Posted on Leave a comment

Turnbull Grand Canal Florida Historic Marker

Turnbull Grand Canal Florida Historic Marker

New Smyrna Beach is where you will find the Turnbull Grand Canal Florida Historic Marker. The City of New Smyrna Beach and the Florida Department of State are the marker sponsors. In  2018 sponsors placed the monument for public viewing.

If you would like to read other posts on my blog about Florida historic markers, please CLICK HERE.

The National Register of Historic Places includes the Turnbull Canal System. You may see the National Park Service NRHP file using THIS LINK.

To learn more about the Turnbull Settlement, please visit the New Smyrna Museum of History.

Nomatic

 

Turnbull Grand Canal Florida Historic Marker

 

TEXT

The Turnbull Grand Canal, also known as the Grand Canal, was built by indentured servants brought to the area by Scottish physician Dr. Andrew Turnbull in 1768. As part of the largest single attempt at British colonization in North America, Smyrnea Settlement, Turnbull attracted more than 1,400 Minorcans, Corsicans, Greeks, and Italians, who sought the promise of new opportunities in Florida. Turnbull was impressed by the Egyptian canal system and wanted to replicate it in Smyrnea. Three canals ran east-west and were linked with a fourth longer canal known as the Grand Canal that ran north-south and connected to Turnbull Bay. These hand-dug canals provided irrigation and drainage for rice, hemp, cotton, and indigo crops, and served as a mode of transportation within the colony. After nine years of harsh treatment under Turnbull, drought, and crop failures, the colony’s population fell to about 600 people. In 1777 a group of Smyrnea colonists walked 70 miles to St. Augustine to petition British East Florida Governor Patrick Tonyn for release from their indentures. After hearing the case, Governor Tonyn gave them their freedom and granted them land north of St. Augustine.

F-1025

A Florida Heritage Site

Sponsored by the City of New Smyrna Beach, the Historic New Smyrna Beach Preservation Commission, Mayor James Hathaway, Vice Mayor Jason McGuirk, Commissioner Judy Reiker, Commissioner Jake Sachs, Commissioner Randy Hartman, and the Florida Department of State.

2018

Turnbull Grand Canal Florida Historic Marker is located at the corner of SR 44 and Walker Drive in New Smyrna Beach. It is located across Walker Drive from Auto Zone.
The Turnbull Grand Canal marker is located at the corner of SR 44 and Walker Drive in New Smyrna Beach. It is on the south side of SR 44 across Walker from Auto Zone.

Turnbull Grand Canal looking southTurnbull Grand Canal looking north with SR 44 showing. Turnbull Grand Canal

 

Buy Me A Coffee donation link
Click the image to support this site through Buy Me A Coffee. Your support pays for web services, research trips, photocopies, and photo usage fees.

 

 

This post may contain affiliate links including Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  If you click these links and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission. This commission does not affect any price that you pay. Affiliate programs or sponsors providing products do not influence views and opinions provided in my blog.

 

 

Use Tiqets.com to find the best attractions at the best prices all over the world. Visit their site and enter your destination.

Posted on Leave a comment

University Press of Florida Early 2024 Releases

University Press of Florida early 2024 releases. Click the link to be taken to the spring and summer 2024 UPF catalog.


University Press of Florida early 2024 releases. Click the link to be taken to the spring and summer 2024 UPF catalog.
The University Press  of Florida have announced their early 2024 releases. Their spring and summer 2024 catalog is now available online for review.

As the official publisher for the State University System, the University Press of Florida (UPF) has been engaging educators, students, and discerning readers since 1945. UPF has published over 2,500 volumes since its inception and currently releases nearly 100 new titles each year. Upholding the values of their affiliate institutions of higher learning, UPF encourages the pursuit of truth, meaning, and self-determination while promoting interaction and a sense of community. The University Press of Florida continues to sow the newest seeds of scholarship while preserving important voices from the past.

 

During the March through August time frame, twenty-four titles are scheduled for release. Seventeen titles will be reprinted in paperback format.

Some of the highlights of the University Press of Florida early 2024 releases include the following.

New Releases for 2024

Sunshine State Mafia University Press of Florida early 2024 releasesSunshine State Mafia written by Doug Kelly. ISBN 978-0813080482, $28.

A vivid, wild ride through a century of Mafia lore, this book tells stories of organized crime rings that have settled in Florida and made the state their base of operations for bootlegging, gambling, extortion, money laundering, and drug running. Sunshine State Mafia divulges the hidden history of the mob from the Keys to Pensacola and Jacksonville.

 

 

 

 

 

Selling Vero Beach University Press of Florida early 2024 releasesSelling Vero Beach: Settler Myth in the Land of the Ais and Seminoles written by Kristalyn Marie Shefveland. ISBN 978-0813080536. $29.95

In this book, Kristalyn Shefveland describes how in the Gilded Age, Indian River Farms Company and other boosters painted the region as a wild frontier, conveniently accessible by train via Henry Flagler’s East Coast Railway. Shefveland provides an overview of local Aís and Seminole histories. These were rewritten by salespeople, and illustrate how agricultural companies used Native peoples as motifs on their fruit products. The book includes never-before-published letters between Vero Beach entrepreneur Waldo Sexton and writer Zora Neale Hurston. These letters highlight Sexton’s interest in story-spinning and sales.

 

 

 

James HudsonJames Hudson: Forgotten Forerunner in the Crusade for Civil Rights written by Larry Omar Rivers. ISBN hardcover 978-0813079103, ISBN paperback 978-0813080642. $90 in hardcover, $35 in paperback

Drawing on little-used primary source documents and original interviews with people who knew Hudson well, Rivers examines how Hudson’s training at Morehouse College, Colgate-Rochester Divinity School, and Boston University shaped his scholar-activism, including his decision to become a Personalist philosopher. As Rivers shows, Hudson crafted an influential philosophy of life—a blend of Socratic inquiry, moral imagination, African American spirituality, and Gandhian nonviolence—that became an essential foundation for the rise of King, another Personalist philosopher. The book also sheds new light on the connections between the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and the lesser-known 1956 Tallahassee Bus Boycott, which together helped spark the formation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

 

Archaeology of Contemporary America University Press of Florida early 2024 releasesThe Archaeology of Contemporary America written by William R. Caraher. ISBN 978-0813069968. $85.

Opening with a case study of the excavation of Atari games from a municipal landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico, Caraher invites readers into discussions of the archaeology of garbage, consumer objects, and digital music and video devices. He then synthesizes research on migrant camps, homelessness, military bases, residential school campuses, and urbanism, and offers a second case study: an examination of temporary workforce housing in North Dakota’s Bakken oil boom.

 

 

 

 

Make barista-quality coffee at home in seconds with Explorer Organic Cold Brew & All-Natural Flavor Elixirs

Now available in paperback

Florida's Peace River FrontierFlorida’s Peace River Frontier written by Canter Brown, Jr. ISBN 978-0813080604. $29.95.

For most of the nineteenth century, southwest Florida and the Peace River Valley remained a frontier as unknown to outsiders as the frontiers of the American West. In this book, Canter Brown, Jr. records the area’s economic, social, political, and racial history in an account of violence, passion, struggle, sacrifice, and determination.

Using such primary materials as government records, manuscript collections, and newspapers published throughout the country, Brown documents the presence of Native Americans and African Americans in the area in the aftermath of the First Seminole War. He examines the Civil War and Reconstruction periods, paying particular attention to the Union/Confederate, Republican/Democratic split among the area’s residents. In the final sections of the book he describes the arrival of the railroad and the growth of towns. The phosphate boom, and consequences of the Great Freeze of 1895 are also discussed.

 

Show Thyself a ManShow Thyself a Man: Georgia State Troops, Colored, 1865-1905 written by Gregory Mixon. ISBN 978-0813080628. $31.95.

In Show Thyself a Man, Gregory Mixon explores the ways in which African Americans in postbellum Georgia used militia service after the Civil War to define freedom and citizenship. Independent militias empowered them to get involved in politics, secure their own financial independence, and mobilize for self-defense.

 

 

 

To see other posts of mine with University Press of Florida content, please click THIS LINK.

 

This post may contain affiliate links. If you click these links and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission. This commission does not affect any price that you pay. Affiliate programs or sponsors providing products do not influence the views and opinions shared in this blog.

 

Make barista-quality coffee at home in seconds with Explorer Organic Cold Brew & All-Natural Flavor ElixirsOrganic Cold Brew Coffee Concentrate & Flavor Syrups. Make barista-quality coffee, at home, in seconds. Make Explorer Cold Brew brand your go-to for delicious cold brew coffee. Available in TSA friendly 2 ounce bottles.

Posted on Leave a comment

The Ancient Track Rock Petroglyphs in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest

Track Rock Sign

Visitors to the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests  near Blairsville, Georgia, have a unique opportunity to view a large collection of petroglyphs.

Track Rock Sign
The sign indicating the Track Rock Archaeological Area where you can visit the petroglyphs.

What is a petroglyph?

Track Rock Information Panel
Track Rock Information Panel

The first question a reader may have is, just what a petroglyph is. According to the National Park Service “Petroglyphs are rock carvings (rock paintings are called pictographs) made by pecking directly on the rock surface using a stone chisel and a hammerstone.”

How old are they?

Track Rock Gap is located between Thunderstruck Mountain and Buzzard Roost Ridge near the
town of Blairsville in Union County, Georgia. Here, more than 1,000 years ago, Creek and
Cherokee peoples created the soapstone carvings we now enjoy today.

Considered one of the most significant rock art sites in the Southeastern United States, Track
Rock features a diverse grouping of more than 100 figures.

What do they mean?

Track Rock Petroglyph
A legend to some of the markings found on the petroglyphs.

Archaeologists do not believe Track Rock to have had a singular purpose or to have been carved in a singular period; rather, the carvings were made over time and for differing reasons. Some of them may symbolize or commemorate a particular event that happened. Others may have to do with rituals and ceremonies. As the National Park Service states

Furthermore, the setting of Track Rock in a gap places it at a threshold. In numerous Cherokee stories, footprints and tracks signify an in-between or transitional state or condition. More specifically, rocks with footprints and tracks signified the area of transition, a doorway or threshold, into the domain of dangerous spirit beings.

Depictions of footprints and tracks are not only physical testimony that spirit beings were there some time in the past, but that they could still be lingering somewhere close-by in the present, and that they may return unexpectedly at any time in the future.

How do I visit?

You can easily visit this amazing archaeological site. There is no entry or parking fee charged.

You can reach Track Rock Gap by taking US 129 to Blairsville, then US 76 east about five
miles. At the signs for Track Rock Gap Road, turn right for about two miles to the gap. Their
location in the gap makes stopping beside the boulders very dangerous.

Drive on through the gap, noting the Track Rocks on the right, and look for the small parking lot
on your right. Park there and take the trail back to the gap, safely from traffic. The trail is not
long or strenuous but it is through a wooded area so proper footwear is suggested. The path can
be slippery depending upon weather conditions.

Carvings visible in the rock
While not photographed at the best lighting, carvings are still visible in this rock.

The NPS suggests visiting when sunlight is at a low angle. Consider visiting either early morning or late in the day. Brighter sunlight makes viewing the  petroglyphs more difficult. If you click the link below to learn more about the site there are convenient fact and description sheets available to help you navigate the site.

Remember, leave nothing but footprints and take nothing but photos. Let’s make sure this sacred site is available for the next thousand years.

How can I learn more?

To learn more about the petroglyphs visit the forest service site here.

Learn more about the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) by visiting the National Park Service page here.

You can learn more on the subject by reading the account “An Archaeological and
Ethnohistorical Appraisal of a Piled Stone feature Complex in the Mountains of North Georgia”
published in the journal Early Georgia (Vol. 38, No. 1, p. 29-50) in 2010 by archaeologists
Johannes Loubser and Douglas Frink. Check with your local librarian to see if any of their
databases carry this journal.

This post may contain affiliate links. If you click these links and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission. This commission does not affect any price that you pay. All views and opinions provided are my own and are never influenced by affiliate programs or sponsors providing products.

 

Are you interested in hiking in the Chattahoochee National Forest? This map pack from National Geographic is a must have.

National Geographic’s Chattahoochee Bundle Pack combines two Trails Illustrated titles for Chattahoochee National Forest. Located just north of Atlanta, the Chattahoochee National Forest contains the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail along with an abundance of recreational opportunities for outdoor enthusiasts of all interests. The maps’ highlights are: Southern Terminus of the Appalachian Trail, Russell-Brasstown Scenic Byway, Cohutta, Raven Cliffs and Rich Mountain Wilderness Areas, White Rock Scenic Area, Brasstown, Ellicot Rock, Southern Nantahala, Tray Mountain, Raven Cliffs Wilderness Areas, and Chattooga Wild and Scenic River.

Click the photo or this link for more information on purchasing the map.

Posted on Leave a comment

University Press of Florida Announces Their Fall 2021 Catalog

Picturing the Space Shuttle book cover

The University Press of Florida has released their Fall 2021 catalog and there are some titles that history
enthusiasts should take note of. I have not posted all the interesting titles, allowing you to make
discoveries on your own. This cycle is heavy on archaeology. As always with academic press books, the
hardcover prices can be quite steep. Watch their website for promotions and check Amazon and others
for price discounts.

Picturing the Space Shuttle: The Early Years written by John Bisney and J. L. Pickering. September release. ISBN 9781683402053, $45.

Showcasing over 450 unpublished and lesser-known images, this book traces the growth of the Space Shuttle from 1965 to 1982, from initial concept through its first four space flights. The photographs offer windows into designing the first reusable space vehicle as well as the construction and testing of the prototype shuttle Enterprise. They also show the factory assembly and delivery of the Space Shuttle Columbia, preparations at the major NASA field centers, and astronaut selection and training. Finally, the book devotes a chapter to each of the first four orbital missions, STS-1 through STS-4, providing an abundance of seldom-seen photos for each flight.

 

The Nine Lives of Florida’s Famous Key Marco Cat written by Austin J. Bell. September release. ISBN 9780813066998, $26.95.

Excavated from a waterlogged archaeological site on the shores of subtropical Florida by legendary anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing in 1896, the Key Marco Cat has become a modern icon of heritage, history, and local identity. This book takes readers into the deep past of the artifact and the Native American society in which it was created.

 

 

 

Unearthing the Missions of Spanish Florida edited by Tanya M. Peres and Rochelle A. Marrinan. November release. ISBN 9781683402510, $90.

This volume presents new data and interpretations from research at Florida’s Spanish missions, outposts established in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to strengthen the colonizing empire and convert Indigenous groups to Christianity. In these chapters, archaeologists, historians, and ethnomusicologists draw on the past thirty years of work at sites from St. Augustine to the panhandle.

 

New in paperback:

Public Health Nurses of Jim Crow Florida written by Christine Ardalan. November release. ISBN
9780813066158, $24.95.

Highlighting the long unacknowledged role of a group of pioneering professional women, The Public Health Nurses of Jim Crow Florida tells the story of healthcare workers who battled racism in a state where white supremacy formed the bedrock of society. They aimed to serve those people out of reach of modern medical care.

 

 

 

Queering the Redneck Riviera: Sexuality and the Rise of Florida Tourism written by Jerry T. Watkins III. April 2022 release. ISBN 9780813056913, $24.95.

Queering the Redneck Riviera recovers the forgotten and erased history of gay men and lesbians in North Florida, a region often overlooked in the story of the LGBTQ experience in the United States. Jerry Watkins reveals both the challenges these men and women faced in the years following World War II and the essential role they played in making the Emerald Coast a major tourist destination.

 

 

 

Fort St. Joseph Revealed: The Historical Archaeology of a Fur Trading Post edited by Michael S. Nassaney. November release. ISBN 9780813068497, $26.95.

Fort St. Joseph Revealed is the first synthesis of archaeological and documentary data on one of the most important French colonial outposts in the western Great Lakes region. Located in what is now Michigan, Fort St. Joseph was home to a flourishing fur trade society from the 1680s to 1781. Material evidence of the site—lost for centuries—was discovered in 1998 by volume editor Michael Nassaney and his colleagues, who summarize their extensive excavations at the fort and surrounding areas in these essays.

 

This post may contain affiliate links. If you click these links and make a purchase, I may receive a small
commission. This commission does not affect any price that you pay. All views and opinions provided
are my own and are never influenced by affiliate programs or sponsors providing products.