The Stanly House and Dixons House Tours: 11'16

A docent led tour of two private homes of the colonial era were included in the Tyron Palace Tour Package

The Stanly House and the Dixon House were both built and owned by private business men during the colonial era.  Each have a fascinating history and have been meticulously maintained with authentic furniture and details specific to their time in history.

 For more information about these historical homes see:

http://www.tryonpalace.org/stanly-house

and

http://www.tryonpalace.org/dixon-house

New Bern's North Carolina History Center 11 '16

Entrance to the  North Carolina History Center is included in the cost of the Tyron Palace Admission.  The Center has a wide variety of exhibits and some very high tech interactive historical activities designed to appeal to a wide variety of ages and interests. Our favorite was the Pespsi Family Center.

At the Pepsi Family Center, a virtual time machine transported us to a river village in North Carolina’s Central Coastal Region in the year 1835. Here, hands-on activities invited us to step back in time and sail a ship, distill turpentine and produce naval stores, piece an electronic quilt, and/or help the shopkeeper find merchandise for customers in the dry goods store.

New Bern was an important coastal river port into the 19th century. The time machine allowed us to visit the New Bern wharf and join the crew of the Snapdragon as she set sail on a trade voyage. Every crewmember has a unique role and must work together to help the ship reach its destination safely. Bruce manned the helm, while CC trimmed the sails and killed rats.

 At home in the Kitchen,  we helped the cook as she sought ingredients for her ice cream recipes, then watch as the ice cream was prepared as it would have been in 1835.  CC joined a quilting bee in the parlor, and designed patterns from squares that were then pieced together to create a beautiful quilt.

Finally, we stepped into a Main Stree shop and helped a local merchant who was  looking for some extra hands. In his Dry Goods Store, we help the shopkeeper  find items to fill his customers’ shopping lists.

New Bern Tyron Palace work areas: 11'16

After touring the Governor and his family and formal rooms, we were free to explore the separate unattached buildings that housed the kitchen area and other working areas of the palace household.

The kitchen was large and roomy with many different areas for food preparation

A costumed expert  colonial cooking processes was on hand to answer any questions we might have while she  prepared an authentic meal for the day, 

Another room was set aside for weaving and tailoring

The head of the female staff.(above)  as well as the lead butler each had their own modest, but reasonably comfortable  private accommodations.

Other servants however bunked together in minimaly furnished accomodations.

Other areas we viewed were the blacksmith  house,

the stables,

and the herb and kitchen gardens.

New Bern, Tyron Palace Tour: 11 '16

Tryon Palace, located in New Bern, North Carolina, is a replica of the mansion built in the late 1760s for the Royal Governor of the Province of North Carolina Completed in 1770, During Colonial times, Royal Governor William Tryon and his family brought architect John Hawks from London to design and build the Georgian-style structure. Completed in 1770, Tryon Palace served as the first permanent capitol of North Carolina and home to the Tryon family.

Tryon Palace was the site of the first sessions of the general assembly for the State of North Carolina following the revolution and housed the state governors until 1794. In 1798, fire destroyed the original Palace building. An extensive 30-year campaign to rebuild the Palace and restore the grounds was launched by the people of New Bern, state leaders, world craftsmen, and generous, dedicated citizens such as Mrs. James Edwin Latham. Their efforts led to the triumphal reopening of the Palace in 1959. Today, the Palace lives on as a testament to history, community and rebirth.

Tryon Palace has numerous tour ticket options designed to accommodate individuals, families, tour groups, and school groups. We chose the One Day Pass, which allowed us to see everything Tryon Palace has to offer, including the Governor’s Palace, Historic homes, Gardens and the North Carolina History Center. 

Our tour guide showing us the General Assembly Room in the Palace.

All tours are led by docents in costumes of the colonial period, and costumed specialists are available to answer questions about specific skills like blacksmithing, or cooking.

The Govenor's Office

The Palace Formal Dining Room

Govenor Tyron, and his familly and visitors dined on fine china imported from Europe.

The floating mahogony staircase was used by the Govenor and his adult guests to reach the second story rooms. Children ( under the age of 14) and servants used a smaller less decorative set of stairs.

A light and airy guest bedroom faces the Trent River, and was decorated to impress visitors with the wealth and importance of the Colonial Government.

A second guest bedroom was more confining and probably reserved for guests that the Govenor wanted to leave quickly.

The Govenor's wife had her own sitting room in which she could entertain her freinds in private.

She also had her own personal dressing room

But she and the Govenor shared a bedroom which had a distinctly masculine flair.

Next door the the Governor's bedroom was a bedroom and sitting room of their only daughter.

Outer Banks, Bodie Island Light House: 10 '16

 It wouldn't be a real visit to the Outer Banks unless we stopped  to see at least one of the four light houses that stand guard over this rugged coastline. 

The nearest one to where we arrived was the Bodie Island Light Station,

 (pronounced "Body") 

 which is  is located just south of the town of Nags Head and Whalebone Junction, where Highway 158, Highway 64, and NC Highway 12 intersect. 

Visitors travelling towards Hatteras Island can't help but notice the black and white horizontal striped structure,   peaking out over a line of dense cedar trees on the soundside.

Hickory Knob State Resort Park, Guillebeau House: 10 '15

This historical cabin is located directly across the street from the cabin where Bruce and I are staying.  It has a interesting history.

Late in the 1700's the French Huguenots came to this area looking not for gold, but for the golden opportunity of a new world free from religious persecution.  They settled within the boundaries of the Old 96 District McCormick County, living and worshiping in a section named after their homeland in France, New Bordeaux.

In the late 1770's the Guillebeau House was built by Andre Guillebeau and his wife in the Mt. Carmel area of McCormick County.  Ancestors of Andre Guillebeau lived in the house for many years.  In the 1930's the house was revived when the remaining Guillebeau descendants decided to hold the Hueguenot reunions there.  These reunions were held for the next several years.

After the Guillebeau family sold the property, Mrs Ina Guillebeau Savage, a descendant of the builder purchased the Guillebeau House in order to preserve it, and donated it to Hickory Knob State Resort Park.    The Guillebeau House is on the National Registry of Historical Places, and has been recognized as one of the top five cabins in America.

The Guillebeau House was rented during our visit,( as it often is)  so we were not able to go inside.  That is too bad; we would have loved to have seen the inside.  Even though the Guillebeau House has been updated with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a modern kitchen, a gas log fireplace, screened in porch, and central heat and AC,  it still contains many antiques of the era.  I bet one can feel a real sense of the past within its walls. One certainly can when looking at it from the exterior .

Brookgreen River Boat Tour 7 '14

I think I remember being told that the sculpture gardens, open to the public,  comprise only about 450 acres out  of Brookgreen's 9000 total acreage. Much of Brookgreen property is in preserve .  The preserved areas can only be viewed on prescheduled tours such as their riverboat cruise which takes you up and down the tidal creeks within the Brookgreen Preserve. 

As part of it's' Cool Summer Evenings' program, Brookgreen Gardens has extended its  boat cruise tour schedule into the early evening hours.  Bruce and I decided this would be the perfect time to see  this lesser known  side of Brookgreen , so we hopped on board  a 48-foot pontoon boat  for a hour long cruise along historic ricefields now home to alligators, waterfowl, and osprey.

Our tour guide, Don Spriegel,  interpreted the distinctive landscape of the rice plantations and helped us to understand the role of enslaved Africans in the cultivation of the rice crop.

Small Cyprus tree 

First,  the massive cypress trees were dug up by young male slaves from, what was at that time, a mature old forest cypress swamp.

Dykes  held back the tidal waters

Once the swamps were rid of the forest, the branches of the cypress were pounded into the mud to make  a dyke, and soil dug out of the swamp to build up the rice beds fields behind it. 

Trunk opening

Openings were left in the dykes  to called 'trunks'.  On the earliest plantations, hollowed out cypress tree trunks were place in these openings, with gates at either end, to control the flow of tidal water in and out of the fields. A later design looked like the Rice gate below..  

Rice Gates control water flow in and out of the rice fields

Shortly before the civil war, Georgetown county was the richest county in all of the colonies.  Except for the oaks in the residential areas, all of the land had been denuded of trees and converted to rice fields

Trees  grown since the civil war

After the war,  the slave labor force need to maintain this industry was no longer available, and the destitute landowners did not have the means to pay for the labor intensive farming.  The land began its slow  return to its natural form.  Today the Bald Cyprus and

Tupelo trees are once again reclaiming the land that was once theirs.

The hour went all too quickly, and soon we were seeing the sun playing peek a boo with the edges of the  horizon.  It was promising another beautiful sunset over the peaceful tidal creeks.

Beth Elohim Temple and Cemetery, Georgetown, SC: 7 '14

Temple Beth Elohim

This afternoon, Bruce and I decided to visit the  local Jewish Temple and Cemetary  nearest our home.   Jews arrived in the historic seaport of Georgetown, S.C. in the mid 1700s. They worshipped in each other's homes, and also at the Winyah Indigo Society.  Although the sign outside the temple says it was established in 1904,  that does not begin to tell the whole story of the importance of this Jewish Congregation in this area of South Carolina.

By 1800,  Jews were a small but important portion of the population. Although proportionally only 10% of the white population, Jews have held a disproportionately large role in civic life as evidences by the historical markers below.

As you can see from the SC State historical signs, the Jewish cemetery in Georgetown was established in 1772 and contains the graves of three of Georgetown's Jewish mayors.

The cemetery is  roughly a  city block  in size, which relatively small compared to some we have visited in the Northeast.

But it is well maintained, and both Bruce and felt it to be the most peaceful cemetery we have ever visited.

In part that is because there is a sense of continuity and belonging here that one does not find in the larger more anonymous cemeteries.   Whole families, with names like Cohen, Moses, and Solomon are buried side by side here for generations .

 The oldest grave we found was 1772  and the newest 2010. The oldest graves were often the saddest because they told of how hard life was for the early colonists, many of whom lost child after child, or died in childbirth trying to give life.

But seeing the graves  of so many generations also tells a story of commitment to family and community that is sorely missing in modern society.  

 For more on the history of the Temple Beth Elohim Congregation check out:

http://www.jhssc.org/Georgetown_Temple_Beth_Elohim_History.html