On Coppage Road, Lowndes County used curb and gutter to preserve both a half canopy and a full canopy, starting in 2009, finished in 2016.
![[Coppage Road Tree Canopy, between Griffin Drive and Skipper Bridge Road]](http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/pictures/2026-08-08--coppage-road-canopy/fbmany.jpg)
Coppage Road Tree Canopy, between Griffin Drive and Skipper Bridge Road
Here’s a video of what Coppage Road looked like before paving, that I took on December 15, 2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMl_7fpUfHQ Continue reading
The first dirt road in Lowndes County, Georgia, to get curb and gutters to save tree canopies when paved, was Quarterman Road, back in 2009. Here are videos of what its two tree canopies look like today.
![[Quarterman Road Tree Canopy 2026-08-08, The first with curb & gutter in Lowndes County, GA]](http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/pictures/2026-08-08--quarterman-road-canopy/igmany.jpg)
Quarterman Road Tree Canopy 2026-08-08, The first with curb & gutter in Lowndes County, GA
North canopy:
Southwest canopy:
How did that happen? According to Matt Flumerfelt, Valdosta Daily Times, November 12, 2008, Quarterman Road set to be paved,
The County overcame some objections to the project by agreeing to install curbs and gutters along the canopy sections of the road instead of the original plan that would have required clearing a wider area prior to paving. County Commissioner Richard Lee said the Quarterman Road paving project had “garnered more communication than any other project I can remember except maybe one.” Lee continued, “The commissioners have bent over backwards to try and accommodate that major concern [the tree canopies] that many of you have.” Lee went on to say, “The only final solution for making this road safe, sound and accessible consistently is for it to be paved.”
We and many neighbors sent in a petition, and many people sent letters to the Commissioners. Continue reading
William Way. Son of Aaron Way Sr. and Joanna Sumner. Born ca 1652 at Dorchester, Mass. Baptised 13 Nov 1652.80 Married at Mass. Persis Witt, born 1655, Lynn, Essex Co., Mass., daughter of John Witt.
William Way died 1725 at Dorchester, Berkeley Co., S. C.81 Will dated 2 Aug 1715 at Dorchester, S.C.82
He joined the Salem-Village (now known as Danvers) church with his wife in 19 Nov 1689. Three years later were the famous Salem Witchcraft Trials. During the course of the accusations by Rev. Samuel Parris against several people, several of the members, including Samuel Nurse, John Tarbell (Samuel’s next door neighbor83), and Thomas Wilkins, bore witness against the accusations. They were very careful.
“Their line of action was extremely narrow. It was necessary to avoid all personalities, and every appearance of passion or excitement; to make no charge against Mr. Parris that could touch the church, as such, or reflect upon the courts, magistrates, or any others that had taken part in the prosecutions. It was necessary to avoid Continue reading
Does anybody want these Clyattville High School annuals?
They’re pretty musty, but still completely legible. The ’55 one has many inscriptions in it. Continue reading
My mother subscribed to the Pearson Tribune, August 30, 1947, 77 years ago.
It cost $2.00.
![[Pearson Tribune Subscription Receipt]](http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/pictures/1947-08-30--pearson-tribune/20241013_134915.jpg)
Pearson Tribune Subscription Receipt
Notice the address is just “Ray City Georgia”.
No rural route or anything was needed to deliver.
Also, the address for the same house now and since the 1960s is Hahira 31632.
Why Pearson? She grew up there, and had only married and moved to the farm a few years before.
-jsq
Two things I had never seen before: a turpentine catface burning, and a guide metal for a McCoy turpentine cup.
![[Catface burning, Turpentine guide, Nail that held the cup, the loblolly pine tree]](http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/pictures/2023-12-22--afterburn/many.jpg)
Catface burning, Turpentine guide, Nail that held the cup, the loblolly pine tree
This was during and the day after our prescribed burn of December 21, 2023.
Also, this catface was on a loblolly, not a longleaf pine.
And since it was hacked into the tree during the Great Depression, in the turpentining that paid off the mortgage on the farm, in the 85 or so years since the tree had grown out around it, yet left the actual catface exposed. Continue reading
Some old roads from a century ago are still in the woods in north central Lowndes County.
On this 1917 soil map of Lowndes County, Hambrick Road runs east from Hagan Bridge to Cat Creek Road, as it still does today. In the center of the map, running south from Hambrick Road, is an old road that I keep open in my woods. The other day we used a bit of it for a firebreak in a prescribed burn.
![[1917--hambrick-road-loco-soil-map]](http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/pictures/1917--lowndes-co-ga-soil-map/1917--hambrick-road-loco-soil-map.jpg)
Soil Map, Georgia, Lowndes County Sheet, Record ID cmf0373, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1917, in
County Maps, Surveyor General, RG 3-9-66, Georgia Archives.
The house marked just north across Hambrick Road from that old road is still there. That was probably Fisher Gaskins’ house. I will ask his descendants.
That old woods road is between two creeks that are still there: Redeye Creek to its west, and Toms Branch to its right. They both end up in the Withlacoochee River floodplain.
Toms Branch is just east of the east part of Quarterman Road. Most of the rest of that road was already there in some form or other, although the south part of it, that currently runs straight east and west, did not run like that.
And notice all the other roads that are no longer open to the public. Continue reading
The Salem Witch Trials took place all over Massachusetts colony. In Andover, almost everyone accused confessed, but, according to a petition mentioned in a TV show: “from the information we have had and the discourse some of us have had with the prisoners, we have reason to think that the extream urgency that was used with some of them by their friends and others who privately examined them, and the fear they were then under, hath been an inducement to them to own such things, as we cannott since find thay are conscious of;” I was familiar with that since some of my ancestors defended some of the accused, and more ancestors moved south after that nightmare.
Gretchen and I were watching Salem’s Lot, Season 9, Episode 2, of Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
An ancestor of guest Jeff Daniels signed a peition on behalf of their wives and daughters who had been accused of being witches. This petition was Continue reading
The last of a century-old tradition: local ham and eggs, right here in Lowndes County.
When:
10 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2017
1 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2017
Where:
Lowndes County Extension Office
2102 E. Hill Ave., Valdosta, GA
Photo: Michael Rivera, Wikimedia Commons,
Creative Commons share, remix, attribution, share alike.
Daniel DeMersseman, VDT, 2017-02-10, Ham and Egg Show tradition returns,
Lowndes County’s annual Ham and Egg Show returns for its 67th year Feb. 14, 15.
The show once spread across every county in Georgia, said Velma Miles, chairman of the Lowndes Improvement Association. “We’re the only one left.”
Miles said the Continue reading
A bench inscribed simply “Dr. Elsie Quarterman, Plant Ecologist” sits
under cedar trees in the herb garden at Cheekwood Botanical Garden;
appropriately for a scientist whose specialty was cedar glades.
She was involved with Cheekwood for many years, and was its Acting Director from 1967 to 1968. She helped establish the herb garden in which the bench sits. Continue reading
![[Pioneer '55]](http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/pictures/1955-06-30--clyattville-pioneer/20241013_134614.jpg)
![[1917 and 2023 maps compared]](http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/pictures/1917--lowndes-co-ga-soil-map/many.jpg)
![[Petition and chart]](http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/pictures/1692-10-18--petition-osgood/many.jpg)