The Bartram Trail Society of Florida was well represented at this year’s meeting of the Bartram Trail Conference held in the quaint southern town of Darien, Georgia during the weekend of January 28-30. The Conference activities began with a field trip to the historic site of Fort Barrington on private property on the shores of the Altamaha River.
William Bartram visited the Fort during his year-long stay in Darien during his travels across the southeastern United States and it was here that he discovered the Franklina. The outing was hosted by The Fort Barrington Hunt Club whose members have preserved and protected the site through a conservation easement.
Conference attendees were invited to tour the site of the fort and were given guided hiking tours along the colonial era “Post Road,” which is still in use today. It is a side road off the historic King’s Highway connecting Savannah to St. Augustine.
The field trip was followed by a workshop on creating the William Bartram National Historic Corridor. It was well-attended in-person and virtually and the presentations by the National Park Service and personnel associated with an existing Historic Corridor, were both informative and eye-opening.
The Conference symposium was, as usual, outstanding. Attendees who participated virtually and in person, enjoyed a number of informative and entertaining presentations by Bartram Scholars, artists and authors. Each presentation was followed by lively discussion.
After the symposium the group visited the McIntosh Family Cemetery and met two direct descendants of Donald McIntosh who was William’s host during his stay in Darian nearly 250 years ago. The culmination of the event was a banquet dinner featuring original Bartram songs by Linda Crider, stories by Billy Bartram, aka Mike Adams, and a key note address by Christi Lambert, Coast and Marin Director of Conservation at The Nature Conservancy.
For more about this quarter at Bartram Trail Society of Florida, check out our Spring 2022 Newsletter!