The Midway Museum

I love Hwy 17. Almost every inch of Hwy 17, the Coastal Highway between Savannah and St Marys, is loaded with some kind of story, some part of Georgia’s history. Needless to say, for me a day spent on GA Hwy 17 is like a day at an amusement park for an energetic kid. When I see something interesting (gee, I wonder how often THAT happens!?) I have to stop and check it out. I meet the most intriguing people and places that way.

The Midway Museum

So when I saw the friendly little structure with a sign out front announcing it was The Midway Museum, well of course I had to stop. Seriously – if you saw a sweet cottage like this with a sign that said you could go inside and see it, you’d stop too. The small house beckons with its wide and welcoming staircase, broad porch, and heavy doors. Built specifically as a museum and to represent a typical Georgia coastal home, the building houses the vestiges of a community that travelled hundreds of miles to find a place where it could set roots, grow, flourish, and stay.

Thus began my obsession with Midway. There is so much hidden history there! I did not know until I found the Midway Museum that this tiny settlement produced families and men who would shape not only the history of Georgia but that of the entire United States!

At Georgia’s Second Provincial Congress in 1775, (held at Peter Tondee’s tavern in Savannah on July 4) eleven of the attendees were residents of Midway. Another Midway resident, Dr Lyman Hall, was one of two delegates elected to the Continental Congress which would meet in September of that year.

Now, this tidbit of information may seem a little ho-hum but when you actually visit Midway and see how small it is and realize how few families actually lived there in 1775, the impact of just how significant this little town is really hits. For all that it is not much more than a blink in the road, this community has produced men who served their country and their fellow men, and helped shape a world.

For instance, did you know these men were from Midway?…

Monument honoring General James Screven and Brigadier General Daniel Stewart. Located in the old cemetery across the street.

- General James Screven, Revolutionary War general. He slowed the British troops by arranging for a leak that provided false information.

- Brigadier General Daniel Stewart, recognized for his outstanding efforts in both the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Great-grandfather of President Theodore Roosevelt.

- Nathan Brownson, a physician and governor of Georgia. His was the task of rebuilding a weary and wounded colony after the Revolutionary War.

- John Stevens, one of the trustees commissioned to lay out the town of nearby Sunbury and distribute land grants accordingly.

- Abiel Holmes, grandfather of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

- Jedediah Morse, father of Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph.

- Lyman Hall, signer of the Declaration of Independence.

- John Bacon, Lyman Hall, James Screven, Daniel Stewart – all men of such noteworthiness that four Georgia counties were named for them.

And probably one of the most fascinating personalities to be associated with the Midway community:

- Button Gwinnett. Originally from England, Gwinnett enjoyed a colorful history in Georgia politics and military efforts, and was one of only eight signers of the Declaration of Independence who had originally come from England. Talk about a traitor! The man captivates me. Oh, and if you are from Georgia and were wondering… yes, the name is Gwinnett, as in Gwinnett County.

The Midway Church building.

Sadly, most of these families are represented almost exclusively by the Midway Museum, the cemetery across the street, and the church building next door to the museum. Little of the physical evidence of the Midway families remains. But inside the museum are heirlooms, artifacts, and family treasures donated to the museum by the descendants of the original community, many of whom still live in the area today.

The Midway Museum exists because of a strong-minded group of people who understand the significance of the area and have worked for over fifty years to preserve it. Some of them are descendants, some are historians, and some, like me, are just wandering souls who stumble upon this little pearl and want to help hang on to this little bit of Georgia’s heritage.

The Midway Museum needs you! Please visit on your next road trip or vacation. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am – 4 pm, Sunday 2-4 pm. Closed on Mondays and all major holidays. Admission prices are $3 for children ages 6-18, $6 for adults, $3 for seniors and military. (Wouldn’t this be a great outing for your Sunday School class?)

Upcoming activities at the Museum include

- Tales & Legends, a guided tour of the Midway cemetery given by expert storytellers in period costume. (Last part of October)

- Annual Christmas Tea. Visit the museum as it is decked out for the holiday season, and enjoy tea and cookies and stories told by guides in period costume. (Second weekend in December)

The Museum is also available for weddings, receptions, teas, and other social functions. For more information on these or any events, please call (912) 884-5837 or email the Midway Museum at museum@coastalnow.net

Savannah Trolley Tour – Oglethorpe Tours

I’ve helped plan a number of trips to St Augustine for friends as well as people who tracked me down via the Internet. And now that I am working on getting my Savannah tour guide’s license and helping friends plan trips to this beautiful city, I am spending a lot of time falling in love with it getting to know it on an intimate level.

I usually recommend a trolley or horse-drawn carriage tour for first-time visitors. I have done carriage tours in both cities but not til yesterday did it occur to me I had never done a trolley tour in either city. And if I am going to recommend them, I ought to know what I am talking about, right?

Well, it’s just freakin’ time to fix that, isn’t it? I swung into the Visitor’s Center and took a look around. I chatted with representatives of several of the tour companies and chose the one that appealed to me most. This morning, my friend Carrie and I headed into Savannah for a day of “playing tourist.”

Margie & her faithful trolley!

I picked Oglethorpe Tours. I’m not sure why this company called to me more than the others, but I definitely chose wisely. I knew right away we were in for a delightful 90 minutes with Margie, The Coolest Tour Guide Ever. Her bubbly personality and outrageous sense of humor had us powering the trolley almost on laughter alone.

When Margie realized I was planning to get my own tour guide’s license, she immediately took me under her wing, so to speak, and took an extra few minutes explaining things and made an extra effort to get to know me and encourage me. I quickly realized Margie and I have a lot in common – primarily that it’s not enough for us to merely know dates and names. We want to know more – we want to dig deep and find the life and breath in the past and bring it to life as best we can.

Like me, Margie is almost obsessed with the desire to know things about Savannah’s history, and to present the city in such a way that it becomes a thing of value to those who come expecting to see its beauty and quaint Southern charm but quickly realize there’s so much more to it than beautiful architecture and blooming azaleas and live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. Margie’s rich voice and honest deep-South accent made her running commentary pure music to hear. Her big laugh is just contagious and her eyes are bright and direct, confirming the old saying that “the eyes are the windows to the heart.” This is a woman who loves what she does and where she does it. How many of us are that blessed?

Margie took the time to point out Savannah's unique and beautiful ironwork.

We began the tour at the Visitor’s Center, which in and of itself boasts a fascinating past. We moved slowly through the Historic District while Margie pointed out landmarks and points of interest and kept up an intriguing dialogue about Savannah’s builders, caretakers, and secrets. Not satisfied with simply pointing out interesting places and buildings, Margie took the time to point out details like Savannah’s beautiful ironwork and tabby streets and a wall on Factor’s Walk that, upon closer inspection, reveals itself to be the remains of an 18th century fort! I wouldn’t have noticed it had Margie not pointed it out! I adore this woman!

We saw the City Market, Juliette Low’s birthplace, Mercer House, and countless other houses and buildings that are an integral part of Savannah’s past. Margie gave a brief rundown of the Squares as we passed each one, pointing out monuments and interesting bits of history. Arriving at the Cathedral of St John the Baptist, she pulled off and allowed us a few minutes to disembark from the trolley and peek inside the magnificent building. Being a sucker for church-building architecture, I couldn’t resist dashing inside. The interior did take my breath away, that’s for sure.

We made a bit of a stop at the old Warren Candler Hospital. This is a building with a past so amazing that my heart beats a little faster just thinking of it. Such a vivid past this old charismatic structure has! Built in 1819, it has housed Savannah’s poor, her freed slaves, a medical school, a nursing school, and operated as a hospital until 1980! The stories this building could tell – and I want to hear them all!

The beautiful architecture of the Cathdral of St John the Baptist.

At the end of the actual tour, Margie let Carrie & me off at the City Market, where we found a café and a late lunch. When your tour has ended, you can leave the trolley anywhere, and get back on again at any one of a number of stops around the city. So that’s what we did – we took an hour or two to stroll about and then a different trolley, this one driven by Lucille, picked us up at the Juliette Low birthplace.

Here is the other reason I was so pleased with Oglethorpe Tours: customer service. A guest had accidentally left a camera on Lucille’s trolley. Not only did Lucille make every effort to get the camera back to its owner, the other guests aboard the trolley were more than willing and eager to help and to wait while the camera’s owner was tracked down. The guest turned out to be a man travelling with his wife and 84-year-old mother-in-law and two very small dogs. The mother-in-law had been optimistic about being able to stroll about in Forsyth Park but the heat had proven too much for her and she really needed to step back aboard the trolley and ride with her family back to their car. The other guests aboard the trolley were happy to wait patiently while the family got the woman aboard and settled for the ride back to the Visitor’s Center. During the last part of the trip, the guests chatted about places to go, things to do, and fun to have in Savannah and on Tybee Island. The warmth and friendliness of the atmosphere was the perfect end to a lovely day in a stately old beautiful city.

Thanks, Margie; thanks, Lucille; thanks, Oglethorpe Tours. Carrie and I had a great time and we’re still talking over the events of the day and what we saw and learned. You guys rock, and we look forward to touring with you again!

NOTE: This is not an “official” endorsement of one tour company over the others. This is simply an account of one “touristy” day I enjoyed in Savannah on the trolley I happened to be on and the people I happened to be with. I plan to take trolley tours with each tour company in the future, so I know what each has to offer. Click here to vist the Oglethorpe Tours website. Or call them at 912-233-8380.

Ophelia Troup Dent

I first met Ophelia Troup Dent in 2002, which was a neat trick since by that time she had been dead for nearly thirty years. But I do that – I tend to “meet” people after they have died. Makes it a heck of a lot harder to get to know them, but I find out so many interesting things along the way.

Miss Ophelia's house at Hofwyl-Broadfield. Photo by Carrie Mayo.

On a trip from Savannah to St Augustine FL, I noticed a National Park Service sign along I-95 stating that the next exit led to “Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation.” Always curious and inquisitive, I jumped off the Interstate and onto a country road that led to a fenced and gated entrance.  As I drove through coastal Georgia vegetation and hundreds-of-years-old live oaks I was filled with an expectancy that was nearly overwhelming.

I paid my admission at the Visitor’s Center, and made the walk through the white fence rails out toward the plantation house and outbuildings. The delight of the canopy of moss-draped live oaks was worth the price of admission alone; the path that leads to the buildings is completely shadowed by them.

Arriving at the main house, I fell in love instantly and already; even before I stepped through the door I knew I had found a place where I would leave a piece of my heart. I ate up the tour, marveling at the beautiful old furnishings that had been in the family for generations, and I stood in awe of the life Miss Ophelia herself had lived until 1973. And so began my quest to get to know Miss Ophelia better.

I found out some things immediately – she never married, she was very close to her family, she was athletic and loved horses and dogs (that had me, right there). She liked to meet people. She loved books. She loved art. She loved her friends. She loved to travel.

But I wanted more. After all, if life had sent my family to live in Brunswick as it very nearly did, I might have actually met this lady in person. I shiver with delight even now, just to think of it. But alas – no such luck, so I had to start from scratch.

It wasn’t easy. She is still a very loved and protected figure in her community and those who knew her are reluctant to share much. But it’s like sculpting – you chip away everything that’s not a statue and pretty soon a figure takes shape. Miss Ophelia began to take shape for me fairly quickly.

Carrie sitting on an ancient tree stump at Hpfwyl-Broadfield plantation.

Descended from a long line of strong-willed and influential Georgians, Miss Ophelia understood the concept of community and she lived it every day. Along with her sister Miriam, she operated a small dairy to keep the family farm afloat. And by “operated,” I mean, she ran the dairy. She had some part time outside help, but she and Miss Miriam were Hofwyl Dairy. As owner, manager, and delivery-person, Miss Ophelia knew her community well and immersed herself in it.

In 2002 I decided I had to have a Hofwyl Dairy milk bottle. I wanted to have some small part of Miss Ophelia and Miss Miriam‘s life close to me all the time.  I’m sentimental that way. I put out some emails and made a few calls and no one had ever heard of Hofwyl Dairy so I sort of gave up but I always hoped I’d find one. Then in 2008, my friend Carrie, who knows my obsessions with coastal Georgia history (even if she doesn’t always understand them!) made one phone call – ONE, mind you – and gave me a Hofwyl Dairy milk bottle for my birthday. I don’t think I have ever been so blown away by a gift in my life. She has been with me through my digging and researching the Dent sisters and she alone knew what that bottle would mean to me. Using her now-legendary power of discovery, she found one.

Miss Ophelia’s dedication and involvement in her community is still felt today, some thirty-six years after her passing. Many “Friends Of Hofwyl” knew and remember Miss Ophelia, and her presence is still felt in the old house. In fact, if Miss Ophelia came back to life today, she would recognize her home instantly. To the degree that it can be, it is exactly as she left it right down to the dishes in the cupboards and the counterpane on her bed.

The famous "birthday present" milk bottle.

I visit Hofwyl-Broadfield several times a year. I’m drawn to the oaks, the house, the simple life Miss Ophelia and Miss Miriam lived, with no telly, no Internet, no cell phones, no fax machines. Theirs was a life when real people came to visit and letters and cards written in longhand arrived in the mailbox. Their world was the Altamaha River and Darien and Brunswick. Their entertainment was watching the marsh between their front yard and the river – the rising and setting of the sun, the beautiful storms, and the profuse wildlife. Their home was tall hallways, open windows, fresh air, and heirloom furnishings.

I think what is most overwhelming to me is seeing her car in the garage, exactly as she left it in 1973. It’s one thing to see her possessions inside the house – her chairs and drapes and pretty things – but it’s entirely different to see her blue car in her garage right where she always parked it. It makes her real, somehow, more so than I imagined.

I am so grateful to the National Park Service staff that cares for Miss Ophelia’s home and belongings, with limited resources and doing the best they can in these days of shoestring budgets and relentless cuts.

And I am grateful to Miss Ophelia, for her foresight and her generosity in allowing us a peek into her life and her times, and the things that were most valuable to her. I hope she knows that through her gifts, she is still teaching and shaping me even long after she and I ever had the chance to meet.

Captain Joe’s Seafood Restaurant, Midway, Georgia

Carrie stands in front of our favorite lunch spot!

I have many “favorite places” along the Georgia coast. One of them is Captain Joe’s Seafood Restaurant in Midway. I know there are various Captain Joe’s locations and I’m sure they’re all good. But the Midway location feels like home to me, and I love to stop there as often as possible when I am in the area.

My friend Carrie introduced me to Captain Joe’s a year ago. I had passed it numerous times on my many trips up and down Highway 17 but never stopped there. That’s definitely my mistake. All those years I could have been enjoying the delicious fare and welcoming service…

Well, I won’t make that mistake again! Captain Joe’s is one of my most important stops, and more than once I have had a hankerin for grilled shrimp and figured since I hadn’t been to Midway in, oh, a week or so, maybe it was time to head on down!

I am addicted to Captain Joe’s salad bar, that’s for sure. It’s been a long time since I have enjoyed a salad bar so much. Salad makings are always absolutely fresh and appetizing. Every time I am there I know I really need to stop with my salad of fresh lettuce and vegetables and all my favorites, but I just don’t want to. I know there are so many other delicious menu items to enjoy!

On the salad bar you will also find homemade jacket potato chips as well as sweet potato chips, yummy creamy salads, fresh cold fruit, a selection of breads (including Captain Joe’s famous cheese biscuits), soups, and desserts. Seriously, the salad bar really is a meal in and of itself. But pace yourself because you don’t want to miss all the other offerings.

To be honest, once I fall in love with something, that’s it for me. So my sampling of Captain Joe’s menu is fairly limited but that’s only because I can hold only so much food! My favorite menu items are grilled shrimp and grilled mahi mahi. I’m not a great fan of fish, which is unfortunate and I am making an effort to change that. But if I lived close enough, I’d have Captain Joe’s mahi mahi every day, if I could. I have sampled Captain Joe’s fried fantail shrimp and I can truthfully say it’s the best I’ve ever had.

While Captain Joe’s serves excellent food, it’s not just the food that keeps me going back. A restaurant can serve the finest food in the world but if its service stinks, well, so does the restaurant. Captain Joe’s servers are the nicest, friendliest, more helpful people you will meet anywhere. Carrie and I have never walked through the door that someone has not been all over us, seating us immediately (at our favorite table), smiling and acting for all the world like they were just waiting for us to arrive.

And there is a reason for this: it’s that the management knows it’s the employees that make a business successful. By one server’s own admission, she feels more like a daughter to her employer than an employee. It’s refreshing to watch the interaction and smiles exchanged among those who keep Captain Joe’s running, and it makes the experience that much more special.

Before we are even settled in our seats looking out at the giant live oaks and palm trees, cold drinks arrive. And I am not talking a glass of iced tea or soda. I am talking a PITCHER of iced tea or soda along with your glass so you can refill your own. I love this. Not only can I keep my drink exactly as I want it, but it saves the servers time and energy. I think this is brilliant and just another example of how well Captain Joe’s understands the business of service.

If you happen to be in Midway, do stop in at Captain Joe’s and abandon yourself to a wonderful coastal Georgia seafood experience, offered by a warm and friendly staff who knows how to do it and do it right! Look for me and Carrie at the corner table, and stop by to say hello!

Click here to visit Captain Joe’s website.