About this painting
New members please use the new member
Join Form to join and pay one
year's dues.
For existing members please use the
Dues Payment Form.
The mission of LOWER
ALTAMAHA HISTORICAL SOCIETY is to preserve and disseminate the history
of McIntosh County.
Darien, Georgia July 23, 2021:
The Lower Historical Society (LAHS) was
recently notified by the MK Pentecost Ecology Fund of the Savannah
Presbytery, that the application for the Butler Island Ecological
Sensitive Solar Light Installation and Signage,
has been awarded a grant of $2250. Wes Tippins, President of LAHS, joins
local members of the Coalition to Save Butler Island and
Descendants Griffin Lotson, Darien City Councilman and Eunice Moore,
Chair of the Gullah Geechee Committee in
supporting the cultural heritage
programming efforts on Butler Island.
The instillation will commemorate the 436 enslaved
persons that
lived on
Butler Island and nearby Hampton Plantation
on St. Simons Island, who were sold
during the largest slave sale in the United States, which was
held in Savannah at the Ten Broek Race Course
March 2-3, 1859. This has been known ever since as the Weeping
Time.
Temporary lights were placed during the 2021 Weeping Time Commemorative
on March 6-7 of that year. A local
video posted on Facebook
garnered 1200 views in under 5 days. Due to
community appreciation in honoring the
Weeping Time, the
Darien City Council granted permission for the lights to remain.
The site is now
owned by the State of Georgia, Department of Natural Resources, and
leased to the City of Darien. The land is open to the public for
picnicking, fishing, and birding. Only 3 signs tell any history of
Butler Island. Two were placed to about
the Butler family in the 1950s, and one about the enslaved in
2019. Signage will be updated to reflect the larger history and culture
of the island.
This project
originated out of a need to tell a more complete human and ecological
story of Butler Island. The story of Butler Island includes its
ecosystem as well as its people, and the project will include both, with
solar lighting and signage installation that will be sensitive to the
cultural and physical nature of the site.
Flooding to the low-level site is prevalent, and any signage or lights
placed on the property will have to take the sea level
rise into account.
About the Lower Altamaha
Historical Society:
The mission of the Lower
Altamaha Historic Society is to preserve and disseminate the history of
McIntosh County. One of the primary missions of the Lower Altamaha
Historical Society from its inception was, and continues to be, the support
of the Fort King George State Historic Site near Darien, scene of the
earliest English fortification in Georgia. LAHS, utilizing grant funds
provided by the City of Darien, has expedited the preparation and
installation of several state historic markers in the community, the most
recent being the marker to the Enslaved at Butler Island in 2019. http://www.loweraltamahahistoricalsociety.org/
