A New Spider in the ‘Hood

Ten years ago a friend was redesigning her flower beds at the front of her house. She gave me the choice of taking any and all of assorted plants and bulbs.

Several of the bulbs I tucked at the base of several pine trees. Several years they put out some spindly growth that looked like daffodils, although they never bloomed.

One of the hurricane-damaged pines fell over on August 24, 2018.

Almost a month later I was returning home in the evening and noticed something glowing red in the near darkness.

I’d never seen this type of flower before. The internet tells me that it is a spider lily.

Over the course of several days, more bloomed.

I feel lucky to have these beauties. They need light in order to bloom, and when the pine tree fell over, the light was able to warm them enough to spring forth.

And who doesn’t love a good spider in the woods?

The Most Scruffy Cat in the ‘Hood

There’s a new cat in the ‘hood. He is super-scruffy.

I’ve seen him off in the woods in the underbrush. He never comes nearer than 30 feet when he can see me. Sometimes when he is in the Treehouse, he is so engrossed in eating that he can’t see or hear anything else except the food. I can be that way with food, too, but this guy is starving.

A week ago, I was preparing to head out to the Heritage Days festival. I had things to move out of the car, like bags of cat food, so I was walking back and forth from the car to the shed. I had already fed the cats at all the feeding stations, and Mr. Scruffy took his opportunity to grab a quick bite, not knowing that I was going back to the car for good. He hasn’t learned that when the hatch is open, I’m coming back.

Then he spots me.

And he’s off the platform into the woods, sailing out into space like a tiny super hero.

He’s learned to sit in the woods and meow at me, as if to remind me to make sure there is extra food in the bowls, enough to include him.

One early morning as I was preparing to leave for work, I had already filled the bowls before going back inside. Mr. Scruffy Cat had still not caught on that the car hatch was open.

How adorable is this?

In Search Of Transpine

Sugar’s ancestor was Colonel Alexander James Lawton.  He’s found several references to where the Colonel is referred to as “Alex”, like in the papers of Benjamin Spicer Stafford.  Every time we’ve talked about him, we’ve always called him Alexander James.  Like at the family reunions, the organizers divide the attendants up into groups depending what child of Joseph and Sarah Robert Lawton they descend from.  There’s only one other family that descends from Alexander James, and they descend through his youngest child, Edward Payson Lawton.  In the papers of Benjamin Spicer Stafford, he refers to this person as “Ned”.

I love this so much, this finding of these little facts that personalize these long-deceased people.  “Alex”.  “Ned”.  I. Love. This.

There are other references that we’ve found that refer to Transpine Plantation  being part of the larger Mulberry Grove Plantation.  I don’t know why one plantation would be part of another one.

Which brings us back to the enormous oak that we saw.  Live oaks mean something here.  Many times they define an allee, or lane, to a house, like a driveway.  A lone oak?  I don’t know specifically.  But it means that someone was there.  It brings a humanness to the spot.  We’ve seen one other oak that was bigger, and that’s the Angel Oak.

In some of his reference materials, Sugar saw where Alex Lawton had a small house, basically cabin sized, built for his mother Sarah Robert Lawton to live in during her later years, and it was built at Transpine.  The enormous oak we saw was next to a little house, and he wondered if that would be the location of Sarah’s house.

We wiggled all week in anticipation of going back to see the tree up close and to measure the house.

*****

We drove past, and saw yet something else that we had missed in all our previous passes.

 

It’s less than 20 feet from the dirt lane.  What is it?

We wore our rubber boots because we have no idea what we might step into.

 

This building is all cattywampus. I told him not to go in there because it was going to fall down around his ears. I wouldn’t go in at the same time in case it collapsed. Somebody would need to be able to call 911.

 

To the right of the door.

 

To the left of the door. Perhaps this was an old store.

Okay…
I’m leaning in the door at approximately the same angle as the left wall. This place is scaring the bejesus out of me.

 

The left side of the building.

 

Part of the support system holding up the front porch.

We walked along the left side of the building, and Sugar said, “Don’t step on that skull.”  I said “huh”, and looked down and saw that I was indeed stepping on a skull.  Just a skull, no skeleton.

 

The back wall has completely fallen away from the building. See the sunlight coming THROUGH the building?
My apologies for being to antsy to allow the camera to focus clearly before I made this shot.

I manned up, and skittered inside the building to get a detail of the wall support.

 

And when I turned, I saw a chimney suspended in the air.

I skittered back out, and we decide to get back in the van to head toward the enormous live oak.

But first.  The morning sun slants through the trees.  We are facing south, and there’s a half-allee of live oaks on our right.

 

Further along this lane is the enormous live oak.  I was still jittery about the ambiance at the old building, and I didn’t have my wits about me to remember to take a photo of the tree with a real-life frame-of-reference, like a person.

But see that tiny building to the left of the tree? That’s about 22′ wide by 34′ long.
Are you getting a sense of how big this tree is?

 

This long horizontal branch has broken away from the tree, although it is still attached.

We turn onto the field lane, which is between the house and the field, and stop to have a bite of early lunch.

 

That mass of greenery is the house.

 

This is a zoom shot of the previous view. See the walls of the house under all the greenery?

 

Sugar brought his machete because of all the vines. He’s chopping and whacking a path for us.

 

Dear God, that’s a widow-maker hanging over his head. I was as jumpy as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, but he wasn’t worried.

 

The house is not the right dimensions to be Sarah’s house at Transpine, but perhaps it was here once.  Regardless, Sugar named the live oak “TransOak”.

Then onward past what we believe to be the original location of the house at Mulberry Grove which was burned by Sherman.  There’s a lane which is marked No Trespassing, but the road map shows that it is a public road.

Yes, we did drive along it.  And took photos out the driver’s side window.  Some are zoomy, some are not.

 

The gate to the driveway to the house.

Further along the lane, we come to more fields.

 

Peanuts!  My father used to plant peanuts.

Sugar agreed to go again to the Lawton Cemetery so I could take some photos of headstones to confirm that this was indeed the Lawton Cemetery that Mama Florrie said it was.

And that’s another blog post.  (Spoiler:  she was right.)

 

Catching Up With Fanny Andrews in Washington, Georgia

This is the third post of a series. Click here for the first part, and here for the second part.

After leaving the Gilbert-Alexander House and not getting accosted, although no thanks to our efforts, we tootled around a bit more.
Sugar had seen a marker or two that he wanted to investigate.

Oh, yeah.  Now we’re having fun.  We stopped on the side of the road to view this marker.

TWO HUNDRED FEET EAST

SITE OF

PRESBYTERIAN POPLAR

HERE WAS HELD THE FIRST

ORDINATION OF A PRESBYTERIAN

MINISTER IN GEORGIA, JULY 22, 1790,

WHEN JOHN SPRINGER WAS ORDAINED

AND INSTALLED PASTOR OF

SMYRNA PROVIDENCE AND

WASHINGTON CHURCHES

BY A COMMISSION OF THE

PRESBYTERY OF SOUTH CAROLINA

COMPOSED OF

REV. ROBERT HALL

AND

REV. FRANCIS CUMMINS

That is surely important news for someone.  I don’t know who you are yet, so feel free to comment.  Don’t just sit there.

We headed back over to another marker that we saw near the Catholic Cemetery.  Sugar has a nose for markers.

THIS TREE PLANTED – 1930

HONORING

ELIZA FRANCES ANDREWS

“MISS FANNIE”

TEACHER, AUTHOR,

RENOWNED BOTANIST

WASHINGTON WOMAN’S CLUB

1982

AUG. 10, 1840

JAN. 21, 1931

Reading this marker meant that we needed to cross the street to take a photo of the tree.  The walking lady hardly gave us a second look, like people wander around this town all the time taking photos.

Our hostess at the B&B had told us about the Resthaven Cemetery on the edge of town.  We still had daylight, and we found it easily.  We found the cemetery, but I couldn’t find the entrance, because you have to do a quick lefty-righty thing to get to the entrance, and we turned around in a dicey-looking parking lot.  (*Not* someone’s driveway.)

Sugar knew what the marker for Fanny Andrews looked like, and we easily found the old section, and he went right to it.  There were SO many Andrews people, and their affiliated families, so I took lots and lots of photos.

Here’s where things get complicated for you the reader. Feel the urge to scroll past these unidentified people.

Eliza Frances “Fanny” Andrews

Someone had been here before us and left fresh flowers. I wish that we could take credit for being clever and bringing flowers for a world-famous botanist. Nice move, mystery person.

It was a perfect time of day for photographing tombstones.  The angle of the setting sun created shadows and made the inscriptions easier to read.

On the way to the car, we saw a section with small markers with no inscriptions at all.

There’s an interesting pattern of sunlight on the right side of the photo below.  If you believe in angels, you might enjoy this photo.

The sun is setting, and the night is calling, and the birds settle down for an evening of rest at beautiful Resthaven.

The Gilbert-Alexander House in Washington, Georgia

This is the second part of a series. You can read the first part by clicking here.

GILBERT – ALEXANDER HOUSE
In the 1780’s Felix and William Gilbert, Virgin-
ians, camped in a beautiful grove here and were
so pleased with the scenery that they returned
later to take land grants. In 1808 they erected
the brick portion of this house, one of the
oldest brick structures north of Augusta. Their
descendants are the only families who have
occupied it. The burial grounds on the property
attest the continuity of the family for more
than 150 years.
The Alexanders, descendants of the Gilberts,
served with distinction in the War Between
the States. Porter Alexander, who lived here, was
a Brigadier General of Artillery in the Confed-
erate Army.

Porter Alexander was Sarah Alexander Lawton’s brother.

The opposite side of the historical marker is the same, but a bit brighter to read since it faces the sun.  Here it is for your viewing pleasure.

Y’all know that tree photos are coming. And probably gravestones. Yeah, definitely gravestones.

Then I did something that I usually don’t do. I drove down their driveway.

Let me explain more about the terror I feel about driving down someone’s driveway unannounced.  When I was growing up, and we would be out for a drive in the country and ready to go home, you never, ever (repeat never) turned around in someone’s driveway.  It’s rude, and it’s like an unspoken code.  You might drive miles out of your way looking for a likely turnaround spot, or a church parking lot, or a road intersection, but that’s just the way it was.  Imagine the panic I feel when I not only pull into the driveway, but continue on.  Illegal trespassing could get you shot, but strangely has never happened to us.  But still, suppressed panic.

So Sugar is egging me on (Drive down the driveway!  There’s no sign!), which is easy for him to say, since he’s not the one doing the driving.  I get all big-eyed in terror (No sign!  We’ll never get this chance again!), and what the heck.  The car creeps forward like a trundling ottoman down the allee of young trees (Look!  They’ve got an allee!  They want us to drive down!), humping over a few tree roots, and he screeches, “There’s statues!  Over there!  To the back of the house!  That’s the cemetery!  Get a picture!”  I grip the wheel a little tighter, and screech, in a whisper, right back at him, “No!  I’m driving the damn car!”, and he wants me to drive closer and closer until we’re almost at the front porch.  We decided that was far enough, even though I’m sure that I could gun it and tear across the front of the house and shoot out the other end of the driveway back onto the street, because it appears to me that the driveway in actually an upside-down “U” that connects to the street in two places.  Sugar wasn’t so sure, so we decided to back up, which would be quite a driving feat for me since we’ve already traveled down the driveway the length of a football field.

I start to back up, and my car antenna catches on a low-hanging branch of a giant tree.  “Spronnnngggg” vibrated the car, and by now we’re sure that there are no occupants in the house, because they surely would have come outside to view the two old people arguing in the bright yellow car that is vibrating like a tuning fork.

We run like hell.

And what does Sugar want to do now? Why, that’s right, he wants to go to the other driveway entrance and approach from that side.

Yes, we crept forward from that side, too, but I was able to agree to try one last photograph and used the zoom feature on the camera. He assured me that people probably constantly drive down the driveway taking photos of the house.

Then I turned the car around and headed out. Pronto.
More driving around. More history.

In Which Sugar & YoursTruly Go To Washington. Georgia, That Is.

We are in love.

That’s right, you heard it here first.  Sugar and I are in Love.

With Sarah Alexander Lawton.

She was from Washington, Georgia, and after all the research  and reading of her journal about the death of her daughter Corinne Elliott Lawton, and then the Bonaventure Cemetery Tour, we had to go.  WeHadToGoRightNow.

*****

A few years ago, Sugar was researching some of his Garnett ancestors, and he came across Eliza Frances “Fanny” Andrews, a famous botanist.  She was the daughter of Annulet Ball and Garnett Andrews from Washington, Georgia, and the more we read about Washington, the more we realized that Washington, Georgia, was an early center of settlement, and culture, and expansion.

*****

I was able to get a few days off from work, and Sugar managed to snag a day extra, so it was going to be a quick trip to Washington then on to Columbia, South Carolina, to go to the Caroliniana Library and look at some archives.

Now the problem comes for us, what with only being able to get away on a Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, is that many things are closed.  LIke the local historical museum in Washington, Georgia.  (insert rolling of eyes and muttering under breath.)

We went anyway.  Y’all get on board our crazytrain.

This parking lot is to the rear of the building. The downstairs corner of the house that is closest to you has a museum bookstore. That was closed. Sugar kept pressing his face to the glass. “There are books right there. Should we break in?” Uummm, no.

What a beautiful day for history.  Many of the following photos are of the same object, only once with a landscape orientation, and then with a portrait orientation.

 

This building was to the rear of the house behind where we were standing.  We mused as to what it was, and we decided that it was a kitchen house, since it was next to a well, and we are scholars and all.

 

The well was covered with a metal grating to keep people from leaning in.

I was feeling bold since the metal grate was in place, and if I positioned the camera just right, I could see the water below.  You can see my reflection in the water.

 

This little gazebo felt so comfortable that I hated to leave it. But history calls.

 

Now I’m really confused about the kitchenhouse.  There don’t seem to be many windows, and who would want to work in that?

‘Cause it’s not a kitchenhouse, fool.

It’s a carriage house.

We continued on around the grounds where another building was being renovated.

This ancient stump makes a lovely natural planter.

 

Sugar lends a hand so that you can see how big this tree must have been. He’s an average guy with an average hand.

 

We have no clue what this was/is, but I’d like to live in it.

 

This is the side of the house away from the street. There’s the door to the downstairs bookstore where no one has broken in.

 

Now we’re at the front of the house.

The brick walkway.

 

This is under the front porch.

 

And now we’ve circled around and are back at our starting point.  The bookstore is still not open.  (Insert sad face.)

 

 

 

 

WASHINGTON – WILKES

HISTORICAL MUSEUM

*****

This museum shows the splendors of plantation life in Georgia

before the War Between the States, displays relics, mementos and

keepsakes of the era that tried men’s souls, and adds a fine

collection of Indian relics for variety.

Washington had many ties with the Confederacy.  The Confederate

Cabinet held its last meeting just down the street.  President

Jefferson Davis met his wife and daughter in this city at

the end of the war.  Mr. Davis’ field desk and camp chest

are on display.  The well named Last Cabinet Chapter of the

U. D. C. has on display many precious keepsakes and mementos

of the war, together with Joe Brown Pikes, guns, swords,

pistols, documents, and pictures.

The big house dates back to about 1800.  It was occupied after

1857 by Samuel Barnett, first Georgia Railroad Commissioner,

and W. A. Slaton, forty-year occupant.  Washington’s benefactor,

Dr. Francis T. Willis, half-brother of Mr. Barnett, lived with

him here.  Francis T. Willis moved to Richmond, Va. in his

later years but told his sons that he wanted his ante-bellum

furniture returned to Washington when there was a place

for it.  Edward Fauntleroy Willis brought the furniture from

Richmond.  It makes a beautiful display.

*****

 

We toured around a bit more, then went to the B&B to check in.  After chatting with our hostess, we headed out for some supper and more touring.  Supper first, since our hostess told us that the sidewalks would be rolled up by 4:30PM.

This plaque was across from the grocery store.  I love the zoom feature on the camera.

It’s an easy town to get around in, just made for touring.  Washington was not burned by Sherman, and there are over 100 antebellum homes to see.

We found this cemetery, and since Sugar needed to call home to check on the dogs, we stopped here.  It was a Catholic cemetery.

Elise Mertz was all alone, so I stopped to make a memory of her, so far from home.

Then we saw a road sign that said Alexander something-or-other, and Sugar said, “This is it.”

This is what?  He’s doing it again.  He has a plan, and I have no clue what he’s talking about.

Of course.  The Gilbert-Alexander house.  And here’s the reason why we’re here.  Sarah Alexander Lawton.

Of course.

The Bonaventure Cemetery Tour

Well, we did it.

Let’s do this thang.

We went on the Bonaventure Cemetery Tour.  We chose to go to the one that’s given the 2nd Sunday of the month by the Bonaventure Historical Society.  It’s free, and we were interested in finding out what stories, if any, were being told by this group about Corinne Elliott Lawton.

While Sugar signed the guestbook, I stepped into the next room which had memorial photos of famous folks buried here.  I really thought that I would be able to read the names from the photographs, but I can’t.  Perhaps I can go back and enlarge the original photos on my computer and read them, and then update this post.  Perhaps.  Probably not.

It’s Alexander Robert Lawton, Corinne’s father, also called A.R.L. in Corinne’s mother’s diary.

We gathered at a meeting place at the intersection of Mullryne and Wiltberger Ways.  We learned from the website that we should wear comfortable walking shoes and to bring water.

The BHS representative is introducing our guide, Mrs. Ford.

And to think I was worried that I would get to hot and wouldn’t be able to keep up. Mrs. Ford set the standard for comfort by wearing white pants, a *jacket*, a cute straw hat, and espadrilles. I was shamed.

Our first stop was a marker that memorialized the early burials.  Some of the locations of the graves are not known.  Some were moved here from other burial locations.

We started out the tour with maybe 20 people.  Stragglers kept joining us during the tour until there were at least 40 people.

The ladies in the right of the photo moved between these bushes to get a better look at the tour guide.  Never, never step between bushes in this part of the country without waving your hand up and down in front of you.  This is very important because you must break the spider webs that are built between the bushes.  Because spider webs have residents.  The shorter woman was the perfect height.  She stepped between the bushes and started waving at her hair.  I said, “It’s just a fly.  I got it.”  I couldn’t tell the nice tourist that she had a spider in her hair.  The tour would probably end right there, what with all the screaming.

Sugar saw the “Branch” threshold and decided that these were his people, related to Christopher Branch. We have no proof.

We’re gathered now outside the famous memorial to “Little Gracie”. Her statue has had to be fenced in because it was considered good luck to rub her nose, which was causing considerable wear.

 

And now, Sugar discovers a true relative while everyone else is looking at the plot opposite.  This is George Mosse Norton, buried in the Norton plot.  Of course.

The Norton Plot

This is the Rauer plot, and these folks are related to Henry C. Cunningham, who was the brother-in-law to Corinne Elliott Lawton, and he was the father of Sarah Alexander Cunningham who donated her collection of family papers to the Georgia Historical Society.

And by this time there are so many people in the crowd, and we are lagging to the back like bad students on a field trip, that we missed the speech at the Baldwin plot.  When we went back after the tour to look at this plot, we found that the people in this plot were related to Corinne’s mother, Sarah Alexander Lawton from Washington, Wilkes County, Georgia.  (This means that we are going to have to go to Washington.  Georgia, that is.)

And then we move on to the Lawton plot.

Mrs. Ford perched on the threshold, and spoke a bit about the Lawtons, mostly about Corinne’s mother, Sarah.  She did not mention Corinne.  At.  All.

Hmmm.  Interesting.  We don’t know what that means.

I went back into the Rauer plot to take some more photos, and because I didn’t thoroughly read the details of the tour, I didn’t know that we weren’t supposed to go in the plots.  Oops, me.

And we found the Stoddard plot, whose family was associated with the Lawtons.

And we’re at the end of the tour.  So we went on a little tour of our own.

I was attempting to get a nice shot of this tree, which was clearly unsuccessful.

And yet I try again.

 

We walked over to the river, and Sugar spotted something.

I used the zoom feature on the camera and found that Dub Foster’s marker is on the rocks.

We headed back to the Norton plot so that Sugar could visit with his folks.  Do you remember the name George Mosse?  I’ve written about him before.  The Mosses intermarried with the Nortons.  See, we can’t go anywhere without finding people that Sugar is related to.

The threshold to the Norton plot.

And that’s our tour!  I’m still curious to take the paid tour.  I keep getting hits on the blog with the search term “Corinne Lawton”.  Are they still talking about her?

I suspect they are.  The billboard is a dead (pardon the pun) giveaway, which is a blog for another day.

An Unexpected Present

Oh, y’all, I just received the best present.

I went to a new Thai restaurant.  Somehow they knew I was a knitter.

They brought me a pair of knitting needles.  Squeeeeee!

 

The Citizen’s Free Library

When Sugar bought the grooming-and-boarding business two years ago, he signed a three-year lease on the building.  We considered that now that the lease is almost up, perhaps we should look at other properties, even though we don’t think that there will be anything available.

We looked at buildings that were for rent or sale in our little town.  We didn’t actually tour any, we just looked at the outside and considered if it was large enough and what renovations it would need.

One of the buildings was the old Coca-Cola building.

It was a patchwork-looking affairs, and had several additions to it.  It probably wouldn’t work, but we drove around the building anyway….

…and found the Citizen’s Free Library.

And because Sugar is a book collector, of sorts, we had to get out and take a look.

I didn’t even want to touch them.  They were dusty, and warped, and some were mildewed, and they smelled bad.

I said, “Oh, my gosh, this is just ridiculous.  Why are you looking at these?  These are just disgusting, and don’t even think of taking any of these books, and ohIhavetohavethisone.  It’s Sam Levinson!”

There were embroidery hoops, and old stuffed animals, and Yarn!

Sam Levinson wrote the first adult book I ever read.  I was probably in the fourth grade, and I was standing in front of the children’s section in the church library, trying to decide which book I was going to read – again – and the librarian said, “Let me show you this one.”  And she went to the next bookshelf (it was a very small library that had maybe four bookcases), and she pulled off Sam Levenson’s “Everything But Money”.  I protested that it would be too hard for me, and she said that it wouldn’t.  I was worried that I was going to get in trouble for reading a too-hard book, but I was taught to obey figures of authority, so I was stuck.

It was the best book ever.

And now, thanks to the Citizen’s Free Library, I have my very own Sam Levenson book, “In One Era and Out the Other”.

Thanks, Citizen’s Free Library!  No late fees!

Where is Colonel Lawton Cemetery? (Part 2)

Let’s try again.

I’ve worried over where this cemetery is like a dog over a bone.  Gnaw, gnaw, gnaw.

I GPSed (look!  new word!) the coordinates that my nephew found again from a website where some fellers GPSed all the cemeteries in SC, once again using google maps.  It still led me off way northwest of Garnett into a barren-looking area, keeping in mind that it’s still not the correct name for the cemetery.  It’s listed as Old Lawtonville.  There’s only one Lawtonville Cemetery.  I asked one family who’s lived in that area *forever*, and they are as puzzled as I am over the Old and New Lawtonville listings.

So I went to bed.

The next day, it occurred to me that Mulberry Grove is the plantation that the graveyard is supposed to be on.  And Mulberry Grove is in an area known as Pineland.  And didn’t I see something about Pineland being in both Hampton and Jasper County?  Crap, I’m in the wrong county.

So I looked in Jasper County, and scrolled down the webpage to “Lawton, Colonel”.  You can find it, too, by clicking here.  Then click on the “M” that is underlined, and that will take you to the map.

Then I made a google map with driving directions from Sugar’s house to the cemetery, and it’s less than 20 miles, and almost due north.

Today we drove out, and found it.  I took photos of most of the headstones.  The ones that I am specifically looking for are for Mama Florrie’s father’s people, Betty Gant and Hagar Gant.  They don’t have headstones.  There are a lot of depressions in the ground.

I know that people were buried there because I’ve seen their death certificates on http://www.ancestry.com.

Do you realize what this means?

I think I’m going to have to start a blog and post all the death certificates for people who don’t have headstones at Colonel Lawton Cemetery.  Well, that sounds totally nuts.

The road separated the cemetery into two sections.  We supposed that the one to our left was the black section.

Do you see the marker in the left foreground that has been overtaken by the azalea bush that someone planted as a memorial?

This young man died in Vietnam.

 

We’re inside what we believe is the black section looking over the road to the other section.

 

Now we’ve crossed over to the other section, which we believe to be white.  (Foreshadow:  we are wrong.)

W. E. MURPHY
GENERAL
MERCHANDISE
MAR 2, 1879
APR. 2, 1942

 

Carrie, who is Wesley Eugene Murphy’s wife.

 

Annie is one of the children of Carrie and Wesley Eugene Murphy.

 

Just past the cemetery is a farm gate.  Private road, no trespassing.  We are sorely tempted.  The gate is open.

We look back and see Ole Yeller waiting faithfully for us, so we turn back.

Now, google maps shows that this is State Road 27-27 and it intersects with Gillison Branch Road, so we drive over to Gillison Branch and try to sneak in another way.  Really, what are we looking for?  We’ve already found the cemetery.

It seems that Mr. Morel is one ahead of us.

So, what do I call the new blog…