Ocali Country Days Festival, Ocala Florida

     Every second weekend of November, the Silver River Museum and Silver Springs State Park in Ocala, Florida host Ocali Country Days Festival, a celebration of traditional Florida pioneer life.  Florida is different when it comes to history. It seems like every town , or at least every county, has a pioneer village of some sort, serving as an historic park featuring houses and buildings from the 1800s. The Silver River/Silver Springs park is no exception. There are a number of structures, cabins, barns, outbuildings, cane syrup grinding station, a church, and Seminole-style chickees. During Ocali Days and certain other days of the year, there are costumed historical interpreters eager to show off their assigned structures and  talk about the day to day life of the Native Americans and the first white settlers of Florida.  Visitors can learn about housebuilding and housekeeping, foodways, syrup making, soap making, weapons, quilting, weaving, and fiber work, and much more. This pioneer village is very well done and fun to visit.

    

    The Silver River Museum is an absolute gem. It is a small museum with a lot to say. It displays the paleontology and archaeology of the Silver Springs area, so there are great exhibits showing the mega-flora and humans who occupied Central Florida over the last 10,000 to 15,000 years. Mastodons, giant bears, and giant wildcats are on display along with dugout canoes that are several hundreds of years old, pioneer tools, and even movie memorabilia from the days of the 1930s to 1950s when Silver Springs was the stand-in for the jungles of Africa and South America, and movies like the classic Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies were filmed there.

    The Silver River Museum and "Cracker" Village (website https://silverrivermuseum.com/ ) are administered by the Marion County School District and Marion County's students enjoy many field trips and special events there every year, so visitors need to check the website for actual days and hours that the facility is open to the public. It's next door to one of Florida's most visited state parks, Silver Springs, where you can still enjoy nature, canoe or kayak, and take a cruise on a glass-bottomed boat (website https://www.floridastateparks.org/silversprings ).  Plan to do both!

    Ocali Country Days was a great day. It would have been much better if we didn't have to wait 1.5 hours for a shuttle ride from parking to the actual site and 45 minutes of waiting to get back to our vehicle. One would think that planners of a regular, popular event would realize that more than one bus and two small trams would be required to move hundreds of people efficiently.

Black Pioneer History Told Through Quilts

     The James Museum of Western Art has become our favorite museum in the Tampa Bay Area, and there are quite a few great museums in the area. We are proud to be members, and we have no hesitation about telling visitors to the area that a visit to the James is a must. Currently, the James is hosting a fabulous new exhibit until January 8, 2023 before it moves on to another location. ( I think I overheard the Chicago Art Institute being the next stop, but I am not positive.) Webpage: https://thejamesmuseum.org/blackpioneers/

    "Black Pioneers: Legacy in the American West" combines history and art. The premise is unique, and the exhibit was organized by the James Museum in conjunction with Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi, curator, historian and artist. The 50 art quilts in the exhibition were created by the Women of Color Quilters Network especially for this exhibition. Founded by Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi in 1985, Women of Color Quilters Network (WCQN) is a non-profit national organization whose mission is to educate, preserve, exhibit, promote and document quilts made by African Americans. Each artist chose a particular person or event significant in black history - of course, making it American history as well - of the American West.

    The quilts are beautifully done, and they display a wide variety of skills and techniques used by quilters, like appliques, mixed materials, stitching styles, and 3D effects, and each one tells an important story that one is not likely to have been told. I was familiar with several featured people like Bass Reeves, the black lawman who served as the inspiration for The Lone Ranger, Madam C.J. Walker, one of the first hugely successful black entrepreneurs, Stagecoach Mary, one of the most famous teamsters in the West, and cowboys Nat Love and Bill Picket, to name a few, but I learned about so many more people that I want to go and research now. 

Stagecoach Mary

    The quilts also capture events like the Watts Riots of the 1960s and 1990s and the Greenwood (Tulsa) Massacre of 1921. 

Greenwood (Tulsa) Massacre

    

    It's one of the best exhibits we've seen. If you have an opportunity to see it, in St, Petersburg, or another city on its itinerary, I urge you to go see it.

Family Homeplace

     A couple of weeks ago, we went North to South Georgia, for a family reunion on my father's side of the family. We went up a couple of days before and made a round of various cemeteries and a trip to an important landmark for the maternal side of my family, Mosley,  in neighboring Montgomery County.  On Mosley Lane, the log cabin home built by my great great grandparents around 1890 is still standing - sort of. Marshall and Eliza Mosley raised their 9 children there; the oldest, Ben Onie, was my maternal great grandfather.  Relatives still live next door, and other relatives live along and near Mosley Lane, but the cabin has fallen into disrepair.  I'd always had hopes that it could be moved to an historic village, but I'm afraid it's too far gone now. It's still holding up pretty well considering it's 132 years old, with little to no maintenance for the last 30 years.

    I remember visiting the house several times in the 1970s and 1980s with my mother and some other relatives. One of my great great uncles, my great grandfather's brother Desso, and his wife Elvenia (aka Ell) lived in it until his death in 1979, Aunt Ell continued living there another decade or so, until about 1990.  I have memories of visiting Aunt Ell and seeing her sweep the yard around the house with a homemade broomstraw broom. Years ago, it was common practice to keep the area around the house free from grass to remove snake hiding places. The housewife or children would then be tasked with keeping the area swept. As a history buff even as a child, it was always neat to see a real-life log cabin. Decades later, it really means a lot to be able to visit and take photos, even in its current condition. It would be really neat if the family could salvage some parts of it, perhaps to be made into something else or to made into keepsakes. 

My great grandmother in front of the house c. 1973.

My great great grandparents, Marshall and Eliza Mosley, who built the house around 1890.

My great grandfather, Ben Onie, and his brother Durham who were born and raised in the house.

Brewton Parker College Historic Village

     Founded in 1904, Brewton Parker College in Mount Vernon Georgia is a small Christian college about10 miles from my hometown of Vidalia.  A few years ago, the College started a small historic village by moving existing structures from the area to its campus. In conjunction with local community groups, it has been opened for visitors by appointment and during special events, sometimes with costumed interpreters and/or college students on hand as docents.

    The village currently consists of the Cooper-Conner House built around 1779, the Conner stable built in 1900,  the Berry C, Thompson house built around 1842, and the Tyre Chapel.  I became interested in the village immediately upon learning of its existence just before the pandemic because Berry C. (or Littleberry C. Thompson) is my 4x great grandfather. I'm descended from him through my maternal great grandmother Thompson, Berry's great granddaughter.  I'm probably related to the Conners connected to the Cooper-Conner house as well. There are Conners in my family tree, and in the late 1700s and early 1800s, there were only a handful of families living in the area, so the chances are great that Thompsons and Conners intermarried, worked together, and socialized together. I resolved to visit one day and to see it for myself. Then, of course things got in the way and the pandemic shutdown occurred, so I wasn't able to visit until September 2022 when my wife and I went up to Vidalia for a family reunion (my father's side of the family). So I got in touch with the history professor in charge of the village, and he graciously agreed to meet us and open up the houses for a tour even though there were no classes that day.

    My wife and I both love historic house tours, but, of course, this tour hit different because it was my ancestor's house. Berry and his wife Mary had raised ten children (unfortunately, Mary died as a result of the tenth birth) in this house. You might be asking what kind of name is Littleberry? Apparently it was not unheard of in Britain and Ireland, as a first name and as a surname, and it tends to appear more often in the southern United States.  However, I still haven't found a definitive origin. Some sources say it's derived from old Saxon meaning either "little fort" or "little stronghold" or "little woods" even. I haven't found a lot about him in my genealogical searches, other than he was born out of wedlock, but, as an adult, he made a success of himself in timber and other enterprises. I was proud to be in his and Mary's "space."

    Being able to visit historic villages is an important way of learning history. I've always believed that history is just not great events, great men, and great wars. Real history is what everyday men and women endured and lived through, how they built their homes, families, and communities and lived their lives. The professor told us that the college president and he have big plans to re-open the village and to involve college students, descendants, local community members, and members in efforts to make it more accessible, meaningful, and vital. I hope it comes to pass.  

Berry C. Thompson House 

Cooper-Conner House