A Couple of Spartanburg History Related events June 19th
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A couple of competing events on the 19th of June – but they both look like they would be worth visiting (maybe make it to both?)
First up is a Walnut Grove Plantation event that looks at law and order on the frontier:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Zac Cunningham, Director
Walnut Grove Plantation & Historic Price House
864-576-6546 (o), 864-576-4058 (f)
walnutgrove@spartanburghistory.org
Special Event at Walnut Grove Plantation to Explore Frontier Law & Order
Roebuck, SC, June 1, 2010 — In the 1760s, gangs of outlaws marauded over the South Carolina Backcountry rustling cattle, stealing horses, raiding plantations, robbing travelers, torturing citizens, and breaking into homes. With no local law enforcement and a colonial government in Charles Town initially unable to protect faraway frontier residents, Backcountry citizens took matters into their own hands. Known as Regulators, these residents formed militias of well-armed Rangers to confront lawlessness and disorder. Many in the colony felt this Regulator Movement to be a great success while others despised it as vigilantism of the worst sort. Its consequences would later help fuel the region’s brutal partisan warfare during the American Revolution.
From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 19, 2010, come to Walnut Grove Plantation to learn more about this first attempt at creating law and order on the South Carolina frontier. Reenactors from the South Carolina Rangers will portray Regulators and will demonstrate the weapons and tactics used to tame the region. Tours of the plantation house, kitchen and academy available throughout the day. Visitors can also see the Moore family cemetery, walk the site’s nature trail, and see the plantation’s outbuildings. Picnics welcome!
Admission: adults $6.00; ages 6-17 $3.00; ages 5 & under free. This event is rain or shine. For more information, call 864-576-6546 or email walnutgrove@spartanburghistory.org
Charles and Mary Moore began Walnut Grove Plantation after receiving a land grant for the property from King George III. The Moores, who were Scots Irish immigrants, raised ten children in the house they built about 1765. Revolutionary War heroine “Kate” Barry numbered among those ten. Descendants owned the plantation house and surrounding acreage until 1961 when they donated the property to the Spartanburg County Historical Association, which operates the site today. Tours of the restored historic buildings and special events on the plantation grounds offer visitors a glimpse into the lives of the people—both free and enslaved—who settled the Backcountry, engaged British and Loyalist forces in the American Revolution, and played an important role in shaping the new nation.
Walnut Grove Plantation is funded in part by The Arts Partnership of Greater Spartanburg and its donors, by the South Carolina Arts Commission which receives funding from The National Endowment for the Arts, by the City and County of Spartanburg, and by corporate and individual partners.
Founded in 1957, the Spartanburg County Historical Association explores and preserves our region’s history by collecting and sharing the stories and artifacts of the people who shaped that history. In addition to Walnut Grove Plantation, the Historical Association operates the Seay House, the Historic Price House, and the Spartanburg Regional History Museum.
For additional information, phone 864-576-6546 or email walnutgrove@spartanburghistory.org. You can also visit our website at www.spartanburghistory.org and even become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/spartanburghistory.
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The other big event on the 19th is at the Seay House. It’s Spartanburgs’ oldest home and will be open to the public from 11am to 5PM ont he 19th:
PRESS RELEASE
Saturday at The Seay House
June 19, 2010
11:00-5:00
Join us this Saturday at The Seay House, Spartanburg’s oldest home. Located at 106 Darby Road just off Crescent Avenue, this home showcases the dwelling of a local farmstead managed and maintained by three maiden Seay sisters in the late 1800s. Come relax for an hour or two on this historic property! Visit www.spartanburghistory.org, email seayhouse@spartanburghistory.org, or call 864-596-3501 for more information.
The Seay House is open by appointment year-round and on the 3rd Saturday of the summer months except July. Sponsors allow us to open at no charge to the public, though visitor donations help us maintain the property. Special thanks to Mrs. Sandra Parker for sponsoring June’s Saturday at the Seay House. The Seay House is one of 3 historic homes maintained by the Spartanburg County Historical Association.
General Information:
The Seay House is the oldest house in the city limits of Spartanburg. Although a definite construction date for the log portion has not been established, evidence indicates that it was built prior to 1850. Two of the frame additions made to the home in the late 19th century still remain. The oldest portion of the house is a typical Scots-Irish, one room, one-and-a-half story, log house. The logs are hand-hewn, and the foundation is fieldstone. The pipestem chimney, also made of fieldstone, is a style commonly found in Virginia but unusual for upstate South Carolina.
The Seay House is a modest home and reflects the kind of life that the majority of the settlers in Spartanburg County and the Carolina Backcountry lived. Interpretation at the Seay House focuses on the lives of women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was a farmstead, and the three daughters of Kinsman Seay – Ruthy, Patsy, and Sarah – who lived in this house up to the times of their deaths lived a simple farm life. While today this home is largely surrounded by a modern neighborhood, when you step onto the grounds you can begin to imagine what it must have been like to live without electricity or running water, to grow and raise your own food, and to make your own clothing.
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