Paul & Diane Boykin

While riding at Scull Shoals the other day on my friend Linda's Spotted Saddle Horse, Jake, I remembered that I never posted the pictures that I took there back in the spring.

Scull Shoals is an abandoned town located on the Oconee River in Greene Co, GA, only minutes south of Athens, GA. More on the town another time.

We rode the horse trail in the Oconee National Forest. Part of the trail leads to the Indian mounds and the whole trail is also great for hiking.

"Jake"

Fallen Horse Creek

Our favorite spot to stop for lunch

wildflower

Jake taking a lunch break

From August 29 through September 16, 2009, Perspectives, Georgia's largest pottery event will be held in Watkinsville, GA at the Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation (OCAF).

There will be a huge pottery sale of over 5000 pots, exhibitions, workshops, self-guided studio tours and an opening gala reception and preview sale.

Admission is FREE! so be sure to go. For more details, visit OCAF's website www.ocaf.com.

After a long wait, Oconee County, GA, finally has a place for visitors to stay at the recently opened SpringHill Suites by Marriot. Not to slight our two wonderful B&B's, Ashford Manor and Rivendell, but many visitors prefer having a hotel-like atmosphere.

The hotel is located just off GA 316 which leads to Athens from Atlanta, and is convenient to the Exchange office buildings.

It's a perfect place to stay when visiting in Oconee County or Athens, GA.

The SpringHill Suites offers breakfast daily in the breakfast area off the main lobby.

If you'd like more information on housing in the Athens, GA, and Oconee County areas, or are thinking of relocating, please contact us at diane@boykinteam.com or 706-296-7507.

All pictures are the property of Diane Boykin.

To follow my previous post, we'll continue on the recent history ramble around Georgia. Following the Warrenton Highway from Sparta, we entered Glascock County and made a couple of turns to find the little bygone town of Mitchell, GA, where we spread our picnic out on the tables on the lawn of the old depot.

After feeling refreshed from lunch, we visited the town museum there in the old depot. The local people have done a great job in displaying many items from Mitchell's history and farm life from an earlier time.

We were told that on the first Saturday night of the summer months there is a band playing and a lawn full of people enjoying the music and eating dinner.

Also on the grounds were an old post office and smokehouse that had been restored. Mitchell was originally called Scruggsville. The town moved a bit when the railroad came through and it became Mitchell.

.Leaving Mitchell, we drove a few miles to the Glascock County seat of Gibson, GA. There we visited the cemetery of the Gibson United Methodist Church. I have never seen a tidier cemetery, there being not a blade of grass of a weed there. There was gravel between the grave sites, and the gravel was neatly raked. Our purpose for being there was to visit the graves of two sisters, Mary and Sarah Pool, who died around 1939 and were own daughters of a Revolutionary War soldier. We were told that when the DAR discovered them back in the '30's they made quite a to-do over them. It seems that their mother was the 3rd wife of the soldier and he was around 90 when they were born in 1845 and 1850.

Mary Pool's grave.

Every history ramble involves some dirt roads, and we found ours in Jefferson County after leaving Gibson. We traveled down one dirt road for awhile and then turned down another before we reached a cool and inviting place called Omaha Springs where there remains an old hotel built around 1890.

The reason for the 24 room hotel, where travelers came by wagon from the depot at Gibson, was the springs there where the water is a constant 63 degrees, making a cool and pleasant place to relax. The hotel now has a caretaker living there.

The water was crystal clear.

There were lush ferns planted all along the bank of the stream.

At one time the hotel must have had long porches overlooking the stream.

Below, some of our friends decided to cool off in the stream.

Regretfully, we had to leave this cool oasis on a hot July day and head back to Watkinsville, about a 90 mile trip. We're already looking forward to the next history ramble to see where Bill Moffit will take us.

All pictures are the property of Diane Boykin

A couple of weeks ago we went on a history ramble led by Bill Moffit of Maxey's, GA. We were fortunate enough to go on one of these a couple of years ago and had so much fun that we'd been looking forward to this one ever since.

We left the Oconee County courthouse and caravanned south down Hwy 15 through Greensboro and stopped at White Plains Baptist Church. A young woman, Laura Alfriend, was buried there. She was of interest because she died in 1861 for the cause of the Confederacy. She was in a sort of play called "A Tableaux of the Confederacy" a group put on to raise money when her dress caught fire by a candle placed at the front of the stage, and she died a few days later.

The photo above shows Bill Moffit talking about Laura Alfriend.

Next, we continued south on Hwy 15 into Hancock County where we stopped next to the highway at Mt. Zion Church.

Once, there was a whole town of Mt. Zion which was known for it's prestigious boy's academy. Over time, the town disappeared and all that is left is the old church, once Presbyterian and then Methodist.

Left, inside Mt. Zion Church

Next, we passed through Sparta and took the Warrenton Highway. We parked by the road and hiked a quarter of a mile or so to the old Granite Hill Plantation. Now owned by a granite company that quarries there, all that remained of the old plantation was this commissary set in a beautiful pecan grove. We were told that the original house had a granite first floor with frame above and that all of the outbuildings were made of granite from the property. One wall of the old dairy still remains (see below).

The plantation owner's daughter, Roxie (Turner) Edwards married Harry Stillwell Edwards who wrote a book that I remembered reading some 30 years ago called "Aeneas Africanus".

If you'd like more information about the area or housing in the Athens, GA area, please call us at 706-296-7507 or e-mail at diane@boykinteam.com.

All photos are the property of Diane Boykin.