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.

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.

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.

​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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.  

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.

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.

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

Recently I updated the About section of my Facebook page, so this is a good time to include some of that info here.

My name is Debbie Lamb and I make soap. This is my story.

There was a time when I didn’t even know there was such a thing as handmade soap anymore. I thought the days of soap making from scratch was confined to that period of time when early settlers of the United States had to make do with what they had, or when hardy pioneers forged paths across the country in search of a new piece of land to call home. Who made soap from scratch in these modern times?

For the pioneers, making soap was a hot, exhausting process involving wood ashes from their cooking fires and animal fats from their livestock or leftover cooking grease. It was an imprecise process at best but did result in a functional soft soap that was good for cleaning clothes but rather harsh for cleaning skin. Today soap making is both an art and a science. Ready made lye is available in convenient pellet or flake form. Vegetable oils, animal fats like lard and tallow, and exotic butters like shea and cocoa are easy to find. A myriad of formulas can be formulated with online soap calculators to ensure the bar isn't harsh from too much lye. Micas, oxides, clays, and other colorants are used to add beauty to each bar, and an ever growing library of techniques is evidence of just how artistic soap making can be. 

Time seems to have stood still along the back roads of Dorchester County on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Quiet and undisturbed, in many ways almost untouched by the hustle and bustle so common on the Western Shore, the rhythm of life continues here much the same as it did over 150 years ago when young Harriet Tubman toiled in the marshes, woods, and fields of her birthplace and dreamed of freedom.

On a drizzly spring day in April, I had an opportunity to join a small group of women and take a driving tour along part of the Harriet Tubman Byway. Although I had read about Harriet Tubman while homeschooling my children, I learned more about this courageous woman who experienced freedom for herself and for many others by holding steady on to the Lord, Who did indeed see her through.

Harriet Tubman was born a slave around 1820 near Bucktown, Maryland. Her parents named her Araminta, and she was called "Minty." Minty was one of nine children born to Rit Green and Ben Ross. She "grew up like a neglected weed - ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it." Hired out at the tender of age of 5, Minty was separated from her mother time and time again, forced to work under cruel conditions until her health broke, then returned to her mother who would nurse Minty back to health. ​But in her weakness, she found strength.

​By age 12 she toiled in the fields, and later she chopped timber destined for the shipyards of Baltimore with her father, who taught her much about navigating the waterways and landscape of the Eastern Shore. Although Harriet was only five feet tall, she was physically strong and could work as hard and steady as a man. Throughout her life, she worked and saved money, which enabled her to help others. And as her physical strength grew, so did her spiritual faith. “..and I prayed to God to make me strong and able to fight, and that’s what I’ve always prayed for ever since.”

At some point during this time, a serious injury occurred in a local store, which had a profound and life long effect on Harriet. She was hit in the head with a heavy iron weight thrown by an irate overseer who was trying to stop a fugitive slave who had run into the store. The overseer insisted that Harriet help, but she refused. The overseer threw the weight, which struck her in the head. Severely injured, the weight broke her skull. Although Harriet recovered in time, the effects of the injury caused her a lifetime of severe headaches, periodic fits of unconsciousness, and vivid dreams. Despite this debilitating weakness, her faith deepened  as she found comfort and strength in God.

The Bucktown Village Store is located at a crossroads on the Harriet Tubman Byway at the edge of the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, a protected 28,000 acre tidal wetland area. The 19th century old store was closed when we arrived, but we lingered for a while, peeked through the windows, and enjoyed the charming scenery of green fields, ancient oak trees, and the peaceful view of a quiet pond.

​In 1844, Minty married John Tubman, a free man. Whether he was a former slave is not known. At that time, over half the population of African Americans on the Eastern Shore were free, including Harriet's father who was released from slavery but continued to work for his former owner. As the threat of being sold further south increased, Harriet's resolve to be free strengthened. She changed her name from Minty Ross to Harriet Tubman, and in 1849 made her escape. Traveling at night with the North Star as her guide, she was aided by Quakers and other anti-slavery sympathizers along the Underground Railroad, which was a loose network of people who helped fugitive slaves by providing food, transportation, and shelter as they traveled secret routes to the northern free states. Eventually Harriet reached Philadelphia where she found work, saved money, and planned to bring the rest of her family north to freedom.

​Also located within the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, not many miles from the Bucktown Village Store, is the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center. The center opened in March 2017, just a few weeks before that drizzly day I visited in April. Exhibits throughout the center highlight the life of Harriet Tubman. The architecture of the four part building evokes the journey she and other fugitive slaves took as they journeyed from the darkness of slavery in the South to the light of freedom in the North.

Inside the entrance of the Visitor Center, a life size bronze bust of Harriet Tubman sits atop a unique pedestal carved from the wood of a 460 year old white oak tree and wood from a cedar tree, which represent her life in the state of Maryland, particularly in the woods and fields of Dorchester County. I was struck by how small in stature Harriet was, especially in light of the undaunted courage she displayed throughout her lifetime.

By the end of the year in 1849, Harriet was free, but her freedom was incomplete. She was lonesome for her family. She longed to bring her loved ones to freedom and during the next decade, Harriet successfully returned multiple times to the Eastern Shore liberating over 70 people, including her parents and other family members. Through her instructions, dozens of other fugitives made their way successfully to freedom, as well. Her knowledge of the waterways and landscape of the Eastern Shore contributed to her success. Near the end of her life she said, “I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say — I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.” 

The freedom of African Americans in the northern states became more precarious after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, so the Underground Railroad route was extended into Canada. Harriet and her family settled in St. Catharines, Ontario for a while, but eventually moved to Auburn, New York where Harriet bought 7 acres of land. But her quest to liberate the enslaved continued as the United States fractured into Civil War.

In 1861 Harriet Tubman served the Union Army in many ways. She supported a Massachusetts troop in Virginia as a cook, nurse, and laundress. Because I am a soap maker, I find it highly probable that Harriet, when she worked as a laundress, knew the labor intensive soap making process used during that time period and made soap. In 1862 Harriet worked as a nurse in a freedman's hospital in South Carolina. In 1863 she was the commander of a group of espionage scouts and reported directly to the generals in charge. More than 750 slaves were liberated in the Combahee River Raid when Harriet led a troop of black Union soldiers on a surprise raid of several rice plantations near the river. Many of these freed slaves joined the Union Army. This astonishing woman was the first woman in the United States to lead a successful military operation.

Harriet Tubman continued to serve the Union Army and returned to her home in Auburn, New York after the war ended. She later remarried, actively supported the women's suffrage movement, and built a home for the elderly on property she had acquired near her home.

Another stop on the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway is the Harriet Tubman Museum in Cambridge, Maryland. Located in a quaint storefront, this community organization is run by volunteers dedicated to preserving the memory of Harriet Tubman. It was our last stop that day before we headed back to the Western Shore.

​Although she was once a fugitive slave, today the legacy of Harriet Tubman is celebrated and preserved in Dorchester County. Her legacy will be honored further when her portrait graces the redesigned United States twenty dollar bill.

After Harriet's initial escape from slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in 1849, a reward was offered for her return. And she did return, again and again leading others to freedom. She did so without any financial reward. She knew her reward would come from holding steady on to God. ​

I was inspired by this extraordinary woman who overcame many daunting circumstances by holding steady on to the One who gave her true freedom. If you enjoyed this short biography of Harriet Tubman, please leave me a comment below. Oh, and click on the photos and highlighted links for more info about them. Thanks for stopping by! ​

​~Debbie