Daniel Mann & The Beaufort Volunteer Artillery

A few weeks ago, we found the Daniel Mann Family burial plot at the Saint Helena Episcopal Churchyard.

I couldn’t read the marker very well, what with the discoloration.  There’s a memorial on findagrave.com.  If you’ll click on the link, you can see the memorial that Candace Pethe made, and all the photos that have been added.

 

DANIEL MANN

CO. A.

11 S.C. INF.

C.S.A.

Go to this link to learn more about this infantry.

Company A – (also known as Beaufort Volunteer Artillery)  many men from Beaufort District (County) Mustered in June 12, 1861 at Bay Point.

This meant a trip back to Beaufort to see the Arsenal, which I had never really been interested in before, but the Arsenal was the home base for the BVA.  It’s located on Craven, one block away from where Agnes Mann lived in 1900.

Now this sign outside the Arsenal said it was a visitor center.

When we went inside, there were a few knick-knacks for sale, but mostly it was real estate brochures, which we were absolutely not interested in.  We wanted more information about the Arsenal, but there didn’t seem to be any.

 

BEAUFORT

ARSENAL

Erected in 1798 and

rebuilt in 1852,

the Beaufort Arsenal was

the home of the

Beaufort

Volunteer Artillery,

commissioned in 1802,

which had its roots in

an earlier company

organized in 1776

and served valiantly

in the Revolutionary War.

The BVA was stationed at

Fort Beauregard during

the Battle of Port Royal

on November 7, 1861.

 

And hey!  No dumping!

The drains lead to the river!

In Which I am a Historian, Part 2

Last year, another writer called me a “Historian”.  You can visit J’aime Rubio’s investigative blog by clicking on the link.

I.  Like.  It.

This past March, Sugar and I went to Dahlonega, Georgia, on a William Starr Basinger pilgrimage. The historical society’s newsletter for June, 2014, did a write-up of the occasion. They mailed the newsletter to us, and if you want to check out their website, take a look by clicking here.

 

Because the Blog is My Scrapbook

Even though I live in a 31′ RV, I still have a lot of stuff.  Occasionally, I’ll have a little look-see at the stuff that is accumulating, in spite of my self-imposed rule:  Nothing else can come in until something goes out.

This rule does not necessarily apply to yarns or cats.

I’m trying to do my children a favor so someday they don’t have to sort through my things and say, “What was wrong with Mom?  We’re going to have to order a bigger dumpster.”

The most recent discovery is a list of historical resources at the Georgia History Society.  I’ll post it here, and then I’ll toss the paper.  Reader Leo thinks I should keep hard copy in case something happens to the internet and I need hard copy.  I think, if the internet explodes, we have bigger problems that my hard copy will not resolve.

Moving along now to the recycling with this piece of paper in hand…

One Hundred and Thirty-Five Years Later…

Earlier this year Sugar and I discovered that several of his cousins moved from Lancashire, England, to New York City, and then to Savannah, Georgia.  The most remarkable thing about this discovery was that the information came from another unknown cousin, Julie, in Belgium.

Julie knew that the Christopher R. Bateson family were buried in Savannah, Georgia, from 1855-1879, because she found them listed in the City of Savannah’s online cemetery index.

BATESON, ALICE LAUREL GROVE NORTH 6/19/1853 8 YRS 9 MOS

BATESON, CHRISTOPHER H. LAUREL GROVE NORTH 10/19/1870 30

BATESON, CHRISTOPHER R. LAUREL GROVE NORTH 5/13/1855 36

BATESON, MARTHA LAUREL GROVE NORTH 5/3/1874 25 YRS 7 MOS 20 DAYS

BATESON, MARY JANE LAUREL GROVE NORTH 8/16/1853 12 HRS

BATESON, THOMAS LAUREL GROVE NORTH 11/8/1877 36 YRS 3 MOS

BATESON, THOMAS R. LAUREL GROVE NORTH 9/28/1879 7

GRAHAM, MARY LAUREL GROVE NORTH 4/12/1869 50 YRS 10 MOS

*****

We found that when we went to view their cemetery markers that there were none.

So Sugar ordered one to mark the spot, and it was installed this week.  Can you spot it?  The photo below is taken from across several aisles.

 

 

Now from the same location using the zoom lens.

A few lanes over, we see the Densler brick mausoleum under the trees.  We visited there in February when we discovered a Densler/Starr/Basinger connection.

 

This has been quite the most remarkable journey of my life.  I understand now how easy it is to order a marker, and how easy it would be for something to be mis-communicated or misspelled. You write out what you want the marker to say, the monument company produces a computerized image, and you change or approve the sample.  The company goes forward with the marker, and it is installed.

Thank you, Julie in Brussels, for reaching out.  Why doesn’t everybody do this?

Five Years! And an Obituary for Robert Neighbors

Robert Neighbors married Agnes Mann, but not the Agnes Mann I’ve been talking about.  This Agnes is a granddaughter of the original Agnes Mann of Baden, Germany, and Beaufort, South Carolina.

 

Funeral services for Robert

Matthew Neighbors, 55, were

conducted Friday afternoon

from Carteret Street Methodist

church, with interment in the

Beaufort National Cemetery.

The Rev. George F. Kirby offi-

ciated.

Mr. Neighbors died unexpect-

edly at his residence at Hun-

dred Pines, Beaufort, Thursday

morning.  He was a native of

Elizabethtown, Ky. and had

lived in Beaufort 26 years.  He

retired from the Navy after

many years of active service.

Survivors, his widow, the

former Miss Agnes Mann, of

Beaufort; a daughter Mrs.

Charles W. Martin of Normon,

Okla., a son, James D. Neigh-

bors, a student at Clemson col-

lege, and a sister, Mrs. Milton

Sewell, of Baltimore, Md.

 

(From the Beaufort Gazette, March 30, 1950.)

Backing Up My Truck

I need to back up my truck a little bit.

Sugar and I are going in so many directions at once with all the leads and connections to the Mann family from Baden, Germany, and Beaufort, South Carolina, which also connects with the Bateson family of Lancashire, England, and Savannah, Georgia.

I have lost the ability, if I ever had it, to blog about these events in a logical fashion, and I can’t confine one blog post to one subject because many things are happening.  At once.  That’s life for you.  You start off with a plan, and stuff happens, and there goes your plan.

We’ve been to the Beaufort library several more times with good success, and also the Christopher Bateson marker for the unmarked cemetery plot #322 HAS BEEN PLACED on the plot, just yesterday, and Sugar received a newsletter from the Lumpkin County, Georgia, historical society which featured a little story about our trip when we were again on the trail of William Starr Basinger.  Good stuff all around.

A New Chapter in a History Book

I’m about to start a new chapter in my life’s history book.  You see, I have been blogging for 5 years using a free blog platform here at WordPress, and I have almost used up my free space.  I need to purchase more space in order to keep blogging.  Yes, I could start another free blog and link this one to it, but then I’d have to change the name, and how could I possibly come up with a catchier name than “Ruthrawls’s Blog”.  Exactly.  You see my point.

And I can’t stop thinking about Agnes Mann.  Especially when you see the more good stuff that I have found online, plus Sugar and I took another day trip and yay, took more photos.  Sometimes, we just look at each other and say…

Sugar:  What do you want to do today?

YoursTruly:  We could go to Beaufort.

Sugar:  I need to go to PetSmart.

YoursTruly:  We could go to Beaufort.

Sugar:  We need to eat some lunch.

YoursTruly:  We could go to Beaufort.

Sugar:  Oh, I’ve got it.  We could go to Beaufort.

YoursTruly:  That’s a great idea.  We could go to Beaufort.  Why didn’t I think of that?

*****

The paid upgrade will allow enormous amounts of storage, and I’ll be able to embed videos, instead of just providing the links.

Because, y’all?  Agnes Mann.

A Day About Beaufort

It’s not often I get a day with my best girl. We made a day out and about in Beaufort.  A day of making memories.

Lunch on the patio at Plums overlooking the Waterfront Park and the river.

Beaufort is a dog-friendly town. Dogs have a more enjoyable time in the waterfront park area between the river and the shops and restaurants. There’s shade, and places for their people to sit, and well-maintained grassy plots.

I needed to drop off a parcel at the post office, which just happened to be on Charles Street, which meant that we would walk very close to Agnes Mann’s house, and further meant that the Saint Helena Episcopal Church was nearby.  We stopped in the churchyard so I could take a photo of some Sanders folks, who are next to the Mann plot.  Agnes’s son Daniel married Carrie Sanders, so I’m guessing that these folks are related. Regardless, I don’t know when we’ll come this way away.

Gustave Sanders and Bessie Gibson. To the left of their headstone, you can see the rounded curbing that outlines the Mann plot.

The footstone for Bessie Gibson Sanders.

The footstone for Gustave Sanders.

Now diagonally across the street, headed back downtown towards the river, is the First Presbyterian Church.

The length of the church runs parallel to the river, and the windows are on each side of the length, which I would suppose allows for the sea breezes to help cool the church in temperate weather.

We are facing north, and in the distance you can see the brick wall of the Saint Helena Episcopal Churchyard. That corner that you see shields the Daniel and Agnes Mann family plot.

  In the past, I have sometimes taken only one photo of a historical marker, and then it turned out to be blurry.  Forgive my penchant for multiple marker memories. Now one more block and we’re back at Bay Street.

The Cuthbert House Inn.

This property has been placed on the NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES by the United States Department of the Interior.

 

The Battle of Honey Hill

At this year’s Lawton and Allied Families Reunion, I was not a good chronicler.  The Friday night dinner was held at the Davis Swimming Pool.  I waited too long to get any really good photos.  I wish now that I had gone upstairs to the roller rink & dance floor which was over the picnic area.

The swimming pool hasn’t been open for years, but lots of folks at the reunion had really good memories that they shared.  Sugar and I had both had to work that day, and were in a bit of a panic that we could get home in time to get cleaned up and onward to the dinner.  It worked out fine, but photo-taking was on the back burner.

Saturday morning found us, after the side trip to the Tison Family Cemetery, back at the Robertville Baptist Church where Fred York gave a talk about the battle of Honey Hill.

Before the talk and the business meeting, we strolled around the graveyard.  Sugar pointed out that all the Lawton markers had been cleaned and were gleaming.

 

Now getting ready for the group shot…

 

We break for lunch, and then we dash away, for I have to go back to work.

So the following week, while out and about, we actually pulled over and checked out the historical marker at Honey Hill.

 

Sugar thought it might be a good idea to hike about 1 mile north of the sign.

This sign changed his mind.

 

Perhaps you are wondering why I titled this post about the battle of Honey Hill and why it took me so long to get around to a couple of lousy photos of the historical marker?

If you had heard Mr. York’s talk about the troops marching along as they headed to the battle engagement, and getting lost, and looping around in circles, and talking an endless amount of time, you might understand.  And, y’all probably don’t think he was talking about the Yankees…

Heh.  Think again.

The Tison Family Cemetery in Garnett, South Carolina: Revisited in 2014

A man contacted me because he wanted to know if I could take a photo of a headstone in the Tison Family Cemetery in Garnett, South Carolina.  I replied that I could, but I would have to wait for a Sugary companion to go along, because it’s a remote cemetery, and possibly unsafe for a middle-aged, middle-sighted individual, such as YoursTruly.  Snakes, and whatnot.

I convinced Sugar that we could fit in a quick visit on the way to the Lawton and Allied Families Reunion.

I was driving along that morning, with time to spare, and Sugar twitched that I had missed the turn.

I insisted that I had not.  I might have pounded the steering wheel for emphasis.

He insisted that I had.

I insisted that I had not, because the cemetery was south of the main entrance in the woods next to a corn field.

He was pretty sure that we were supposed to be driving by Robbie the Pimp’s place which was the back way to Mistletoe Grove.

Y’all see that this could play out very badly.

I was sure that I was right, and I was also sure that I could prove to him that I was right by staying the course, but what if I was wrong?  I spent my married life with Mr. X.  I was always wrong.  It was always my fault.  I have confidence issues as a result.

Being Sugar-like, he agreed that we should go the way I remembered, even though we had not been there in 5 years.  Time has a way of muddying the memories, especially when creative minds like ours can take a memory and relocate it to a different place.  It’s a gift, really.

So just like that, he smoothed things out, even though if I were wrong we would be terribly late because we would have to backtrack over by Robbie the Pimp’s place.

*****

 

It’s nice to be right occasionally…