Skip to content

Random Connections

A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Photos
  • Resources
  • Other Voices
  • Post Archives
  • Podcast

Finding Granby

Posted on April 14, 2013 By Tom 2 Comments on Finding Granby
History and Genealogy, Photography, Rambling

Congaree River

It had been a rough week. We’re getting ready for our Chorale Concert, our district is getting ready for its accreditation visit, and I’ve been working on projects for a graduate course. On Friday I had a state tech leaders meeting, and on Saturday we had a paddling trip scheduled with my friends from Lowcountry Unfiltered. So, I loaded up the boat early, and Friday morning headed southward.

The meeting proceeded about as well as expected, which was not well. I came away with a stress-related headache. Rather than head to lunch with my colleagues, though, I parked myself in an Atlanta Bread Company with my laptop and worked through conference calls that had to be made. My plan had been to head on down to Santee for the night, taking photos along the way. My friend Dwight suggested dinner with his family, so I had a couple of hours to kill. I thought I would see what could be found of the town of Granby.

The town of Granby was first settled in the early 1700s on the western bank of the Congaree River, across from present-day Columbia. The trading post established by James Chestnut and Joseph Kershaw in 1765, became an important gathering place. It was captured by the British during the Revolutionary War. The town served as the county seat for Lexington County until 1818. On Robert Mill’s atlas the town shows up just southeast of Columbia on the other side of the Congaree River.

Lexington District - Granby

According to the Lexington County entry on Wikipedia…

In 1785, Lexington County was established, with the township of Saxe Gotha renamed to “Lexington” in commemoration of the Battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. The county’s first courthouse was built at Granby, located just south of present day Cayce. From 1800 to 1868, the county was organized as a district with the same name.

With the clearing of upriver lands for the spreading cotton culture, Granby became plagued with floods. The district seat was moved in 1820 when the present town of Lexington was laid out on a high, healthy sand ridge near Twelve Mile Creek.

Read More “Finding Granby” »

More on Newell

Posted on April 8, 2013 By Tom No Comments on More on Newell
History and Genealogy

In the previous post I wrote about our visit to the town of Newell. I’ve been trying to find more information about the town, but facts seem to be hard to come by. As early as 1853 the community is listed as a post office in Fanning’s Illustrated Gazetter of the United States. However, the … Read More “More on Newell” »

Piedmont-Powdersville Ramble with Brothers

Posted on April 8, 2013 By Tom 2 Comments on Piedmont-Powdersville Ramble with Brothers
History and Genealogy, Local, Photography, Rambling

Newell General Store

Our plans for the weekend changed. Friday Houston and I had planned to head down to Sparkleberry Swamp for an early spring paddling trip, but that didn’t work out. Houston had already taken Friday off, so we went with Plan B. We met up with our brother, Stephen, and headed out for a short afternoon ramble through that corner where Anderson, Pickens, and Greenville Counties come together. We made several stops, and found some interesting history along the way.

Newell

We started from Stephen’s house in Easley and headed south, generally toward the town of Piedmont. Driving along Highway 86, Steve announced that we were approaching the community of Newell.

Newell, SC

Newell has been on my list of ghost towns for awhile, and I was surprised to see that we were so close. I had seen photos taken by Sean Green and read his blog post about it. His information was also included on a listing of ghost towns for the state.

Read More “Piedmont-Powdersville Ramble with Brothers” »

Return to Pickens Flea market

Posted on April 4, 2013 By Tom 1 Comment on Return to Pickens Flea market
Local, Photography

Pickens Flea Market (25 of 50)

It’s Spring Break, and that means it’s the one time of the year that I can head over to the Pickens Flea Market. This year my brother Stephen and I were going to make the Wednesday trek. We decided to get an early start, so we headed over with the intent to arrive by 8:00 am.

As it turns out, we got there VERY early. While there were lots of vendors already in place, some were just getting set up. Also, it was much cooler than normal. Regardless, we started browsing the stalls.

Pickens Flea Market (13 of 50)

As usual, I came equipped. I had my audio recorders, my smaller Pansonic Lumix camera, and my GoPro camera. Stephen brought his big Nikon. I was going for subtle, but Stephen did otherwise. That actually played to his advantage. I’ll explain in a bit.

I’ve always said that Pickens Flea Market is qualitatively different from the Anderson Jockey Lot. On a “shadiness” scale, Augusta Road Flea Market is at the bottom, Anderson Jockey Lot is is a bit above that, and Pickens is closer to the top (less shady.) On the whole these folks didn’t seem to mind cameras. They weren’t doing anything wrong or shady, they were just there to make sell their goods, so they weren’t as camera shy. A flea market provides some fantastic photographic opportunities, and I saw several folks with DSLRs there.

Read More “Return to Pickens Flea market” »

Goodale Geocaching

Posted on March 31, 2013 By Tom 2 Comments on Goodale Geocaching
Geocaching and Maps, Paddling, Photography

N. R. Goodale State Park

On Saturday I attended an event cache put on by the Upstate South Carolina Geocaching Association (USCGA). The plan was to head down to N. R. Goodale State Park and find the Lost in the Swamp III geocache, which requires a bit of paddling to reach. The weather forecast was iffy, as it always is this time of year. When Saturday rolled around, it looked like it was going to be a nice day for paddling, so I loaded up the boat and headed down to Camden.

Traffic was crazy busy on the way down. This is the weekend of the Carolina Cup in Camden, so I wasn’t sure what to expect as far as congestion near the park. Just on the other side of Columbia on I-20 I came across a couple of other vehicles with kayaks on top. I recognized Hockey Hick’s van right away with all of the Geocaching stickers, so I knew there would be company.

We found the park with no problem, and the traffic through Camden wasn’t bad. There were already several people getting ready to launch. I couldn’t tell if they were with our group or not. Soon, though, our group came together, and we were exchanging tales of previous Geocaching adventures.

Goodale State Park Geocaching (7 of 10)
Goodale State Park Geocaching (4 of 10)

Read More “Goodale Geocaching” »

Rainy Lowcountry Birding

Posted on March 24, 2013 By Tom No Comments on Rainy Lowcountry Birding
Photography, Rambling

Female Downy Woodpecker at Beidler Forest

For some reason, weather just does not get along with Laura and me. We went to London during the worst heat wave they had seen. We went to Maine during a heat wave. We went back to Maine and had a week of rain. We went to the Bahamas and an unusual cold snap hit. We visited Disney World during a tornado watch. We drove through a tropical storm on our way to Key West. Sometimes I think Mother Nature just waits until we make travel plans to send her worst. It was the first time in months that we had been able to get away for a weekend, and it looked like the weather was going to be just as uncooperative. We decided to go anyway.

Our plan was to head down to the ACE Basin early Saturday morning and drive through the Donnelly Wildlife Management Area. We would spend the day bird watching and doing some photography, and perhaps run over to the Bear Island WMA. That evening I’d made reservations for an evening boardwalk tour at Francis Beidler Forest. We would stay overnight in the area, then explore some more as we leisurely headed home on Sunday. Alas…

Read More “Rainy Lowcountry Birding” »

Comet Pawn Stars

Posted on March 14, 2013 By Tom No Comments on Comet Pawn Stars
Photography, Science

This evening David Moffett of the Furman University Physics Department was hosting a viewing of Comet Pan-STARRS on campus. Laura and I decided to head up and see if we could spot it. Of course, I came overloaded with cameras, telescopes, and binoculars. I wasn’t going to miss out on a photographic opportunity. When we … Read More “Comet Pawn Stars” »

Amazing Water Experiment

Posted on March 13, 2013 By Tom No Comments on Amazing Water Experiment
Science

A friend on Facebook shared this with me this afternoon… [Raises his hand and puts on his best Sheldon Cooper impression and says, “Pick me!  Pick me!  I know the answer!”, then launches into an overly long, round-about explanation of the video…] When I was a young teacher I visited Discovery Place in Charlotte.  They … Read More “Amazing Water Experiment” »

Published again, without permission

Posted on March 13, 2013July 25, 2013 By Tom 2 Comments on Published again, without permission
Photography, Rants

Fellow explorer Mark Elbrecht alerted me to this. The Greenwood Chamber of Commerce has a website promoting their Festival of Flowers this June. On the page promoting tours of Cokesbury College there was a familiar photograph – mine! The problem was that they had not asked permission to use the image.

Cokesbury College Website

Normally I don’t mind if folks use my images on their sites as long as they use the proper embed codes that Flickr provides, which link back to my original photo, or if they credit the photo properly. Technically, they don’t even need to ask my permission since I leave the embed codes available to anyone.

What ticked me off about this image usage was that A) they re-hosted the image on their own site, cropping the image in the process, and B) the statement at the bottom of the page stating, “Copyright © 2011 – South Carolina Festival of Flowers. All rights reserved.” That would imply that they are claiming copyright to my photograph. I sent the Chamber of Commerce an e-mail listing conditions for continued use of the photograph.

For the record, here is the original photograph, with the proper link back to its Flickr page…

Cokesbury College

Read More “Published again, without permission” »

Promised Land and Beyond

Posted on March 11, 2013July 25, 2013 By Tom 4 Comments on Promised Land and Beyond
History and Genealogy, Photography, Rambling

Cedar Springs Church

It was a Second Saturday. Normally Alan and I would be out with our friends from Lowcountry Unfiltered exploring some river or other historic locale. There were several last-minute conflicts, so the trip fell through this month. Alan and I were still up for a photo trek, so we decided to head out on our own. We took the opportunity to revisit one of my favorite locations, the Long Cane Creek Historic Area and Sumter National Forest.

We had some specific targets in mind. However, with the beautiful morning light, it was hard not to be distracted by every old barn and homestead along the way that looked like a photographic opportunity. We would have only gotten a few miles from home if we had given in. We kept going until we crossed the border into Greenwood County, stopping first at Donalds Depot.

Donalds Depot

Read More “Promised Land and Beyond” »

Posts pagination

Previous 1 … 94 95 96 … 298 Next

Categories

  • EdTech (197)
  • Entertainment (202)
  • Family (124)
  • Gear (114)
  • General Technology (98)
  • Geocaching and Maps (208)
  • History and Genealogy (276)
  • Internet (142)
  • Local (459)
  • Miscellaneous (561)
  • Music (202)
  • Paddling (268)
  • Photography (782)
  • Podcast (23)
  • Rambling (234)
  • Rants (162)
  • Recipes (37)
  • Religion (48)
  • Restaurants (165)
  • Science (48)
  • Things Overheard (29)
  • Travel (413)
  • Uncategorized (144)
  • Washington Sabbatical (113)
  • Weirdness (61)

Recent Posts

  • Carolina Ghost Towns – Judson, North Carolina
  • Carolina Ghost Towns – Madison, SC
  • A Trip to Lando
  • Carolina Ghost Towns – Fort Motte, South Carolina
  • Carolina Ghost Towns Season 3 Trailer

Recent Comments

  • Lisa on Mystery Cemetery
  • Charlton Hall on The Temple of Health: Ground-Truthing in Antreville
  • Kristen Anderson on Carolina Ghost Towns – Shelton, SC
  • Tabby on Exploring The Jungle of Lake Moultrie
  • Virginia Pepper on A Trip to Lando

Tags

blogging cemetery Christmas Columbia Edisto River edtech Entertainment family Flickr Florida Furman Furman University gear Georgia geotagging Ghost Town Ghost Towns Google Earth Google Maps GPS Greenville Greenville Chorale history Instructional Technology kayaking Lake Jocassee LCU Lowcountry Unfiltered maps Music North Carolina Paddling Photography rambling restaurant Restaurants review singing social networking South Carolina time-lapse Travel video Washington Washington State
February 2026
S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
« Jan    

Copyright © 2026 Random Connections.

Theme: Oceanly by ScriptsTown