YesterYear

Yesterday we packed up our big black van and headed far away to yesteryear. We visited an awesome southern plantation with some other homeschool friends. Before embarking on our journey we turned to the internet to supply all of our history needs.

Walnut Grove Plantation was the home of Charles and Mary Moore c.1765. They owned over 3000 acres and was a complete self sufficient farm. They raised their 10 children on the land and are buried on the property in the family cemetery.

What caught my interest the most was their eldest daughter Kate. At 15 years old she married a patriot soldier and lived very close to her childhood home. She worked as a spy! She was a heroine of the American Revolution. One famous story includes her tying her infant to the bed while she ran off into the night to warn her husband and his troops that the british were coming... saving them.

As we toured the upstairs of her childhood bedroom, we learned how the upstairs beds housed more patriot soldiers until a small battle took place right on the property. Bloody Bill Cunningham and his Tories came, hunted and killed those soldiers down. They were buried where they fell which later became the cemetery. It was Kate, who rode fearlessly, to warn the soldiers that the tories were coming. Greatly outnumbered, they succumbed to defeat.

As I strolled the property with my kids, I was amazed my the peace that surrounded us. It was a perfect fall day. A perfect mix of chill and sun with leaves coming down like snow. We walked the actual wagon trail and strolled thru the family herb garden. The afternoon was humbling. A place so filled with history and American pride, lost between subdivisions and shopping centers.

I chatted with another mom that was there. I was amazed that this family, Irish immigrants, held such fierce loyalty to their new country. If only we, as Americans, held that much pride and passion for freedom... How great our country could be. The South is full of history. Stories that you will never find in school books. Stories that would be lost unless you went and searched them out. Stories Like Kate Barry and her bravery. A love for God and Country is an amazing combination. Back during yesteryear, men and women risked everything they lived for, to protect what our ForeFathers started. Today, sadly, things are quite different.

I've always said, its a good thing our patriotic heros are dead, or they would see that what they dies for was in vain....

Our day in the 1700's was amazing. I think I enjoyed it a bit more than the kids. My camera died right away(thank God for cell phones) and many bathroom trips were needed but the day will go down in our history!!

This is only the beginning of many plantation visits. In the gift shop, we bought a map of every historical site and one by one we will go. We will visit, we will learn and we will remember.