Oct. 18, 2009, Jill Koverman, Curator of Collections for McKissick Museum, USC, with Society board member and collector Jim Witkowski, and area potter Otis Norris, presented an illustrated lecture, display, and pottery sale at the Kershaw County Fine Arts Center.  All of the facets engaged the audience in the history of a fascinating art.

Our program Sunday, May 3, 2009, attracted a large group to the new Auditorium at Camden High School.  Guest speakers included Mather graduates Congressman Jim Clyburn and Dr. Ernestine Adams, with Dr. Harvey S. Teal.

On a part of the old campus, a memorial to Mather is a familiar site on Campbell Street, Camden, a location on the State Archives’ list of African-American Historical Sites. The school took root from missionary efforts to educate children of former slaves. More Mather information is on the Boylan-Haven-Mather Academy Alumni Association webpage.

On a part of the old campus, a memorial to Mather is a familiar site on Campbell Street, Camden, a location on the State Archives’ list of African-American Historical Sites. The school took root from missionary efforts to educate children of former slaves.

Lovely Spring weather added to the pleasures of Society members who joined us in going BACK TO Boykin, SC on March 22, 2009, to continue touring the historic rural community.

Actress Chris Weatherhead enthralls tour-goers at the Terraces in her noted role as Civil War diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut, who spent part of her childhood in the lovely plantation home.

High, wide porches offered expansive views of the Terraces’ famous grounds.

A stroll on the grounds of Millway reawakens rural memories.

Sam Dennis fills old Swift Creek Baptist Church with the full-toned notes of traditional spiritual singing.

Society members filled the pews at historic Ebenezer Methodist Church in Lugoff  for our Feb. 15, 2009, program on an extensive nineteenth-century public works system that the State of South Carolina built on the west bank of the Wateree River.

A large group enjoyed a lovely day in Boykin, SC, on our Fall Tour Nov. 9, 2008.  Sites included Deer Hope Lodge, home to Boykin Hunt Club; Boykin Grist Mill, with demonstration; Pear Tree; Old Stockton Schoolhouse; Swift Creek Church; and Battle of Boykin, Civil War skirmish site.

Tille and Baynard Boykin share information about the 1865 battle commemorated by the marker behind them.

Inside Swift Creek Baptist Church, Alice Boykin describes its restoration.

Seen through the window of restored Stockton School, groups outside are engaged in conversation with Boykin area residents.

Jamie Guy tells old hunting stories at Deer Hope Lodge,
grounds of the Boykin Hunt Club.

The Catawba Path is traveled in part today by anyone who uses Broad Street in Camden, where appropriately the weathervane effigy of Catawba chief “King Haiglar” tops the historic town tower. (Image from mid-1900s)

A very interested audience of 50 to 60 at the Robert Mills Courthouse  May 19,2008, heard Val Green discuss his extensive research.

The Catawba Path is traveled in part today by anyone who uses Broad Street in Camden, where appropriately the weathervane effigy of Catawba chief “King Haiglar” tops the historic town tower. (Image from mid-1900s)

The Catawba Trading Path

An environmental engineer and graduate of Clemson University, Val Green has spent many years researching the topic of his May 18,2008, lecture at the Robert Mills Courthouse in Camden– John Lawson’s Explorations of the Catawba Trading Path.

Part of Green’s research involved physically locating the path that the English explorer traveled in the early 1700s through the backcountry wilderness that included present Kershaw County.

A few days after Green’s descriptive lecture, Society president Peggy Ogburn followed the modern footprints of this trail and submitted the following views traveling from northward to southward through present Kershaw County: (1) a Flat Rock Road section, (2) South Broad Street in Camden, with the Historic Camden Revolutionary Park entrance to the left, and (3) a few miles south of Camden where an unpaved section of the historic path lies on private property.

(1) a Flat Rock Road section,

(2) South Broad Street in Camden, with the Historic Camden Revolutionary Park entrance to the left, and

(3) a few miles south of Camden where an unpaved section of the historic path lies on private property.

Despite rainy interruptions April 27, 2008, a cheerful crowd of about 50 followed our tour to the end, attentive to lively explanations by our guide.

Charles Baxley & other Survey Team members of the project ARCHH, “Archaeological Reconnaissance & Computerization of Hobkirk’s Hill,” an area battlefield survey.

Presenters and Tour Guides — Charles Baxley & other Survey Team members of the project ARCHH, “Archaeological Reconnaissance & Computerization of Hobkirk’s Hill,” an area battlefield survey. About 50 persons walked the guided tour, starting at the corner of Greene & Fair Streets (near Holly Hedge) in Camden. We viewed exhibits and had refreshments on the front porch of 403 Greene Street,  where the tour concluded with conversation.. Preview the ARCHH team’s work at the ARCHH webpage, sponsored by The Kershaw County Historical Society.

Bethune has changed from this 1907 view of Main Street!

Our March 2 program, “Tour of Bethune, SC” attracted 200 visitors!  Beginning at the Bethune Woman’s Club with a short talk, display, and refreshments,the program included a tour with local experts speaking at various sites and a map-brochure created especially for this program!

Here as some program highlights:

KCHS Membership Chairman Esther McCaskill, who helped arrange the March tour of her hometown of Bethune, explains program features to interested guests mingling at the Bethune Woman’s Club before the tour.

Tour guide Harvey Teal describes to visitors at the Tiller’s Ferry site the actions that occurred there during Revolutionary and Civil War days.

Early nineteenth century swimmers at Big Spring mineral-springs resort in Bethune.

Beside an old bathhouse his father built at the edge of the Lynches River, the present owner of the property of the historic Big Springs resort, points visitors’ attention to the older wooden bathhouse uphill.