Introduction and Ninety Six

At times, I go some interesting places. The purpose of this blog is to share my experiences with my friends and family. I'll relate my mini-adventures visiting new sites or events. I cannot always promise that I will write particularly well, or that these posts will be interesting, or even that I'll update often. But I can promise one thing: pictures. (I hear your mocking gasps of feigned shock. Hush.) And, most likely, pictures of squirrels.

Before I start with today's trip, the answer is that "mjöksiglandi" is an Old Norse descriptive byname found in the Landnámabók. It means "much-sailing" or "far-traveling." So a Norseman ("Viking") called Erik Mjöksiglandi would be Erik the Much-sailing. I don't sail much, so we're going with far-traveling in my case, and even in the grand scheme of things I haven't traveled that much. Anyway, as far as I can tell, it doesn't mean anything in any modern Scandinavian language. And I will leave you to your own devices about the 1812.

This morning I woke up and decided to go to Ninety Six, South Carolina. Ninety Six is both a town and a National Historic Site, and its name comes from the fact that early inhabitants believed their town to be 96 miles from Keowee, a Cherokee town. Apparently it wasn't really 96 miles, but the name remains. Ninety Six was the site of the first Revolutionary War land battle that took place south of New England, the Battle of Ninety Six, which was fought in November 1775. In 1781 patriots laid siege to the Star Fort, although they did not succeed in taking it from the British. I attribute this to the Continental Army's lack of trebuchets. They did, however, have Polish military engineer General Thaddeus (Tadeusz) Kosciuszko, who led the attacking Americans in building trenches that allowed them to get within 40 yards of the Star Fort. (Random fact I just stumbled across via Google: There is apparently a Kosciuszko National Park in New South Wales, Australia.) Poor Kosciuszko. Lafayette gets all the props for coming over to help fight and Kosciuszko's name is barely recognized as a contributor to American freedom.

The "Star Fort" I keep mentioning is an eight-sided fort built by Loyalists to guard the area. What's there now is the earthwork foundation; I presume there was an actual wood fort there at some point, but they were a little lacking in details about that part. It's hard to tell in most of my pictures what any of the fortifications are--the topographical differences don't show up well, and it mostly looks like a lot of grass--so here's a drawing from one of the park signs.
Ninety Six, although it seems kind of in the middle of nowhere today, was strategically important because of the pre-Revolution roads that ran to Charleston, Augusta, Georgia, Keowee, and Island Ford on the Congaree River. Parts of those roads are still there; they're sunken and grown over with grass and pretty cool. I can tell I'm going to be the kind of mom who annoys her children by saying, "Look, kids, people used this road BEFORE THIS WAS A COUNTRY!" and I'd think it was cool and they'd roll their eyes. But it is cool.

The Charleston Road. PEOPLE USED THIS BEFORE THE UNITED STATES WAS A COUNTRY, KIDS!Better directions than I got from Mapquest...

Besides the Star Fort, there's a stockade fort at the other end of the park. There's actually a building there, but it's not terribly impressive. There is also an 18th-century house that they moved to the park that's done up like a tavern, an "unidentified cemetery" that's probably a post-Revolution slave cemetery, and a few miles of trails. I must confess that I'm a loose constructionist when it comes to trails. If it's obvious that someone has walked there, and it looks like it'll go somewhere interesting, I'll walk on it. And that's how I ended up walking on the horse trail for a while.

I wasn't terribly super impressed by Ninety Six, but it was nice to see. I expected more historical stuff, more buildings and graves and stuff. But I did learn a lot, including what it's called when you make an obstacle using trees with sharp pointy bits facing the enemy (an abatis). Even if I hadn't learned that, it would almost have been worth it just to get this picture on the drive home:
Next time will be one of the following: Congaree National Park, Magnolia Cemetery, or Colonial Days at the Living History Park here in town. But Colonial Days will definitely be up next weekend, as that's when it is.