A day of exploration with my friend Sheldon, visiting old
sites and places in southern Towns and Union Counties.
1 - We began the day climbing up to a high gap where
Sheldon had come across an old chimney many years ago.
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Approaching the first gap, we found what looked like the remains of an old stone support foundation.
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Nearby was the possible remains of a small chimney, long collapsed.
Many of the rocks were flat, like those used in early fieldstone chimneys.
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Continuing our climb to the next gap, we immediately found the old homesite chimney.
Although the uppermost section is missing, this one is a beauty.
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Two old metal wheel rims act as a lintel to support the fireplace header.
The fireplace is still chinked with Georgia clay, giving the stone an orange-red appearance.
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Rear of the chimney
I later found that this property was purchased by the USFS from Frank E. Conley in 1938.
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Sheldon provides some scale to appreciate the chimney's size.
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2 - Brookshire-Jacks Cemetery
Our next stop was an old graveyard, where the grave markers are all fieldstones:
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We had been told that this cemetery was the Jacks family graveyard.
We later learned it is referred to as the Brookshire-Jacks Cemetery.
The Jacks and Brookshires lived nearby and inter-married in the 1800s.
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The nearby "Jacks Gap" was named for this family.
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Three stones in a row.
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There are about 15 stone markers here.
I don't know if all are headstones or if some are footstones...
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Two more gravestones...
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Several burials here are known:
Solomon Jacks (1785-1869), George William Brookshire (1838-1911),
and George Washington Brewster (1838-1865)
Other Jacks, Brookshires and Brewsters are reported to be buried here.
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Sheldon knew about some old magazines / storage bunkers in the woods. They were
used by the CCC to store explosives during construction of the nearby mountain roads.
3 - Bunker-Magazine 1:
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We found the first bunker pretty easily.
Unfortunately, a huge tree had recently fallen directly onto the magazine.
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Screened vents ventilated the magazines on each end.
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Hoist eye-ring
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Lifting up the bent cover, we found the inscription "CCC F15".
Hiawassee's Civilian Conservation Corps camp, located just down the road, was CCC Company 1443, F-15, Camp Soapstone.
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Inscribed date 3-11-37 (March 11, 1937).
We scraped some of the moss out of the engraved numbers to better see them.
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There was additional lettering in the concrete, but it was difficult to make out.
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The nearby Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp F-15 (Soapstone) in March 1936.
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Sheldon photographing the CCC inscription...
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4 - It took us a bit longer to locate Bunker 2:
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Explosives Magazine-Bunker 2, made of stone with a concrete rim.
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Quite mossy!
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Looking through one of the screened vents in Magazine-Bunker 2.
I have since found similar explosives magazines at two other local CCC camps,
Camp Woody and Camp Warwoman Crk. For obvious reasons, all were built
at some distance from the populated areas of the camps. Each one is a little
different, but all have similar components, like the screened vents, for example.
I wondered why the two bunkers here looked so different. There were two CCC
companies stationed at Camp Soapstone over its life. The first bunker was
built by Camp F-15, as marked; I believe the stone bunker was for Camp P-73.
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5 - Sheldon originally wasn't sure in which of two drainages the second bunker was located.
We headed up Garrett Branch first and didn't find the bunker, but found some nice falls.
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Lower Garrett Branch Falls
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Upper Garrett Branch Falls
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Falls detail
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