Across The Savannah – Down A Graveled Road, Part II

By Tom Poland
July 4, 2013 

Shoals, Smoke, & Spirits

They say growing old is not for sissies but age opens your eyes. I’m driving a road of youth where an underage Georgia boy could plunge his hand into an old cooler filled with chunks of ice and fish out a cold Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. I remember the piney woods isolation and excitement of doing something illegal cross the line as we’d put it. Otherwise driving down a graveled road through desolate areas back then seemed a desperate way to get, well, somewhere.

The roads look the same, but I see them better now. The eyes of the boy and eyes of the man see things differently. Historical markers now hold more interest than beer signs. And here’s a marker straight ahead, the John De La Howe School.

When I was growing up orphans existed only in the realm of fiction—novels and movies. I never knew an orphan yet many were close by. John De La Howe, a physician from France, founded his school in 1797 to provide destitute and orphaned children an education. The school is a complex of buildings, among the more beautiful of which is a barn. Built in 1931 for dairy cows today it’s a country marketplace and concert hall, but we’re not here to be entertained. We come to photograph a tomb. In the 1980s Robert had photographed De La Howe’s tomb for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and he wanted to see it again.

We turned off Gettys Road to Tomb Road, a lengthy road dead-ending at De La Howe’s grave. Disappointment greeted us. The tomb’s roof was gone and orange strings crisscrossed the small cemetery. It looked as if an archaeological dig was about to commence. Not sure De La Howe would be pleased. His will left specific instructions about his burial arrangements. His grave was to be unmarked and surrounded by a wall 10-feet square, 8-feet high, and two bricks thick. It was to have a steel door and lock and the site kept in good order. Where the roof should have been a tall green stalk sought the sun. Perhaps the grid of strings hints of preparation for plot improvements and a new roof. Perhaps the old doctor will be happy once again.

I photographed the old tomb. Robert declined. The strings ruined things. We made our way back to Gettys Road and cruised through the De La Howe complex and then hit Highway 81. We traveled through the Sumter National Forest, the Long Cane Ranger District.

Around these parts as they say, you pretty much have the road to yourself. Well almost. Log trucks thunder down these roads. Big trucks laden with big logs—massive hardwoods and utility pole-like pines. Logging and pulpwood constitute a big industry here. Old clear-cuts regenerate amid profusions of sweetgums, pines, tousled vines, and rotting wood. Trees are a renewable resource … still.

When a log truck rumbles by I think of how these woods must have looked before the saws came. Sometimes I think of how this country must have looked before settlers arrived. When log trucks rumble by the leaves of wise old oaks along the roadside tremble. I think they shiver.
Making our way onto State Road S-33-135 smoke stained the horizon a dirty yellow. Seems smoke would bedevil us the whole trip. The Sumter National Forest’s Long Cane Ranger District sprawls along the Georgia border and it was time to burn away the understory.

Looks like a prescribed burn is underway, I say aloud to no one in particular. For years foresters suppressed all fires. The philosophy that any fire is bad proved fallacious. Now foresters intentionally start fires to make the woods safer, healthier places. Fire, a natural occurrence in southern pine forests, keeps ecosystems balanced by eliminating understory vegetation. Burning off brush, limbs, and pine needles reduces the risk of wildfires. And boy does it make for a lot of smoke.

Soon we passed men with two-way radios on ATVs. With radios tight against their heads they darted in, out, and around surging rims of fire. Tongues of fire licked the pines and smoke boiled into the sky. Showers of sparks started fires of their own. Smoke slipped into the car’s ventilation.
It would not be our last encounter with fire.

When the sun reaches its zenith and shadows shorten light turns flat. Photography’s no good. And that’s when scouting takes precedence over taking pictures. With breathing room as photo time goes we decided to retrace the drive I made through Edgefield County a few weeks earlier. Robert wanted to see Price’s Mill, an old gristmill with its glory days in the rearview mirror.

We drove into McCormick and turned right at the Hardee’s. (One of the great tragedies is how fast food places that ran mom and pop hamburger joints out of business.) In Plum Branch we turned onto Highway 283. To get to Price’s Gristmill we followed signs and drove down several graveled roads.

When we arrived not only was the light flat, someone had parked a Toyota pickup slap dab in front of the mill. As Robert took shots from angles I walked the property trying to get a feel for how things might have been during the good days. It was hard to do. Right in front of me was the tractor taken over by vines and saplings. A victorious shrub covered the driver’s seat. Directly behind the tractor and across the graveled road stood a timeworn farmhouse. It seemed abandoned. I composed a photo with the tractor in the foreground and the old farmhouse just behind and to the right. Death of a Farm.

Death of a mill operator. A woman in McCormick told me a tractor overturned and killed John Price bringing an end to the old mill’s run. That tractor in vines? Surely it wasn’t the one? Did they just leave it right there?
We left the old mill where a table had been made from an old millstone. Again we were deep in Sumter National Forest and soon the old dictum that two pairs eyes are better than one proved true. Nineteen days earlier I had crossed the Highway 283 Bridge over Stevens Creek solo. Uneventful passage. Today I cross it and at the far end Robert shouts, Turn around. Go back. I see flowers.

We re-crossed the bridge, stopping in the opposite lane for a better view. Downstream in a sweeping curve the creek breaks right and rocks create riffles and there just barely we could see clumps of white flowers … surely it couldn’t be.

 Surely it was. Rocky shoals spider lilies, a rare and beautiful flower.
We crossed the bridge back toward Plum Branch and parked. We got out and walked down a lane carpeted in pine needles. A No Trespassing sign hung from a stout cable. No other way in unless we wanted to wade through hip-deep water or tightrope across a rusty pipe, which looked as if it would collapse.

A call or two later we were told that if we wanted to photograph the lilies up close we’d have to descend the steep, high bluff across the creek, more like a river really. We headed back across the bridge and pulled into a side road barricaded by a gate. We got out, unloaded the cameras, tripods, and accessories and trekked up hill for several hundred yards. Then through an opening far below, there they were, showy flowers bobbing about resplendent in afternoon sun.

The bluff, as steep as any I’d seen, dared us to descend. Its tangled vines and brush promised to trip us. Trees burst out of the ground at an angle. So it seemed thanks to the abrupt way the land fell off. Right away we both fell. Robert’s camera bag tumbled downhill until a helpful tree blocked its plummet. I caught myself on a sapling and swung around, my camera banging against me.

We made it to the bottom where recent floods had muddied things and rocks were coated in slime. Dangerous footing. Photography commenced. The flowers preened like stars. Gleaming white with dark green foliage, they gently swayed with the creek and wind, bowing with grace like leading ladies. Taking photographs of such beauty satisfies a creative craving but clouds of ravenous mosquitoes puts a dent in the joy. Mosquitoes aside, all was good, though now and then I heard strange noises on the bluff above. Something crashed through the underbrush up there … deer? Dogs? Wild hogs?

We moved farther downstream to get closer to a profusion of lilies. Spider lilies. That name comes from six long, slender petals beneath the main bloom. Altogether it gives them a leggy spidery look. Rocky shoals, well that’s the habitat where they flourish. Rocky shoals spider lilies. Makes sense. Man has dammed so many rivers the lilies are between a rock and a hard place.

Things were going pretty good but climbing the bluff to our back preoccupied me. We had gear to carry up. Worries over a fall and broken leg or snakebite are never out of my thoughts when we’re afield. Having cell phones provides a degree of comfort but it you don’t let it coax you into carelessness.

From atop the bluff a deep and resonate thud shook the air. Later another. And another. More thuds shook the air as we moved to get a new angle on the lilies.

I was taking a few shots of Robert in action when fog rolled across the water downstream. A Deep Purple moment though conditions weren’t right for fog. And then the woods on the bluff behind us crackled and popped. Looking straight up I saw orange and yellow flames leaping through pine tops. The thuds had been gasoline exploding. The smell of woodsmoke arrived.

Robert, the woods above us are on fire.

He looked up at the bluff. We won’t burn with this creek right here.

Besides the smoke makes the photography better. He resumed taking shots.

I looked up at the bluff. Sure we could wade into the creek but the smoke downstream hugged the water. Why wouldn’t it do that where we stood? Smoke inhalation worried me.

We kept taking photos and I scoped out a series of rocks I could step across to escape any fire that might come down the bluff. Then downstream a man—a U.S. Forest Service ranger—walked out to the edge of the creek right into Robert’s frame.

Let’s go, Robert said. And it was time for we trespassers to vamoose.
We never saw fire as we made our way up the bluff, going out of our way up a gulch and taking a longer path back that wasn’t as steep. Other than a bit of smoke and encountering what appeared to be a downed power line, dead, we had no problem. 

Back at the car Robert made a pronouncement.

The spider lilies, they made the day.

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We headed to Edgefield where Robert photographed the artsy fiberglass turkeys that adorn corners, streets, and porches. The National Wild Turkey Federation headquarters is near Edgefield and the bird of wattles and bronze feathers is a big deal down that way. 

Then we hit Highway 23 and called it a day. So we thought. Driving through the hamlet of Ward we spotted an exceptional cemetery beside Spann Methodist Church. 

The church had its start around 1805 as part of the plantation of John Spann Jr. The cemetery that caught our eye came to be in 1840. More than a few Confederate soldiers sleep here as do the founder of Ward, Clinton Ward, his wife Martha, and their only child, Josephine. Little girl Josephine stands atop her monument, a haunting statue. She died at six. Her sun went down while it was yet dawn. The statue of Clinton, with his period-vogue lamb chops and beard, stands atop a tall monument. A large sphere tops Martha’s. 

Unusual too is the cast iron statue of a deer at the cemetery gate. A statue of a dog by a tree stands near the railroad track. Ward’s marker, his wife’s, the deer, and the dog made the Smithsonian’s Inventory of American Sculpture. The church and its cemetery made the National Register of Historic Places. Not your ordinary graveyard. 

Something about cemeteries soothes me. Nobody there worries about anything, and I feel compelled to walk among the stones reading inscriptions. As the sun sank, as Robert took photos, I took a few too for use in this column. I stood behind Clinton Ward’s statue, which makes it seem he is staring at a distant water tank. And why wouldn’t he. On that tank is one word, Ward. To the left of Ward’s grave is wife Martha’s. How interesting it’d be I thought to get a shot of Ward looking at the water tank. I took the shot and it runs with this column. 

Light struck the lens creating what photographers refer to as a flare. I got a bit of a jolt when downloaded the images. Orbs floated around Ward’s statue. Believers of things paranormal refer to them as ghost orbs. Maybe so. Maybe I should claim to have photographed spirits. Maybe I won’t.
The biggest surprise was not the orbs. It was the ghostly aura coming off the marker behind Martha’s grave. Maybe, just maybe, I fantasize, a spirit that haunts Badwell Cemetery hitched a ride with us in hopes of finding a new cemetery, a place where kindred spirits convene come sundown. And here with the unusual stones and statues it found a place to its liking.
We certainly did on our two-day swing through the Old Ninety-six District. We came, we saw, and we documented captivating sights and places sequestered down graveled roads. 

Graveled roads. More often than not that’s where Robert and I find evidence of bygone times when life seemed more real and more beautiful. My romantic side longs for the good old days. What I wouldn’t give to see an old mill grinding out cornmeal. But what’s that I hear? Why it’s a chorus of naysayers rising up and singing in unison. Ensconced in their electrified, AC-cooled cathedral of cynicism wearing velvety purple robes they shake their head and waggle their fingers singing, no, no, no. The good old days were oh so hard. The good old days were oh so bad. 

I don’t want to agree but I know they’re right. People worked so hard back then. Nothing was easy. Simple things killed you. Lots of backbreaking work running old mills and chiseling out rock making walls. And then for all your good work your child dies at an early age.
Yes, the sun sure went down early when it was yet day on a lot of folks. I don’t think I’ll get any argument out of the parents of Martha Petigru and Josephine Ward that the good old days were not just bad but sad. So … If I could … just once … how lovely it would be, how sweet it would be to place just one rocky shoals spider lily on each girl’s grave. Just one.

Visit Tom Poland’s website at www.tompoland.net 
Email Tom about most anything. [email protected] 

Tom Poland is the author of six books and more than 700 magazine features. A Southern writer, his work has appeared in magazines throughout the South. The University of South Carolina Press just released his book on how the blues became the shag, Save The Last Dance For Me. He writes a weekly column for newspapers in Georgia and South Carolina about the South, its people, traditions, lifestyle, and changing culture.

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