May 2016

     The Augusta Canal Museum is located in an old brick cotton mill.  The Canal was built in 1845 to power the mill.  In the area the river dropped 50 feet in elevation allowing for enough force to spin water wheels.  Water from the Savannah River flows into the canal.  The water spun turbines that turned looms in the textile mill.  Cotton was grown in the area and had been shipped to mills in New England until the canal was built so Augusta could have its own mill. 

     Later the city water system got its water from the canal.  In the 1890s the mills and town got electricity from generators that spun by the water of the canal.

     Today the mill where the museum is housed is not a mill, but there museum receives electric power from two old generators turned by the water of the canal.  Also housed in the old mill building is offices and some apartments.

           Machines from the old mill at the museum.

 

May 2016

     The Ducktown Museum covers the history of the copper mining area known as the copper basin located in an area in southern Tennessee near the Georgia state line where copper was mined for many years.  Copper was discovered in 1843 near Ducktown and the area grew in population as several mines opened.  Trees were cut and used to fuel the smelting of the ore.  This released sulfur dioxide into the air.  The area's vegetation cover was killed by the sulfur fumes.  The area was soon void of all vegetation.  With no vegetation the hills eroded away with each rainfall.  Over 32,000 acres became a desert.

     At the turn of the century a breakthrough in technology allowed the sulfur dioxide gas to be recovered in the form of sulfuric acid, needed in the fertilizer industry.  This greatly reduced the amount of fumes being released and made it possible to begin reclamation of the area.  In the 1930s revegetation work began.  Over the years more than 16 million trees have been planted to reclaim the land.  Grass seeds and legume seeds have been spread over the area by helicopter.

     The museum covers the history of the mining towns and mines.  The last mine closed in 1987.

        View of part of the copper basin from the museum.

      

may 2016

In Hollywood, Maryland there is a 300 year old tobacco plantation that was made into a museum over 50 years ago.  The Sotterley Plantation house still remains as do the necessary (brick outhouse), smoke house, slave cabin, corn crib, among others.  You receive a tour of part of the owner's house.  The corn crib has a museum and old agricultural equipment.

     The original owner was James Bowles in 1703 who besides growing crops, imported and sold slaves.  The next owners were the Plater family until the 1820s who had as many as 90 slaves.  The Briscoe family next owned the plantation during the Civil War and had 50 slaves.  Three of the sons fought for the Confederacy and some of the Sotterley slaves fought for the Union.

     In 1910 the Sotterlee family purchased the plantation continuing it as a farm.  In 1949 ownership passed to Mabel Sotterlee Ingalls who started a nonprofit foundation and the Sotterley Plantation opened as a museum in 1961.