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You are welcome to attend our next program and to join our society!

...........................RECENT KCHS PROGRAMS................................

A Ceramic History of S.C.
A Kershaw County Focus

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.

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

"BACK TO Historic Boykin" Spring Tour

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.
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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 the State of S.C. built on the west bank of the Wateree River.

The Wateree Canal

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
Battle of Boykin, Civil War skirmish site

Historic Boykin Fall Tour


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.

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An audience of 200 filled the auditorium and gallery at the
Kershaw County Fine Arts Center, Camden, Oct. 26, 2008,
for our first program of this new term of office.

The PROGRAM and ART EXHIBIT Preview, was presented in
in cooperation with the Kershaw County Fine Arts Center

The Life and Art of
Kershaw County Native Jak Smyrl

Sketch above by Jak Smyrl is used by permission from
his book Random Rimes, copyright 2007.

Featured Speaker was Cartoonist Robert Ariail 
 

...........................OTHER KCHS PROGRAMS................................

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

John Lawson's Explorations
of the Catawba Path, 1700-1701


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)

Program & tour photos Details here
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 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

Archaeology & Walking Tour
of Battle of Hobkirk's Hill site



Program Details here
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Our March 2, 2008, program 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!

Tour of Bethune, SC

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

Program and 1907 photo Details here

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The Society attracted attention at its
 booth at the SC Book Festival
in Columbia, SC, Feb. 23-24

We enjoyed our first time to be part of this popular annual event,
beloved by readers and antique book-collectors. We are looking
forward to next year.  Plan to join us at the 2009 Festival!


Ben Shreiner and Charles Baxley, manning the Historical Society's booth at the SC Book Festival, greet one of the customers to the event, Liz Campbell, also of Kershaw County.
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Our Jan.13 program at the Robert Mills Courthouse was
well-attended, enjoyed by audience and panelists, and
moderated by Don Terrell on the subject of

Pre-Revolutionary History
in Kershaw County


Some of the finer pre-Revolutionary area homes did not differ much from
the 1812 Drakeford House moved to the Historic Camden Revolutionary War Site.
(1970 view)
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Remember the ongoing Elgin Centennial in 2008!

We enjoyed our Oct. 2007 program Old Blaney to New Elgin
Thanks to the Elgin Centennial Committee, our hosts

Where Blaney began—A telegraph operator sits in the Western Union window of the Seaboard train depot at Blaney (today Elgin) in the early 1900s.

Thanks so much to Barbie Russ  for this image of her great granduncle Elihu Meares, an early 1900s telegraph operator who traveled in the employ of the Seaboard Air Line Railway. The Blaney depot building, moved to Stephen Campbell Road, now serves as Goff Feed & Tack.