Tag Archives: History

Defenders of the accused in the Salem Witch Trials 1692-10-18

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.

Petition and chart

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 →

67th Ham and Eggs show, Lowndes County only one left in U.S. 2017-02-14

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 →

Dr. Elsie Quarterman, Plant Ecologist, at Cheekwood

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 →

Video: “This has really turned into a thing” –Chris Beckham about South Georgia Growing Local to Gretchen Quarterman on WVGA 105.9 FM 2016-01-20 @ SOGALO16

You can register today for South Georgia Growing Local 2016, to be held all day Saturday February 6th at Pine Grove Middle School. Chris Beckham was struck by the variety: corn, chicken, fruits, goats, soap, composting, water, worms, solar power! So many different topics in six tracks, “but all indigenous to South Georgia.”

Gretchen replied,

Indeed, when this conference started six years ago, we just had two tracks. One was about cooking, and one was about growing, pest control, and fertilizing, and how to have your garden be successful in the special conditions of south Georgia and north Florida. Because our conditions here are different than they are in north Georgia or on the coast, or farther south in Florida where it never freezes. We sort of have a very special environment here, and so this conference is geared towards that.

Lots of new and repeat talks; see the Continue reading →

I Stand For What I Stand On: Permaculture for a Better Tomorrow –Benjamin & Jennifer Vieth @ SOGALO16 2016-02-06

Layered gardens as ecosystems that have persistent community and environmental benefits: permaculture.

Description: We will be discussing how permaculture practices with an emphasis on land stewardship and building communities.

Who should attend: Anyone interested in community gardens, permaculture, and environmental philosophy.
“Benjamin Vieth has a BA in Continue reading →

The new colonialists and local agriculture to shape our own local economy

This sums up both Bill Gates’ sudden surge of agricultural land purchases and the fossil fuel industry’s sudden surge of fracked methane pipelines: “on a global scale, that the global problem, from the perspective of European colonialists and European entrepreneurs, is really how to transform the countryside.” In both cases, we here in the southeast are just peasants or backwards natives from the perspectives of the the new colonialists as they try to transform our countryside. So what if such transformation results in dust storms or leaks, explosions, or higher domestic natural gas prices? The new colonialists would profit!

Jonathan Shaw wrote for Harvard Magazine November-December 2014, The New Histories: Scholars pursue sweeping new interpretations of the human past. Continue reading →

Dr. Elsie Quarterman, Champion of the Cedar Glades and Natural Areas –Brian Bowen

Thanks to Kim Sadler for sending this.

Brian Bowen, for Tennessee Conservationist Magazine, Sep-Oct 2014, Remembering Dr. Elsie Quarterman, Champion of the Cedar Glades and Natural Areas,

Dr. Quarterman was a longtime member of the Natural Areas Association, the professional organization representing the interests of natural area professionals in the US. She received the NAA George Fell Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 at the 35th Annual Natural Areas Conference in Nashville. In receiving the award, she humbly said that there “is no greater honor than to be recognized by my peers.” Her most significant legacy will be the thousands of acres of natural areas she helped to protect in Tennessee including the cedar glades and the once endangered Tennessee Coneflower.

(Tennessee Natural Areas Program Administrator Brian Bowen works in the Department of Environment and Conservation in Nashville.)

There’s much more in the article.

-jsq

Elsie was more than a biology professor and ecologist –Jonathan Ertelt, Community

Saying what many students think: “Students of all ages are thankful that her appreciation of the plant kingdom and the world around her touched them and made their lives.”

Jonathan Ertelt, Vanderbilt Magazine, Summer 2014 issue, Quarterman Was More Than a Biology Professor and Ecologist, Continue reading →

The whole ecosystem –Elsie Quarterman on Wild Side TV

Here’s a video about Elsie, A Crusader for Conservation, 19 September 2014, by Tennessee’s Wild Side, “The Emmy Award winning show produced through the generosity of the Jackson Foundation, Tennessee State Parks, and the Tennessee Wildlife Federation.” Lots of good pictures, some video snippets of Elsie, and some narration by her nephew Patrick and by Biologist Tom Hemmerly, who reminds us of Elsie’s work at Radner Lake, in addition to her cedar glades work. Ranger Buddy Ingram explains her biggest contribution may have been in getting numerous different segments of society to cooperate in saving whole ecologies. Botanist Kim Sadler and others explain how inspiring all that is to generations of students.

As Elsie said in 2006:

The general public needs to know what’s around them. They need to be learning that there’s a world that is not paved. There are lots of things that have life and function in the whole scheme, people as well as plants and animals. Not just dogs you’ve got on a leash, but animals that live out there, are part of the whole ecosystem.

Continue reading →

SEB: Professor Elsie Quarterman: In Memorium, 1910-2014

Her students Carol and Jerry Baskin wrote for the July 2014 Southeastern Biology newsletter of The Association of Southeastern Biologists, OBITUARY: Professor Elsie Quarterman: In Memorium, 1910-2014

Dr. Elsie Quarterman known fondly to her students as EQ passed away on 9 June 2014 at her home in Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 103 years. She was born on 28 November 1910 in Valdosta, Georgia. Dr. Quarterman obtained her B. A. degree from Georgia State Women’s College (now Valdosta State University) in 1932, Continue reading →

Canopy Roads of South Georgia

Outside the city; off the main roads.