On Sunday, October 25, Society members and guests enjoyed lively historian John Buchanan (The Road to Guilford Court House), who shared insights from his continuing studies of local Revolutionary exploits and personalities. Harvey Teal displayed artifacts recovered from Gen. Greene’s campsites enroute to Charleston.

“Preserving History in Camden,” the first of two CONNECT CAMDEN community forums,  each with slightly different focus, begin tonight Oct. 8 at 6:30 p.m. upstairs at the Kershaw County Visitor’s Center, Historic Robert Mills Courthouse, Camden.

Presented by the City of Camden. Brief opening remarks by Joan Inabinet, co-author of A History of Kershaw County, and by Mike Bedenbaugh, executive director of the Palmetto Trust. Following discussion inviting public dialogue to be facilitated by Chuck Ewart, a nationally recognized facilitator and former Camdenite.

More information on the City of Camden website. Funded by The Humanities Council^SC, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Conversation with John Buchanan
Winning the Revolution: The Road to Charleston

Kershaw County Historical Society Program
Sunday, October 25, at 3 p.m.
at South Building, Kershaw County School District Office,
2029 West DeKalb Street, Camden, SC

Lively historian of the American Revolution in the Carolinas, John Buchanan (The Road to Guilford Court House) will share insights from his continuing studies of local exploits and personalities. Program is public.

Enjoy views of full-house attendance of 85 persons filling Bettie Richards Hall at Liberty Hill Presbyterian Church Sunday for the Kershaw County Historical Society’s announced May 24 meeting.

Many thanks to church members who graciously welcomed us with a delightful spread of refreshments and invited further investigation of their historic church and community! To all attendees for convivial conversations and interested attention. To our presenters of the program on Sherman’s invasion–Harvey Teal, who also provided the display of local artifacts of the event, and Patricia McNeely, author of Sherman’s Flame and Blame. To The Humanities Council ^SC for assistance. It was a great day at Liberty Hill!

May 24, 2015

       Hoping to see you at our next meeting!
(Find links on our previous post)

The Society would enjoy having you at our program Sunday, May 24, 2015, at 3 p.m. in the lovely and historic setting of Liberty Hill, SC, in the fellowship hall of Liberty Hill Presbyterian Church.

Liberty Hill Presbyterian Church by Glen Inabinet

The setting is appropriate for the topic “Sherman’s Invasion of Kershaw District 1865,” which began with Union entry via the Wateree River ferry road into the antebellum village. A special program has been coordinated by speakers Patricia G. McNeely, author of Sherman’s Flame & Blame Campaign, and the Society’s Harvey S. Teal, who will display and explain artifacts he has collected from Columbia’s burning and Sherman’s Kershaw District camps.  The only Society business is a brief election of officers.

Join us also for refreshments and conversation after the program. Books of the authors and the Society will be available for signing. For assistance with Patricia McNeely’s visit, the Society thanks The Humanities Council ^SC!

Patricia McNeely

The Executive Director of the South Carolina Humanities Council, Randy Akers (right) was welcomed to the Bonds Conway House on April 30 and thanked for the Council’s past assistance to the Historical Society’s work, especially their contributions to the research funding for A History of Kershaw County, SC. He replied that they were proud to have been a part of the project.

Kathee Stahl (center) and A History co-authors Joan Inabinet (left) and Glen Inabinet talked to Director Akers about the area’s historic past, about the Bonds Conway House, and about current work of the Society. It was also noted that one of the speakers at the Society’s May 24 program, Patricia McNeely, is a new member of the Humanities Council Speakers Bureau.

The public may also visit us Thursday, April 30, from 1-5 p.m., when we welcome visitors to our headquarters, the Bonds Conway House, 811 Fair Street, during the Humanities Festival held annually by the South Carolina Humanities Council  and hosted this year in Camden by the National Steeplechase Museum April 30-May 3.

Conversations on Kershaw County history and book-signings will feature authors Joan and Glen Inabinet (A History of Kershaw County, SC and other titles) at the Bonds Conway House. Kathee Stahl will also offer guided tours of the historic early-nineteenth-century home built by an enslaved carpenter who purchased his own freedom.

Archaeologist Chad Long on Sunday, March 1, 2015, brought new information to the local community as he compared recent excavation findings at two sites—Historic Camden Revolutionary War Park and Ayers Town, a post-Revolutionary Catawba settlement in Lancaster County. Nearly 60 persons braved blustery weather to hear Long at the Historical Society program held at the Kershaw County School District Office Building. A professional archaeologist for the South Carolina Department of Transportation, Long and his family live in Camden.

Archaeology, Long said, can provide information not available by other means. He demonstrated, for example, how archaeology has lately revealed the influence of colonial potters in Camden on new design adaptations of traditional Catawba potters at Ayers Town. An active question-and-answer period followed the talk. Long also mentioned other local archaeological projects being planned as well. Conversation continued during refreshments and viewing of items from the sites.

Also of interest at the program was an exhibit case that Lon Outten brought from the Camden Archives with a display of even older Indian relics collected from plowed fields in upper Kershaw County, mostly in 1949. Centered in the case was a rare Deptford ax found in the 1920s in the vicinity of the Battle of Camden.

Historic associations between the Catawba people and earliest Camden settlers are memorialized in Camden’s Town Green statuary depicting colonial-era King Hagler (Haiglar) and Joseph Kershaw, and in the continued prominent presence in Kershaw County of iconic weathervane images of Catawba chief Haiglar, first raised in 1826 in Camden.

Society treasurer Lon Outen also presented for sale his new book, A History of Kershaw County Law Enforcement: 1792-1969, available in hardback or paperback.

A Passion for Old Churches: Spotlight on Architectural Treasures in Kershaw County 

Bill Segars, who confesses he has a passion for old church buildings, was guest speaker at the Kershaw County Historical Society’s December 7, 2014, program in Camden at John Knox Hall, Bethesda Presbyterian Church (Seen through the windows of the meeting room, the unique rear of the classic sanctuary was seasonal with Christmas wreaths).

Highlighting Kershaw County area churches, Segars illustrated research details with his photographs of historic and distinctive architecture. He is compiling his work into a future book on South Carolina churches.  Questions and answers were lively.

Refreshments and Society book sales concluded the well-attended meeting.

At our headquarters, the Bonds Conway House, we were delighted Sunday, November 2, to have welcomed nearly 225 of the distinguished tour guests of the South Carolina Historical Society! We were Site Number 1 on the Camden tour, and we tried to give our visitors cause to remember us at the “top of the list.”

You can learn more from us about Bonds Conway and the Bonds Conway House by clicking above on our “CONTACT US” link. You can also view files of information at the Camden Archives and at the South Caroliniana Library, and Caroliniana additionally has online digital images of the Bonds Conway family papers (Choose BROWSE COLLECTION).