The Lathered Lamb
Find me here:
  • Blog
  • About
  • Store
  • Contact Me

Ancient Petroglyphs in the Fremont River Valley

2/27/2020

0 Comments

 
This is the eleventh in a series of posts about my visit through parts of Arizona and Utah.
​(Click words that are bolded for more information.)
Utah's Scenic Byway 12 northern junction ends at Scenic Byway 24, which runs through Capitol Reef National Park. We stopped to enjoy a picnic lunch in a peaceful valley beside the Fremont River in the historic district of Fruita.  Settled in 1879, this small self-sufficient Mormon community was home to just ten families who planted crops and orchards of fruit trees. Their descendants lived quietly in the sheltered valley until 1959 when Fruita was merged into Capitol Reef National Park. In the spring, visitors can still pick ripe fruit from Fruita orchards.
Fruita Picture
Soaring red cliffs surround the peaceful valley of Fruita
Fruita, Utah Picture
Oh, that blue, blue sky! Those fantastic rocks!
Here and there, the grassy picnic area was shaded by towering cottonwood trees with gnarled, twisted bark. One of these massive trees was known as the "Mail Tree," for under its branches mail was collected for the community. With a trunk diameter of 2-3 feet, Fremont cottonwood trees grow up to 90 feet tall and can live for 150 years. They grow near streams and rivers.
Cottonwood Mail Tree at Fruita, Utah Picture
Could this cottonwood have been the "Mail Tree?"
Cottonwood tree bark Picture
Wrinkled bark of a cottonwood tree
Long before the community of Fruita was settled, this lovely valley was home to a native people group now known as the Fremont. Like the Ancestral Puebloans, the Fremont lived in pit houses, hunted, and farmed. They made distinctive tightly woven baskets and wore leather moccasins, unlike the Ancestral Puebloans who wore sandals made from yucca fiber. The Fremont culture disappeared after 1300 AD, but numerous small clay figurines and rock art remain. Several panels of petroglyphs are carved into the sheer rock face in the Fremont river valley.
Fremont Petroglyphs in Fruita, Utah Picture
Fremont Petroglyphs
​Petroglyphs are images that are carved or pecked into a rock surface, whereas pictographs are painted. The Fremont petroglyphs depict a variety of human-like figures, animals, abstract designs and geometric shapes. The human-like figures are ornately decorated.
Fremont Petroglyphs in Fruita, Utah PictureA flock of bighorn sheep are spread across this panel

Picture
These sheep are etched into the dark rock varnish
Fremont Petroglyphs in Fruita, Utah Picture
I spy a sheep, a dog, and a bear
Fremont Petroglyphs in Fruita, Utah Picture
Look closely to see these ones. I spy a rabbit. (upper right)
There are dozens of petroglyphs on these rock panels. Some are easier to see than others, but the more I looked, the more I saw. I could imagine Fremont mothers and fathers playing a game of I Spy with their children as they gazed at the pictures etched in stone that decorated their river valley home.
Bridge in Fruita, Utah Picture
Some have left their own imprint on this bridge over the Fremont River .
Even today many are compelled to leave their own imprints. From a little child's crayon scribble on her bedroom wall, to lovers' initials carved into a tree trunk, to colorful spray-painted graffiti on the side of an inner city building, people through the ages have left their mark. Hopefully these petroglyph panels and other ancient markings will remain unmarred so that visitors can see them and wonder about the people who made them.
Wildflower Picture
"The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him." Lamentations 3:25
The next stop on our tour through Utah would take us to a dusty valley with fantastic rock sculptures that were carved by the mighty hand of One Who uses the forces of nature to leave His mark on His world, so that people can gaze and wonder, and perhaps seek to know Him.
~Debbie

First stop - Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden here.
Second stop - Montezuma's Castle here.
Third stop - Sedona here.
Fourth stop - The Grand Canyon here.
Fifth stop - The Desert Watch Tower here.

Sixth stop - Glen Canyon and Lake Powell here.
Seventh stop - Zion National Park here.
Eighth stop - Between canyons here. 

Ninth stop - Bryce Canyon here.
Tenth stop - Utah's Scenic Byway 12 here.
​Eleventh stop - Ancient Petroglyphs here. 

Twelfth stop - Goblin Valley State Park here. 
0 Comments

Rooms with a View - Montezuma Castle National Monument

10/13/2019

0 Comments

 
This is the second in a series of posts about my visit through parts of Arizona and Utah.

The next day, we left the Sonoran Desert behind and traveled north from Phoenix, towards Sedona, stopping along the way at a National Monument, which gave us a view back to a time long ago.
Life in the Middle Ages was complicated. From 1100 - 1400 AD in the Old World, popes and emperors struggled for power,  crusades and wars were fought, cathedrals and universities were built, and commerce expanded to the Far East. But long before Columbus set foot in the New World, scattered people groups roamed the North American continent and lived relatively simple lives. One such people group settled for a time in the green valley along the Verde River in the area that later became central Arizona. Historians call these native people the Southern Sinagua.
Arizona scenery along Interstate 17 Picture
A scenic view along Interstate 17, north of Phoenix
The Sinagua were mainly farmers, hunters and gatherers. There is evidence that they traded with their neighbors to the north and east, and as far south as Mexico. They built small structures and pueblos on hilltops or in cliff alcoves. Although by 1400, the Southern Sinagua had abandoned their pueblos, some remains of their homes still stand, including an imposing building that early American settlers of the 1860s called Montezuma's Castle.
Montezuma's Castle National Monument Picture
Montezuma's Castle National Monument - click on photo link
This stone and mortar masonry structure looms 100 feet above Beaver Creek in a limestone cliff alcove. It was built five stories high and had multiple rooms that housed many families. Entrance into the dwelling was via portable ladders. Although the castle is deteriorating, it still stands after 700 years, sheltered in the mountain and partially protected from erosion and the effects of time, and the annual flooding of the creek during the summer monsoon season.
Picture
This prehistoric apartment-like dwelling is one of the best-preserved cliff dwellings in North America. It was constructed from native materials beginning around 1125 AD and expanded until the population peaked around 1300 AD. Materials used were readily available - limestone chunks, mud and clay from the creek bed, and beams made from native sycamore trees. There was a larger dwelling nearby in the same cliff, but only its stone foundations are left after its artifacts were excavated. Numerous caves that dot the cliff were also part of the complex.
Picture
Meanwhile in the Old World another grand building was being constructed during the same time frame - The Notre-Dame in Paris. This famous cathedral was built from 1163-1345 AD and stands twice as tall as Montezuma's Castle. It has stood 700 years towering above the Seine River in France. The Notre-Dame was a complex structure for a complex civilization. Montezuma's Castle was a simpler dwelling place for a simpler civilization. And both remain as historic remnants of another age once upon time.

Thanks for stopping by for a look at the view! Next stop - Sedona.
In case you missed the first stop, click here.
​~Debbie
0 Comments

A Morning at Kingsley Plantation

3/20/2019

0 Comments

 
Kingsley Plantation, Florida
Kingsley Plantation Kitchen House with the Main House behind
On a windy March morning during Spring Break, my husband and I decided to drive out to a site that I'd heard about but had never visited - Kingsley Plantation on Fort George Island north of Jacksonville, Florida. Even now, the plantation seems remote and secluded. I can only imagine what it must have been like over 200 years ago. The main house was built just a few years before 1800 and is the oldest surviving plantation house in the state of Florida. Since 1991, it has been part of the National Parks Service. At one time the plantation was 1000 acres; today the park encompasses 60 acres.
Kingsley Plantation, Florida
The rear of the main house faces the Fort George inlet
The plantation was bought by Zephaniah Kingsley in 1814 and eventually grew sea island cotton, citrus, corn, beans, potatoes, and sugarcane. He owned several plantations in the greater Jacksonville area, including Laurel Grove plantation at Doctors Lake, not far from where I live, which he purchased in 1803. Kingsley was a London born slave trader who eventually possessed over 32,000 acres in northeast Florida, including four major plantation properties and 200 slaves. In 1806, he bought a 13 year old slave girl, Anta Majigeen Ndiaye, from West Africa and married her. Renamed Anna Kingsley, she was Zephaniah's capable and trustworthy wife who over the years ran his plantations while he was away on shipping business. 

In 1811, he freed Anna and their three children. They would have one more child together. He and his wife lived in Laurel Grove until 1813, prior to moving to Fort George Island. Some sixty years later in 1877, the town of Orange Park was established on Laurel Grove plantation land, but that's another story. 
Kitchen house of Kingsley Plantation, Florida
Ma'am Anna Kitchen House
The main house is only open for tours on the weekend, but we walked through the kitchen house and peeked in the windows of the house. The kitchen house was probably added during the 1820s and has floors made of tabby, a concrete like building material made by burning oyster shells to create lime, and mixing it with sand, water, ash, and oyster shell fragments. Over time, the roughness of the tabby became smoother as it was walked on. I imagine it would be quite uncomfortable to walk on without shoes! In the above picture, the kitchen house is connected to the main house by a covered walkway. Anna and her children lived on the second floor of the kitchen house.  
Cherokee Rose, Kingsley Plantation, Florida
Cherokee Rose
The Kingsley family lived on Fort George for 25 years. An unusual aspect of the Kingsley household was that it was polygamous. Kingsley had children with three other slave women who were treated as co-wives and later granted their freedom, but Anna was the matriarch of the family. He was proud of his multiracial family and believed that society should be modeled after the Spanish three-tier system of white landowners, slaves, and freed blacks.

There were 60 slaves that worked the plantation on Fort George Island. Besides farming, Kingsley trained his slaves in carpentry, blacksmithing, and cotton ginning. They labored under a task system where each slave had a quota of work to be accomplished. When they finished their tasks, they were free to do as they pleased, usually tending their individual gardens, fishing, and even selling their produce. It seems that Kingsley was a more lenient slave holder than some. Thirty two slave cabins were constructed out of tabby and were arranged in a semicircular arc within view of the main house, an arrangement that was unique among the plantations of that era. Each cabin had two rooms, one with a fireplace, and a sleeping loft. Today, these remains are some of the best examples of the use of tabby as a construction material.
Slave cabins at Kingsley Plantation, Florida
Remains of Slave cabins made of tabby
Picture
Slave cabin remains with tabby walls at Kingsley Plantation
Remains of a fireplace in a slave cabin at Kingsley Plantation, Florida
Remains of a moss covered fireplace in a slave cabin at Kingsley Plantation
Moss macro photography
Closeup of moss on the fireplace
Because of increasingly restrictive racial laws leading up to the Civil War, Zephaniah Kingsley sold his plantation and moved with his family and slaves to Haiti in 1839. The plantation on Fort George Island changed ownership several times until 1955 when the Florida Park Service acquired most of Fort George Island, including the plantation grounds and called it Kingsley Plantation State Historic Site. 
​
Today the plantation grounds are forested where fields and gardens were once cultivated. Ancient oak trees draped in Spanish moss keep watch over the remains of the slave cabins. Scattered wild flowers add to the quiet dignity of the area. They whisper of the people who lived, labored, and loved here long ago.
Oak tree at Kingsley Plantation, Florida
Spanish moss draped ancient oak tree
Wild violet at Kingsley Plantation, Florida
Wild violet
Spiderwort at Kingsley Plantation, Florida
Spiderwort
We enjoyed our visit to Kingsley Plantation and learned more about the people whose influence still lingers here, in the area where we live.

Thanks for stopping by!

​~Debbie
0 Comments
<<Previous
    The Lathered Lamb
    Debbie the Soap maker Enjoying simple pleasures

    Blog Categories

    All
    Beautiful Places
    Face Mask Tutorial
    History
    Soap Making

      If you'd like to receive my blog posts or get first dibs on my latest soaps, sign up below. 
      ​ I promise not to spam you.

    Subscribe to Newsletter

    Handmade Soaps - Free Shipping

    $10.00
    See What's New

    Blog Archives

    January 2021
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    June 2018
    January 2018
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    October 2015
    September 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014

    Enter Store
Proudly powered by Weebly