Well here we are safe and sound in Kosciusko, MS at the local WalMart for just an overnight stay. There were a couple of good caches we wanted to do here or else we would have gone farther up the Trace. The first cache was GCH41E “City Cemetery” which was an interesting 2 stage multi in a small cemetery.  The first stage was a 35mm film container where you had to sign the log and inside it had instructions for the final stage. The 35mm container had the instructions for the final stage and we set out to find a grave marker located in the cemetery. We found the marker and now we had to answer 6 questions pertaining to the marker. The marker itself was the grave site of a mother and father who had 19, yes that’s right 19, children and she died at 46, I think we know why too. The other cache was GC14RTD “A Tad Revolutionary” located in the center of Kosciusko in a small park named Redbud Springs Bicentennial Park. It had a statue of General Thaddeus Kosciusko who was an American, Belarusian, Lithuanian, and Polish national hero and general. He led the Ko?ciuszko Uprising (1794) against Imperial Russia. Prior to leading the 1794 Uprising, he had fought in the American Revolutionary War as a Colonel in the Continental Army and at the recommendation of Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski and General Charles Lee, Ko?ciuszko was named head engineer of the Continental Army. The cache had to do with answering 4 questions about the park and the General in order to find the coords for the final stage.

Next morning it was on up the Trace to Tupelo, MS and our stay at Barnes Crossing Campgrounds. We have to tell you that if you ever get a chance to drive the Natchez Trace you really should do so as there is so many historic and interesting sites to see along the way. Starting at mile marker 176 to mile marker 251 we saw Bethel Mission which means “House of God” and was opened in 1822 as one 13 Choctaw mission stations, Pigeon Roost Creek which was an area that was a reminder of the millions of migrating passenger pigeons that once roosted in trees in this area as the species has been completely destroyed, Bynum Indian Mounds built by prehistoric people these mounds are between 1,800 and 2,100 years old, the Hernando DeSoto site who in 1539 set out on a long arduous journey across the Southeastern United States and crossed the animal paths that later became the Natchez Trace, Monroe Mission Station where the Chickasaw Indians first received Christianity and education in 1822, Chickasaw Council House where once stood an Indian village “Pontatock” with its council house which, in the 1820’s, became the “Capitol” of the Chickasaw nation and Black Belt where ages ago this area was under an arm of the ocean and shells and other marine organisms were deposited to form the limestone seen here. So as you can see just within a short 75 mile stretch there were so many stops that we didn’t even get to do any caching till the next day.

Next morning we were up bright and early to hit the caching trails again. Our first cache was GC8F1D “Twentymile Bottom” which was a virtual cache. Twentymile Bottom, now cultivated, was typical of the many low areas along streams through which the Natchez Trace passed. In 1812 Reverend John Johnson stopped at Old Factors Stand, near this bottom, and wrote this account of bottomland travel: “I have this day swam my horse 5 times, bridged 1 creek, forded several others, besides the swamp we had to wade through. At night we had a shower of rain I took up my usual lodging on the ground in company of several Indians”. We got the answers to the 3 questions and we were on our way to the next cache.

GC10PF2 “Chickasaw Village Site” which was located on the Trace at mile marker 261. It was just a simple traditional cache but it was on
the land of the Chickasaw Nation tribe, population about 2000, who lived in the “Chickasaw Old Fields” a small natural prairie near Tupelo, MS. Although their villages occupied an area of less than 20 square miles, the Chickasaw claimed, and hunted over, a vast region in northern Mississippi and Alabama and western Tennessee and Kentucky. The Chickasaw were closely related to the Choctaw, Creek, and Natchez Indian tribes as well as some of the smaller tribes of the Mississippi Valley.

GC11DJC “Old Town” which was a multi cache along a nature trail located on the land where the Battle of Ackia was fought. This consisted of two pitched battles by the French and allies against Chickasaw fortified villages in present day Northeast Mississippi. This land was also the site of the Treaty of Pontotoc in 1832. This treaty was originally set forth in the article dealing with the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830. The treaty was made on this land in 1832 between the Chickasaw Indians and General John Coffee of TN.

GCE2E5 “TP&R #1″ which was a cache put out by the Tupelo Parks and Recreation Dept near the birthplace of Elvis Presley. Elvis was born in the house we saw on this site which was built by his father. We saw his house, a chapel that was built in remembrance of him, a bronze statue of him at age 13 a car which was like the one his family owned and a story board on which many friends had written things about him. An interesting fact was that in 1936 the Tupelo Tornado, the fourth deadliest tornado in United States history, slammed into Tupelo, MS at around 8:30 P.M. It was an F5 on the Fujita scale, causing total destruction along its path. The death toll was 216 and a very young Elvis Presley and his mother were two of the survivors.

We left Tupelo this morning and traveled up the Trace to a cache GC8F1A “Donovan’s Slough” a virtual cache where you needed to answer 3 questions along a woodland trail which takes you through a lowland where rich soil and abundant moisture support a variety of large water tolerant trees including tulip poplar, sycamore and water oak. Bald cypress thrive in the swampy backwaters of a slough or channel while winding through the bottomland. A 20 minute walk lets you see these trees and the dramatic way the bald cypress grow only in the wet slough. Then it was on to mile marker 286.7 and Pharr Mounds. It is the largest and most important archeological site in Northern Mississippi. Eight large dome-shaped burial mounds are scattered over an area of 90 acres (100 football fields). These mounds were built and used about 1-200 AD by a tribe of nomadic Indian hunters and gatherers who returned to this site at times to bury the dead with their possessions. Then we stopped at mile marker 308 and GC18V7J “Sunken Cave” an Earthcache located at Cave Spring. Cave Spring is an existing attraction along the Natchez Trace Parkway in northeast Mississippi. It is a feature that is a combination of a cave and sink hole. Originally, it existed as a cave in the form of a large room/corridor just under the surface. At one point, the roof of the room weakened and collapsed. The result is what you see today, which are two openings to caves that border the sink hole feature in the middle.

Then it was on to Meriwether Lewis Campground for our overnight stay which is a campground and historical site at mile marker 385 out in the middle of nowhere. Meriwether Lewis (August 18, 1774-October 11, 1809) was an American explorer, soldier, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition also known as the Corps of Discovery, with William Clark, whose mission was to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase. Lewis died under mysterious circumstances of two gunshot wounds in 1809 at a tavern called Grinder’s Stand, about 70 miles from Nashville, Tennessee, on the Natchez Trace, while in route to Washington to answer complaints about his actions as governor. Whether Lewis committed suicide or was murdered remains a mystery to this day.

Next time, we will continue our trip up the Trace and arrive in Goodlettsville, TN. So until next month, we wish all our friends in Grand Strand Geocachers HAPPY CACHING!

Tweety & Coach
Dori & Dick

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Greetings Grand Strand Geocachers!

This month we’ll be meeting for some great sandwiches and general camaraderie at our first meeting of the year, catching up with TWEETY & COACH ON THE ROAD as they cache their way through Mississippi, and catch up on all of the new caches for the past couple of months on the FTF list!

Happy Caching!

As always, if you have a news item, event, or article idea for the newsletter, please contact Marvin J & Zephyr!

Ham it up with us! Or Turkey, or Roast Beef…

Join the Grand Strand Geocachers at this event to be held in the ‘Train Room’ at Dagwood’s Deli! The event will be held from 1:00pm-4:00pm, on Saturday February 13th, 2010.

Bring your appetite and get together for swapping stories, tradables and general camaraderie! Lunch purchase is not required to attend, but gosh darn it’s good.

MEETING DETAILS
Who: Grand Strand Geocachers
What: Event Cache Meeting
Where: Dagwood’s Deli (N 33 41.700 W 078 52.769)
When: 1- 4 p.m.
To sign up, visit GC23E16

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Greetings Grand Strand Geocachers!

This month we’ll be meeting for some bowling fun, catching up with Tweety & Coach as they cache their way through Mississippi, and checking out pictures from the Nature-ly Fit Day!

Happy Caching!

As always, if you have a news item, event, or article idea for the newsletter, please contact Marvin J & Zephyr!

GRAND STRAND GEOCACHERS BOWLING NIGHT

Let’s end a hard day of caching at the Surfside Bowling Center at 7 p.m. on Saturday, November 14, 2009. Arrangements have been made with the bowling center to block off a few lanes at a special price- two hours of bowling (including shoe rental), two slices of pizza, and a soft drink for only $13.00. The only catch is at least 12 people have to be signed up to participate- so if you haven’t signed up yet, go to the cache page and sign up!

During the course of the evening, FTF Awards will be passed out, as well as the election or appointment of a new steering committee member to the South Carolina Geocachers Association. If you aren’t in attendance, you could get elected without even knowing it!

If you know of a local geocacher who you think would do a great job as our representative, please e-mail your nomination to preacherspal@sc.rr.com.

See you there!

MEETING DETAILS
Surfside Bowling Center
7 p.m., Saturday, November 14, 2009
To sign up, visit GC20FY7

To read the latest adventures of Tweety & Coach, click on the link below:
ON THE ROAD WITH TWEETY & COACH

Catch up on all 4 new caches this past month with October’s FTF list.

To see pictures from the Nature-ly Fit Day, click thumbnails below:

[View with PicLens]

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Hello to our friends and fellow geocachers from Clinton, Mississippi!

We are still staying in the Springridge RV Park along our way to the Natchez Trace Parkway to Nashville, TN. Today, we are visiting the Vicksburg National Military Park to do a virtual cache and drive the 16 mile tour and stop and see as many of the 1340 monuments as we can. The virtual cache we are doing is GCG107 “Vicksburg National Military Park”. It is a four step cache where you visit 4 sets of coordinates and gather information from the plaques or monuments to email to the cache owner the answers to his questions.

After we finished the cache we visited the USS Cairo Museum which was fantastic to see. The USS Cairo is an old Union ironclad warship that was the first armored warship to be sunk by an electronically detonated mine.  On December 12, 1862, on the Yazoo River, a Confederate torpedo tore open Cairo’s bow. The Union gunboat sank in 12 minutes. The torpedo that sank the Cairo was a crude apparatus. Lt. Commander Selfridge may have been less than cautious in waters known to contain torpedoes because so many of the Confederates weapons had been duds. Two Confederate sailors, Acting Masters Zedekiah McDaniel and Francis M. Ewing had charge of placing the torpedoes. Volunteers, whose names are lost to history, hid behind the river bank and detonated the explosive with an electric charge. It was very interesting to see how they had restored the Cairo, which had been sitting on the bottom of the Yazoo River for over 100 years.

We also visited the Vicksburg National Cemetery which encompasses 117.85 acres, and includes 18,000 graves. Graves of Civil War soldiers totaling 17,077, of which 12,909 are unknown. An additional 1,280 graves are occupied by soldiers who participated in the Indian Wars, Spanish-American War, World Wars 1 and 2, and the Korean Conflict.

Our next cache was kind of a cute cache entitled GC1524D “Cache Something Fishy TB Hotel”. The story of this cache is an interesting story. It was a tribute to the cache owner’s father, a different type of fisherman- a “hand grabber”. The swing set in the front yard of the cache owner’s home wasn’t just for swinging; it was used to hang giant 100 pound catfish to be skinned after being caught by hand. Fried catfish is about as Southern as you can get, especially in Mississippi, and catching these huge fish by hand was quite common in this area.

Next cache was GCH32G “Soldier’s Rest”, located in Cedar Hill Cemetery. The City of Vicksburg served as a major hospital center in the early years of the Civil War. A section in this cemetery was set aside to provide a fitting burial place for Confederate soldiers who died of sickness or wounds. Known as the “Soldiers Rest”, the plot is the final resting place for an estimated 5,000 Confederate soldiers. As most of these men did not meet the criteria established by Congress for burial in the national cemetery, their remains were not moved and still rest today in Cedar Hill Cemetery.

The next day we drove into Jackson, MS to do some caches. When we printed the cache pages, it was recommended that these caches be done during the day, which to us seemed a little unusual, at least until we got to the cache locations. There were 4 or 5 caches that were in one of the dirtiest run down slum sections of Jackson. We proceeded to find the caches during the daytime, but now that we look back, all but one of the caches has been archived. The only interesting cache we did was GC12Y56 “Winter’s Woods”, where a Civil War action had occurred on May 14, 1863, and from July 9-17, 1863. The battle of Jackson was part of the Vicksburg Campaign in the American Civil War. Union commander Major General Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Tennessee defeated Confederate General Joseph E. Johnson, seizing the city, cutting supply lines, and opening the path to the west and the Siege of Vicksburg.

The last cache we are going to tell you about this month is GCHZBB “Tour Vicksburg”, a 6 stop multi cache that took us on a trip around the city. Stage 1 of the cache was at Planters’ Hall, Circa 1834, which housed the Vicksburg branch of the Planters’ Bank of Mississippi until 1842, as well as the officers of the 28th Louisiana Regiment during the Vicksburg Siege.

Stage 2 took us to the Old Courthouse Museum, circa 1858, which was originally built to house the court house in Vicksburg. It was built on the highest hill in the city by 100 highly skilled slave artisans and was finished in 1860 at a cost of $100,000. Its past guests have included Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, Booker T. Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, and William McKinley. During the Civil War, it was the target of much shelling from the Union Army, but received only one major hit. In 1953, it was hit by a tornado and fell into disrepair and was neglected. In 1947, restoration was started and after it had been finished it opened as a museum.

Stage 3 was at Pemberton Headquarters (Willis-Cowan House), circa 1835. It was the headquarters of Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton, who commanded the Confederate forces during the siege of Vicksburg, and on July 3, 1863, the decision was made here to surrender the city.

Stage 4 was at a group of Italianate townhouses, circa 1872, that were owned by some of Vicksburg founding fathers, and one was even owned by Jefferson Davis’s niece.

Stage 5 was located in the downtown area close to the 1953 Tornado Museum. On December 4, 1953, the day started out normal and the downtown area was all decorated for Christmas. At 5:35 PM, a tornado wind roared through downtown and destroyed everything in its path. The aftermath was unbelievable, motorists were killed as they drove through the streets, debris buried victims, phone and power lines were down and the Saturday matinee ended early with a massive roof collapse on children. The toll was 38 dead, 200 injured, and 1200 left homeless.

Then it was off to Stage 6, the final stage, which was located down the street in a small park which we walked to and found the final cache container easily under a set of stairs.

After we found this cache we walked around the downtown area looking at the historic and interesting places we didn’t see on our first trip through downtown. We saw a historic marker dedicated to Tobias Gibson, the Father to Methodism in MS. He was sent to Vicksburg in 1799, as a missionary and he founded many of the early churches there.

We also saw the Vicksburg Waterfront Murals, 25 murals all hand painted on the side of the flood wall in the downtown area separating the Mississippi River and Vicksburg. The murals all painted by Robert Dafford capture the past, present and future of Vicksburg and its role in American history.

Well that’s it for this month! We hope everyone is well, and we are looking forward to seeing everyone at the bowling meeting this Saturday! Also, don’t forget to sign up for Christmas Bash 2009 on December 12th at 2:00 PM at Logan’s Roadhouse.

‘Til then Happy Caching!

Tweety & Coach……….ftjak
Dori & Dick

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Not too long ago, we celebrated Chanticleer & Dr. Faye’s 1k milestone. Well, another pair of long-time Grand Strand cachers hit a milestone of their own. Viking43 found their 3000 cache over the past weekend! On behalf of all of the Grand Strand Geocachers I would like to congratulate them! Good luck on all of your travels and all of your hides! Here’s to another 3000!

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NOTE: Geocaching.com has a requirement that all events must be submitted 2 weeks prior to the event. I was unaware of that and time got the better of me and now it’s too late. So here it is…help spread the word to your other caching friends!

Location: Huntington Beach State Park; N 33° 30.131 W 079° 03.940
Date: Saturday, October 17th, 2009
Time: 11:00am-1:00pm

Description: Join us Saturday, October 17th to teach the muggles what Geocaching is all about!!! More involved muggles means less stealth (ok, it won’t help THAT much but its a start) and more potential geocachers to hide stuff! First program starts at 11:00am!

We’ve been asked by Huntington Beach State Park to participate in their second annual Nature-ly Fit event. We will be setting up at the picnic shelter just North of Atalaya.

We will set up some ‘unofficial’ caches that are nearby and populate our GPS units with these coordinates to give people the experience of finding real caches. We may try for some of the official caches on the park, but they are a bit distant and each event only runs 50 minutes total.

PLEASE NOTE: This is not a free event. Park admission (or use of a State Park Passport) will be required to come join. We have gotten clearance from the park staff to have up to 4 other people (Cache and Dash SC is heading this up) to help staff the event. These people will be given free admission for that day, but should expect to be at the shelter 15 minutes before the program. If you should choose to assist in this event, we ask that you bring your GPS to the event. No GPS units will be loaned out without a cacher going along as a security measure…

Programs will run for 50 minutes starting at at 11:00am, 12:00pm and 1:00pm. If up to 4 others want to sign up to help staff the event, please note that in your attendance post and which time(s) you want to help with. I could use your help before hand helping to set up the ‘dummy’ caches too.

Hope to hear from y’all soon!
Cache & Dash SC

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Volume 2, Issue 8 | October 7, 2009

As many of you may have noticed, this month forward, Zephyr & I will be doing the newsletter in a slightly different format. We will no longer be posting one hugely formatted pdf. Instead we will be posting the newsletter as a series of blog posts. This way, nothing has to be downloaded, or viewed in something other than your web browser. In addition to viewing the content as a static webpage, this method will also allow the use of an rss reader. (This is a client that automatically delivers any new content directly to you, kind of like an instant magazine subscription.)

Not only will this new newsletter make it easier for you to view and read, it will also make it easier for you to guide the content. If you have a caching story, news article, or anything caching related you would like to share, please contact me (marvinj920@gmail.com) and we can give you an administrator username & password. This way you can add content to our newsletter quickly, easily, and make it accessible to everyone immediately!

Please bear with us in the coming months as we transition into this new format.  As always, caching is a hobby we all love and actively participate in. This newsletter format greatly reflects this by allowing for a larger sense of community, a greater ease of accessibility, and opens the door for far more functionality.

To browse through the various articles of the newsletter, simply click on the links in the ‘table of contents’ below. It couldn’t be any easier.

If you have any questions, concerns or suggestions,  please contact me at marvinj920@gmail.com.

Happy Caching,
Marvin J & Zephyr

October ‘09 – Table of Contents:

• GSG Upcoming Meeting – 10/10/09
• August, & September FTFs
• On The Road With Tweety & Coach

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Grand Strand Geocachers October Meeting
7:00 p.m. on Saturday, October, 10th
at Denny’s on Highway 17 Bypass in Surfside (near Lowe’s).

Come out for good conversation and caching fun with the Grand Strand Geocachers monthly meeting.

Preacherspal’s term as a Steering Committee member will be up at the end of the year, and we will be discussing the election of a new steering committee member, which will occur at our November meeting! If you would be interested in becoming the Steering Committee member who represents our area for the state, or you would like to nominate someone for the position, please send you nominations to Preacherspal at preacherspal@sc.rr.com. We will have the nominations put in the November Newsletter.

See you at Denny’s!

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Hello to the Grand Strand Geocachers from Natchez, MS, one of the prettiest and most interesting cities we have visited on our travels so far. Click to view a Geocaching.com map of all of the caches where Tweety & Coach was!

We finished our stay in Natchez by doing a few NRV caches and doing a little more sightseeing.  We visited several houses and shops, such as the site where Fort Rosalie used to be which was established by the French in 1716. It became the nucleus of settlements from which the Mississippi Territory was founded. Near this marker stood the French tobacco warehouse that was a center of bloodshed during the Natchez Massacre in 1729. We also saw The Guest House B & B circa 1840, Biscuits and Blues Restaurant and Molasses Flats. Molasses Flats is part of the name of the Molasses Flats Antique and Gifts. The building was named in the late 1800’s, and the story goes that there was an apartment building at this location. At the turn of the century, the elderly lady who had lived there the longest said too many that “the Flats” were the sweetest place to live. When asked how sweet, she would say “sweet as molasses”. Thus the name Molasses Flats “stuck” to this site. To this day, it is still on the old record of deeds at Natchez City Hall. Gloucester Plantation, circa 1795, and Greenlea Plantation, circa 1795, were two of the lovely other plantations we also saw.  One other building we saw was The Commercial Bank Building built circa 1836.This structure is a National Historic Landmark and is a fine example of the Greek Revival style. There was also a Banker’s House attached to the rear which insured security and gave the structure and unusual and practical plan.

The next morning we packed up and headed up the Natchez Trace. For those of you not familiar with the Natchez Trace it is a 440-mile-long path extending from Natchez, MS to Nashville, TN and linked the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi rivers. It was a traditional Native American trail and was later also used by early European explorers as both a trade and transit route in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Today, the trail has been commemorated by the 444-mile-long Natchez Trace Parkway, which follows the approximate path of the trace. The trail itself has a long and rich history, filled with brave explorers, dastardly outlaws and daring settlers. Parts of the original trail are still accessible.

Our first stop on the Trace was at Sunken Trace which preserved a portion of the deeply eroded or “sunken” Old Trace. Hardships of journeying on the Old Trace included heat, mosquitoes, poor food, hard beds (if any), disease, swollen rivers, and sucking swamps. As you walk this trail let your imagination carry you back to the early 1800’s when people walking 500 miles had to put up with this discomfort, and a broken leg or arm could spell death for the lone traveler. Next stop was at Grindstone Ford which marked the beginning of the wilderness of the Choctaw nation and the end of the old Natchez District. Nearby Fort Deposit was a supply depot for troops clearing the Trace in 1801-02, and troops were assembled here during the Burr conspiracy allegedly to separate the Western States from the Union. The site takes its name from a nearby water mill. Riverboat men on foot or horseback crossed here, northbound, after floating cargoes down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans. Soldiers splashed across from the north to protect the Natchez District from British and Spanish threats. For post riders, Indians, bandits, and preachers Bayou Pierre was the line between civilization and wilderness. Also located at the site was an old graveyard with about 10 or 12 graves dating back to the 1820’s.

Next stop was at Rocky Springs was once a thriving rural community. First settled in the late 1790’s, the town grew from a watering place along the Natchez Trace, and took its name from the source of that water, The Rocky Spring. In 1860 a total of 2,616 people lived in this area covering about 25 square miles. The population of the town proper included 3 merchants, 4 physicians, 4 teachers, 3 clergy and 13 artisans, while the surrounding farming community included 54 planters, 28 overseers and over 2000 slaves who nurtured the crop that made the town possible…..cotton. Several businesses were established at different times, among them carpenters, wheelwrights, a well digger, cabinet makers, a cotton gin maker and blacksmiths. The Civil War, yellow fever, destructive crop insects, and poor land management brought an end to this once prosperous rural community. From the time this land was settled, few farmers practiced good soil conservation measures. After 1820, subsistence farming gave way to a plantation economy where even the hillsides were cleared and planted. A letter written in 1863 while the Civil War raged stated “My slaves, horses, and mules are carried off, my fences torn down and my crops destroyed. During the summer and fall of 1878, yellow fever struck the area. Pastoe J. W. Sandwell on November 18, 1878 wrote that there were 180 yellow fever cases and 43 deaths. Although Rocky Springs tried to recover after the yellow fever epidemic of 1878, in the early 1900’s the boll weevil struck, devastating the cotton crop. After this final disaster, the population declined rapidly and the last store in the area closed its doors during the 1930’s. Our last stop before we hit our campground was Lower Choctaw Boundary. There was a line of trees there that have been a boundary for 200 years and was established in 1765 and marked the eastern limits of the Old Natchez District. Since 1820 it has served as the boundary between Hinds and Clairborne Counties, Mississippi. Also located there was Red Bluff Stand where “John Gregg at the lower Choctaw Line respectfully informs the public, and travelers particularly, that he keeps constantly on hand a large and general supply of groceries, ground coffee ready to put up, Sugar Biscuit, Cheese Dried Beef, or Bacon, and every other article necessary for the accommodation of travelers going through the nation, on very reasonable terms. He is also, prepared to shoe horses on the shortest notice”. Established in 1802, this hostelry on the Indian boundary was for several years the last place a northbound traveler could get provisions.

We got to the Springridge RV Park and got set up and the next day we were off to do some caches in the Clinton, MS area. The first interesting cache we did was GCJF5K “P. O. W.”. It was the site of a German POW camp called Camp Clinton which along with 3 other POW camps and 15 branch camps in Mississippi held approximately 20,000 prisoners. From 1942 to 1946 more than 400,000 German, Italian, and Japanese prisoners of war (PWs) were interned in the United States. Of that number, approximately 20,000 were held in camps in Mississippi. Camp Clinton is particularly significant compared to other PW camps in the country. First, the camp’s prisoners provided the labor during the initial, and more tedious, phases of construction of the Mississippi River Basin Model. Their work, valued at several million dollars, allowed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to proceed with and complete their flood control project. In the decades after the Basin Model’s completion, data collected during tests helped to save billions of dollars in property damage. Second, a special compound constructed at Camp Clinton was where all but a few of the German Generals held in the United States were confined. Out of nearly forty generals in American captivity, thirty-five (and one admiral) were at one time or another at Camp Clinton.

Next cache we did was GCP7DJ “Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery”. The cemetery contained some grave sites dating back to the 1850’s. Did you know that back in 17th Century England, it was odd to find people organized for the purpose of giving aid to those in need and of pursuing projects for the benefit of all mankind. Those who belonged to such an organization were called “Odd Fellows”. Odd Fellows are also known as “The Three Link Fraternity” which stands for Friendship, Love and Truth. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows was founded on the North American Continent in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 26, 1819 when Thomas Wildey and four members of the Order from England instituted Washington Lodge No. 1. This lodge received its charter from Manchester Unity of Odd Fellows in England. Odd Fellowship became the 1st national fraternity to include both men and women when it adopted the beautiful Rebekah Degree on September 20, 1851. This degree is based on the teachings found in the Holy Bible, and was written by the Honorable Schuyler Colfax who was Vice President of the United States during the period 1868-1873. Odd Fellows and Rebekahs were also the first fraternal organization to establish homes for our senior members and for orphaned children.

A few of the other more interesting caches in the area were GCMF3C “Healing Spring”. This cache was located at a “healing spring” in a back section of Clinton. Clinton was formed in 1823 and called Mt. Salus (Mountain of Health) and got its name from the recently completed home of the Governor which sat by a large flowing spring. The town was known for miles around for its many springs, thought to have healing qualities. As the town grew it changed its name to Clinton in 1837 after prominent New Yorker Dewitt Clinton. There still were springs in the area and this was one of them which still flows. GC19KGF “Cowles Mead Cemetery” a cache at the former home of acting Governor Cowles Mead. Mead came from the East seeking opportunity in the Mississippi Territory. He owned a tavern on the Old Trace near Natchez and held several political offices, including acting Gov. in 1806. During this time, he ordered the arrest of Aaron Burr for treason but the former Vice President was acquitted. Mead followed the growth of the state and moved to the Jackson area. He built his beautiful landscaped home “Greenwwood” on this site. Little remains today of his grand estate that burned after his death, during the Civil War, except the family cemetery.

Well that’s about it for this month from Clinton, MS, just off the Natchez Trace Parkway. Next month we will be visiting the Vicksburg National Military Park in Vicksburg, MS, Battleground Park in Jackson, MS and a visit to the USS Cairo, a old Union warship.

Until next time- HAPPY CACHING from Tweety & Coach and we will see you all in about 2 weeks!
Tweety & Coach……………ftjak

Read more about ftjak’s adventures on their blog:
www.2lostsoulsotheroad.blogspot.com

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Volume 2, Issue 7 | September 7, 2009 | Download

• Front Page: Upcoming Meeting – 09/09/09
• Front Page: Beach Sweep 2009
• A New Law affecting SC Geocachers
• On The Road With Tweety & Coach

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