WASHINGTON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

We had a surprise visit today.  Mr Vernon Lewis stopped by while he was in town.  Sadly it was a family illness that has brought him home from Virginia.  His daughter had visited the Museum earlier this year and offered to take the pictures we had of the Wells Store in downtown Chipley and combine them with a wonderful story her father had written about his memories as a boy "hanging out" at the store.  Mr. Lewis has a blog where he shares more of his memories.  It is

http://recollectionsofasouthernwayoflife.blogspot.com/2012/03/somehappenings-in-1941-during-summer-of.html

Saturday night's presentation by Scott Sweeney on the works of "judge" E.W. Carswell was both informative and entertaining.  He sprinkled facts about the park throughout his presentation and shared the "stage" with Judge Perry Wells who by his own description, "filled in the blanks".  Thank you to everyone who attended.   Dorothy

I am so excited to have a venue to share all the exciting developments at the Museum and the stories of all the characters that make up our community.  The newest addition  at our Museum is the Mural being painted by illustrator Frank Roberts.  For those of you not familiar with Frank's work...HE IS AWESOME.  We chose a scene from Washington County's history depicting a pine forest with turpentine workers scraping the trees to make the sap flow.  Visible in the background is the River / Creek whichever your imagination chooses to see.  A Pileated Woodpecker streaks through the trees toward some unseen destination.  We invite everyone to come by and step back in time and become immersed iin Washington County's history.

The museum want to save as many stories and detail of Washington County, Florida as possible before they are lost to time. Please get involved any way you can. History can be fun................

It seems I never have the time I need to complete everything on my dto do lists, during the summer. I went to Atlanta in mid June to pick up my son Zak fron the airport. We decided on the way back to Chipley Florida to stop by the old Chipley, Georgia. It was a beautiful well kept town that just oozed history.

 We stop by the Chipley Museum and was fortunate enough to meet Lillian Champion who wrote the book, tracking Giants. The book main focus was on William Dudley Chipley, the namesake of the town I call now call home. She was an amazing lady and very sharp for being 89 years of age. I am hoping to have a chance to have a longer conversation with her in August.

The museum was very nice and well thought out. I bought a few books, a DVD and was able to get a couple of pencils that said Chiple Museun on them. It does not take much to make me happy.

We headed south to Columbus, Ga in search of Mr. Chipley. It took 2 days walking through a very large cemetary but I was able to locate him as well as his wife and other family members. I posted some of my pictures on his page , under history.

I have been on a quest to find out more about him as a person so that the area dedicated to him will a representation of him. It howeverhas been a slow go. He did not have much to say in Columbus and have since gone to pensacola to his old stomping ground to track down the real Mr. Chipley.

I'm still looking.