Guale Historical Society

Camden County's Heritage Quilt

2008-11-03T16:27:00.000-08:00

Well folks, another year is almost over. Elections are tomorrow, and whomever you choose to vote for, just please go out and vote!

November is the last meeting of the Guale Historical Society until February, and we don't actually have a meeting as much as we have our end of the year banquet and a very special guest speaker.

This year our guest speaker will be Georgia Historical Society's James Jordan, researcher and historian. He will be speaking on a neglected subject: Georgia's Role in the Revolutionary War.

This year we also celebrate Guale's 30th anniversary and as part of that celebration we recognize all past, and current, presidents:

1978-79, '82: John Bailey
1980: Mary Readdick
1981, '89, '99: Eloise B. Thompson
1983: Robert Bennett
1984: Bunnie McAbee
1985: Bud Abbot
1986-87: Ann Stoddard
1988: Debra Vasquez
1990: Gwen Thomas
1991-1998: John Christian
2002-03: Rodney Sheffield
2004-06: James Stacy
2007: Tara Fields / MJ Manning
2008: Robin Cross

The drawing for the Heritage Quilt is fast approaching and we haven't sold nearly enough tickets. Keep in mind there are only 500 tickets for this one-of-a-kind, unique, gorgeous, beautiful, and LARGE quilt! Think how good the odds are that YOU could be the winner!

The quilt is Queen/King size, so it's large enough to snuggle under should the winner choose to use it on their bed.
The quilt also has a sleeve on the back for hanging to show off the wonderful historical photographs on it.
As a reminder, here's a photo of the quilt:

From Historical Heirloom Quilt

Contact Guale Historical Society by email for information on ticket sales.
The quilt is currently on display at the St. Marys Tourism/Welcome Center in downtown St. Marys, in the small building next door to City Hall.
They have tickets on sale there.

Kingsland's new Welcome Center also has tickets for sale, as does the Bryan-Lang Historical Library in Woodbine.

Posters showing the quilt are displayed at key locations throughout Camden County, with information on the drawing, and how to get your tickets. You can see them at the Woodbine City Hall, St. Marys Library, Camden County Library, College of Coastal Georgia, Animal House Boarding & Grooming on Old Still Rd., Kingsland Welcome Center, Camden County Board of Commissioners in the Historic Courthouse in Woodbine, Bryan-Lang Historical Library.

The drawing will be on December 13, 2008 at 4:30 p.m. at the St. Marys Tourism Center, right before the Christmas Tour of Homes begins.

You do not have to be present to win, you only have to buy a ticket for your chance.

Please send us any comments or questions you may have.

We look forward to meeting and/or hearing from all of our now and future members at a meeting, or a ramble, in the new and wonderful year ahead.

September 2008

2008-09-15T06:44:00.001-07:00

Well, the whole summer has come and gone and I have failed to post any new blogs for our Society.

We had some great meetings, and wonderful rambles in the spring.
Of course, we do take the months of summer off on break, but we are back and have a great fall schedule planned.

For our September meeting we had a wonderful speaker, Ken Holcomb, who we met on our ramble in May over in Brantley County.

He gave us wonderful talk on the treasures he has found at his property; buttons from coats of Civil War soldiers, buckles, spoons, bullets, and a lot of other interesting things.
He gave a wonderful history of the area as well as a peek into the lives of the time period.

Also at this meeting was the unveiling of the Historical Quilt commissioned from the Camden Quilt Guild for our Cemetery Preservation Fund fundraiser.

We hope to have tickets available soon to purchase a chance to win this beautiful quilt. The drawing will be held during the Christmas Tour of Homes, in St. Marys in December.
The quilt is on display at the Camden County Library in Kingsland for the month of September, and will be moved to an as yet undecided location in St. Marys for Oct.
Then, the quilt will again move to a new location for November, and then back to St. Marys for December until the drawing.

Each time the quilt moves, I will be sure to let you all know where you can go to view it.

For those of you reading this from afar, here is a photo of the quilt.
Believe you me, this photo does not do the quilt justice!

From Historical Heirloom Quilt

We will have tickets available soon.
They will be $5.00 each or 6 for $25.00.

As soon as the tickets are available that information will be posted here.
So, check back soon!

Good luck!

February Meeting and March Ramble

2008-03-15T15:45:00.000-07:00

February 12, 2008

The February meeting of Guale was at the St. Marys Library and our guest speaker was Valerie Goddard, author of the book series, "Get off the Intersate!".

She gave a very interesting and informative talk about the historical markers located in counties all along the East coast. So far there are three books in her series, with many more planned.

After the meeting Valerie stayed to autograph copies of her books.

March 15, 2008

We met at the Bryan-Lang Library in Woodbine this morning to start our March Ramble to the cemeteries in North Camden County.

First stop was Hull Cemetery at Rural Felicity on Dover Bluff Rd.
Mr. Vern Copeland met us at the cemetery to give us some background on Rural Felicity, and the Hardee, Ellis, and Hull families.

Then we moved on to Ella Park Church Cemetery, also right on Dover Bluff Rd., where many of Mr. Copeland's ancestors are buried. We had a short look around the well-kept cemetery, then moved on to an unplanned stop at the recently re-discovered Bice Cemetery, just off Dover Bluff Rd. in the woods.

There are only two marked graves at Bice Cemetery, but clearly discernible indentations around those two graves suggestive of more graves.

Our group of 15 then made a pit stop at the convenience store at the Dover Bluff / I-95 interchange before moving on to Timmons-Moody Cemetery located in the newly developing Berrie Bluffs subdivision on Highway 17 at the 31 mile-marker.

There are only 6 gravesites in this small cemetery. The family is doing a great job of making sure nothing happens to this small piece of their history.
For more information on Berrie Bluffs and the Berrie Family, visit Berrie Bluffs, Our Story,.

Next stop; Berrie & Copeland Cemetery on Hwy. 17 at the 28 mile-marker. This cemetery is now also inside a planned developement, River Place.
Fortunately, we were able to access the cemetery by a gate directly off Hwy. 17.

After deciphering some of the harder to read stones and making comparisons with the list of "supposed to be there" people, we all decided to call it a day.

It was a great ramble, with a lot of great information shared.

For photos of today's ramble please visit the Guale photo album.

That's all for now, so until next time!

Membership Time Again!

2008-01-27T15:01:00.001-08:00

It's time to renew your GHS membership! Or even better become a new member!

You get a fabulous newsletter 7 times a year with interesting facts about Camden County as well as information on upcoming programs and rambles.

The meetings are held at the St. Marys City Library the second Tuesday of February, March, April, and May. We take a break for the hottest months of summer and so people can take vacations. We meet again in September, October and have the annual banquet in November when we choose our officers the next year.

Rambles are trips around the county to various historical sites where you will learn interesting facts about each place. Even if you've lived here all your life I'd be willing to bet you'll learn something new!

To become a new member send a check to:

Guale Historical Society, Treasurer
800 Margaret St.
St. Marys, GA 31558

Make checks payable to Guale Historical Society.

Your membership options are:

$2 Student
$8 Individual
$15 Family
$200 Lifetime Membership

We also have a Cemetery Preservation Fund to help preserve and protect the cemeteries and gravestones in Camden County.
We'd love to have contributions to get started!

$10
$15
$25
$____Other generous amount.

We look forward to seeing you at the next meeting, February 12, 2008. Our guest speaker will be a noted author who wrote a series of books entitled:
"Get Off The Interstate!"

This will be an interesting program, so don't miss it!

Bryan-Lang Historical Library Web Site

2008-01-27T14:51:00.000-08:00

Hello! Well, the Camden County website has gone live and the Bryan-Lang Library is pleased to have, after many years, a web presence.

On this site you will soon be able to look through many of the varied and different collections housed at the library:
1. Court records such as; Lunacy, Divorce, Superior, and Inferior
2. Census records
3. Tax Digests
4. Surnames; Bailey, Cates, Silva, Vocelle, to name just a very few
5. Photos; there are now over 8000 photos housed at the library
6. Maps

These are just a few of the wonderful collections at the library, and they are looking for help in identifying persons in a great number of the photos in the collection.

There are patron copies of each and every photo to browse through and it's a wonderful trip into the past. I myself have spent numerous hours pouring over these photos... and I was quite surprised and pleased to note I could identify some of them!

The link to go directly to the Bryan-Lang's pages is:

http://co.camden.ga.us/index.asp?nid=66

Have fun! I always do!

Bryan-Lang Historical Library

2007-11-27T11:00:00.000-08:00

Camden County has created a new and improved web presence. Part of that presence is giving every department a set of pages to call their own.

The Bryan-Lang Library has a set of pages as well. The site has not gone live yet, but will within the next 2-3 weeks.

Be sure, a blog blurb will be posted to announce the "grand-opening" of the library's site.

This will be a great resource for people looking for information about and from the library.

More to come....

Guale Rambles 2007

2007-11-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

I've posted the first set of photos from one of our rambles this past year.
You can see them by clicking here.

These photos were taken by MJ Manning on the Cumberland Island Ramble, May 26, 2007.

We had our picnic lunch at Plum Orchard under the great, spreading oaks, with a nice view of the river.

We had a great day, and as you will notice in the photos we had a bit of excitement when the tire on our van blew out. Not went flat, but actually blew the whole side-wall out.
Most of the tour waited for the rescue trucks, and rode back to camp, while a few of us decided to start walking our way back until another vehicle could come get us.

It was a nice balmy day, and until we started walking it hadn't been too terribly hot.
We saw some wildlife in a nearly dry creek (the tide was out), and lots of fiddler crabs taking advantage of the low tide.

Hopefully, we will get another chance to do this trip again. Cumberland Island is always a great place to visit.

"The Tompkins - Holzendorf Legacy" a book...

2007-11-09T11:58:00.000-08:00

Eloise B. Thompson and Ann H. Stoddard have written and published a new book, titled
The Tompkins - Holzendorf Legacy.

There will be a book sigining on Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2007 at Once Upon a Bookseller in St. Marys, from 4:00 p.m. until 6 p.m.

Support our local historians; stop by and see them, and buy a book!

The End of the Year

2007-11-09T11:22:00.000-08:00

We had our annual banquet/business meeting last night, Nov. 08-2007. We had a great meal at Magnolia Manor in St. Marys.
Our menu was:
Spring Mix Salad
Chicken Cordon Bleu
Wild Rice
Asparagus
Julienne'd Carrots
Pumpkin Cheesecake (which was the best! I ate this first!)

This was a wonderful meal prepared by Chef Don.
Our guest speaker was Angie Bryant of Crooked Rivers fame who spoke about the How and Why to taking Oral Histories. She also presented her new children's book, Armadillo Odyssey, which promises to be very entertaining for 3rd to 6th graders.

We also presented our HIstorian of the Year Award which went to Rodney Sheffield.

He began his love of history toddling behind his grandfather & listening to his stories of old - and soon began collecting family photos and papers to add to the family lore.

He is the one called upon by the Kingsland Baptist Church for historical information. He is the one the City of Kingsland is relying on to supply background information as the City prepares for it's bicentennial.

He's the one whose phone rings steadily to answer historically obscure questions. He is a long time member of Guale Historical Society, serves as a board member, and was president for 3 terms.

He is a founding member and president of Camden County Land Trust, and he is among the first of the Bryan-Lang Historical Library board members. He served as a volunteer archivist in a period between professional archivists and is now chairman of the library board.

It was an honor to present the award to Mr. Sheffield.

Other notables from the meeting were the nominations and acceptance of the officers for the 2008 year:
President: Robin Cross
V. President: Eloise B. Thompson
Secretary: Ann Stacy
Treasurer: M. Walko
Corresponding Sec.: Joyce Smith

Board of Directors:
Rodney Sheffield
Charles Thompson
Bob Smith

I will be chairperson for the fundraising committee and we are still looking for someone to be chairperson for the cemetery restoration fund committee.

Anyone interested in joining the Society and/or becoming chairperson, please contact me at gualehs @ gmail.com.

We'd love to hear from you!

New President interim

2007-10-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

My name is MJ Manning. I'll be the president interim for Guale Historical Society until January 2008.

A lot has happened in the past year. We've had some wonderful rambles around the county, and some really great speakers at our in-house meetings at the St. Marys Public Library.

Newest on our agenda is the Colerain Marker Treaty unveiling and dedication ceremony taking place on November 1, 2007 at the marker site on Hwy. 40 at 1:00 p.m. This will be followed by a reception with refreshments at the Bryan-Lang Historical Library.

This marker has been a long and arduous process over the past two years culminating in a very beautiful marker roadside to commemorate the Treaty of Colerain.

On November 8, 2007 we will have our annual banquet/business meeting at Magnolia Manor.
A wonderful menu has been assembled for us. Our speaker at this event will be Angie Bryant of Camden County, an accomplished historian herself.

A more complete update with photos of our rambles will be forthcoming.

Have a great Holiday Season!

MJ Manning,
President Interim

Welcome from the President!

2007-01-17T18:56:00.000-08:00

Hello Guale members!

Let me start this off by saying how thrilled I am to have been asked to lead the Guale Historical Society of Camden County, Georgia!

My plans for the Society are simple:

increase interest in local history
increase interest in our Society
bring the Society into the 21st century!

Truly, one way to increase interest is by creating a substantial Internet presence. I hope to accomplish these goals (and more!) throughout the next year.

Please check back often. I will work to add welcomes from other members and add a calendar of events (both within and without Guale) as soon as possible.

Thank you for stopping by!

Tara D. Fields
President, Guale Historical Society.