, this became one of our weekends to ramble. Often it was with my brother, Houston, or fellow explorer Alan. This time, for 2015, it was both.

Alan has been trying to track down family history through his great-great-grandfather’s diary. David Wyatt Aiken was a Confederate veteran, and later served as a US Congressman. Aiken was born in Winnsboro, so we decided that would be one of our stops on this ramble. We also found several old churches and schools along the way through Newberry and Fairfield Counties – plenty to keep us and our cameras busy.

I picked up Alan, then we drove down to Prosperity to rendezvous with Houston, who had driven over from Athens. We headed eastward, first driving through the community of Pomaria. It looked like an interesting place to stop and take photos, but there was lots of business activity – more than I expected. Three guys wandering around with cameras would be in the way. We continued on.

St. John’s Lutheran Church and School

Next stop was St. John’s Lutheran Church. I’ve visited this location many times, but it was a first for Houston and Alan. The church is on the National Register of Historic Places. The current church building is a brick structure across the road, but on the grounds with the cemetery are the original white frame structure built in 1809 and the small school, also a white frame structure.

St John Lutheran
St John Lutheran-004
St John Lutheran-011
St John Lutheran-007

After walking around the buildings and taking photos we started to explore the cemetery. There was a mix of modern and old stones. However, what struck me was the number of last names that were also common English words – Stuck, Lever, Counts, Sweet, Free, Summer, Slice, Bush, and Beam, among many others.

St John Lutheran-013
St John Lutheran-014
St John Lutheran-028
St John Lutheran-036
St John Lutheran-037
St John Lutheran-039
St John Lutheran-038
St John Lutheran-043
St John Lutheran-045

There were lots of Stucks. We had to resist jokes about being Stuck in a cemetery, but of course, we didn’t.

St John Lutheran-021
St John Lutheran-020
St John Lutheran-024

One of the creepiest stones was one of the Stucks, Vandora Edwin Stucks, to be exact. Edwin was enroute to Germany in 1918 during WWI and was killed on a transport. He was buried in France, but this memorial was raised locally for him. What makes the stone creepy is that it has an early photograph of the soldier embedded in the stone. It’s amazing that it’s lasted this long.

St John Lutheran-026
St John Lutheran-025

There were several odd after-market add-ons scattered around the cemetery. These were usually little angel sculptures. One particular cherub was really creepy, with a distorted neck position and prominently defined buttocks. The head position was so exaggerated that at first I thought it might be a gargoyle.

St John Lutheran-015
St John Lutheran-016
St John Lutheran-017
St John Lutheran-019

In the back corner of the cemetery was another marker, indicating where the church had originally stood prior to the 1809 building. Some of the oldest stones were clustered around this site.

St John Lutheran-033
St John Lutheran-032
St John Lutheran-035

The morning was rapidly getting away from us, so it was time to move on.

Hope Rosenwald School

Just up the road from St. John’s is the Hope Rosenwald School. The school has been renovated and restored as a community center. Jay Hope, a colleague of mine in the tech field, invited me to the school’s dedication in 2009, which I was happy to attend. As with St. John’s, the school is on the National Register. The school now stands as a model for community involvement and restoration of these historic buildings.

We paused for a few photos, but didn’t linger.

Hope Rosenwald School
Hope Rosenwald School-001
Hope Rosenwald School-002

Peak Railroad Trestle

The next stop was the town of Peak. On the way in we spotted the dramatic railroad trestle that is now part of the Palmetto Trail. This isn’t the grand trestle that spans the Broad River, but one over a smaller creek that has its own charm. We stopped to explore.

Peak Railroad Trestle-001
Peak Railroad Trestle-004
Peak Railroad Trestle
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Peak Railroad Trestle-007
Peak Railroad Trestle-011
Peak Railroad Trestle-013
Peak Railroad Trestle-014

We drove on into town. It always amazes me how many cars are parked right at the center of town, as if there’s lots going on. We didn’t stop to explore more of the town. The three of us had explored the larger trestle that crosses the Broad River when we kayaked from the other side a couple of years ago. We drove on around the little horseshoe bend in the road circled on out.

Jenkinsville

We crossed the Broad River on into Fairfield County. We were still on territory that was familiar to me, but not so much to Houston and Alan. I was willing to revisit a couple of place I thought would be of interest to them. We passed the V. C. Sumner Nuclear station and found ourselves approaching Jenkinsville. I decided to head down toward the town, proper.

Just before reaching Jenkinsville Post Office, on the east side of the road there are some ruins. These are the remains of the Jenkinsville High School. We pulled on down onto the property and decided to explore a bit. However, I’m going to leave the details of that stop for the next post.

Jenkinsville School and Teacherage-001

When we left the Jenkinsville School we headed south a bit and stopped at what I had always assumed to be Jenkinsville Methodist Church. Now I’m not so sure. On Google Earth GNIS data has this listed as “Shiloh Church.” I’m not even sure if the church is still in use.

Jenkinsville Methodist Church-002
Jenkinsville Methodist Church-006
Jenkinsville Methodist Church-007

I tried to use my GoPro to get some interior shots. These didn’t turn out as well as I might have liked. It’s hard to tell if the church is still in use from these photos or not.

Jenkinsville Methodist Church-003
Jenkinsville Methodist Church
Jenkinsville Methodist Church-001

We checked out the cemetery, but I didn’t take any shots there.

Old Brick Church

We continued on toward Winnsboro on Highway 213, but we had a couple more stops before we got there. We saw the signs for Little River Baptist Church, but didn’t turn in. I kind of regret that now. The church is on the National Register, and it was founded by none other than Richard Furman. It would have been a great stop, but it would also have taken even more time away from our explorations, and we had precious little of that as it was.

We did, however, take time to stop at Ebenezer ARP Church, AKA “The Old Brick Church.” This brick meeting house style church was built in 1788. It, too, is on the National Register.

Ebenezer ARP Church

As soon as we parked the car I noticed an unusual stump. What made it unusual was a jar in the middle of the stump. I recognized it at once as a geocache, and when we picked it up, it was confirmed. It just seemed a bit weird that it was out in the open for anyone to see. I logged the find in my phone app.

Ebenezer ARP Church-001

The church is ring with a low wall of flat stones. These are chunks of Winnsboro Blue Granite mined from the Anderson Quarry nearby. The cemetery contained within this low wall is full of historic headstones.

Ebenezer ARP Church-016
Ebenezer ARP Church-017
Ebenezer ARP Church-022

Houston opened an iron gate, then stopped in his tracks. His question to me was, “What was that rhyme about coral snakes?” Turns out it was “Red touch yellow, kill a fellow.” The little snake he had come upon was a very annoyed, but non-venomous king snake.

Ebenezer ARP Church-014
King Snake

Of the historic stones we saw, there were some new signature stones that we’d not seen before. There were the usual suspects, namely the Whites and Walkers, although there were some first names of this group I’d not seen…

Ebenezer ARP Church-006
Ebenezer ARP Church-003
Ebenezer ARP Church-008
Ebenezer ARP Church-019
Ebenezer ARP Church-033

The new ones I’d seen were McNinch, Brown, Boyne & Sprawl, and some others that were difficult to make out.

Ebenezer ARP Church-025
Ebenezer ARP Church-035
Ebenezer ARP Church-012
Ebenezer ARP Church-011

The church was shuttered, so there was no way to get an image from the inside. However, there were transom lights above the doors that had no shutters. I managed to get a couple of interior shots, albeit not as good as I might have liked.

Ebenezer ARP Church-037
Ebenezer ARP Church
Ebenezer ARP Church

Here’s a map of where we visited so far. The day was just getting started.

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❮ Previous Post: Laurens Cemetery Ramble
Next Post: MLK Weekend Ramble 2015 – Part 2, Jenkinsville School Ruins ❯

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