Dear Polly,
Do us all a favor and don’t write about history crap any more.  Boring.
Snoozing,
Donald, Branson, Missouri

Dear Sleepin’ Donny-O.

Okey-Dokey.  No more history writing….  Tonight… I will talk about  Time Travel.  So let’s go time traveling back to the late 1600s.  This is sort of like Science Fiction Don.  Only it really happened.  But not historically speaking.  Just call it “Yester-Year-ish.”

And here is how it goes…..

Some places prove to be quite interesting… at every corner you turn.  I think that is one reason I like to kick around the streets of downtown Charleston every now and again.

Every street has its own special charm, and of course, history.  Tradd Street is filled with great stories.  There is a very cool house at 19 Tradd Street.

A whole kaboodle of the houses down here have names.  The one at 19 Tradd Street is called the John McCall House.  I like to call it the Quaker Lady House.

You see…. this little town of Charleston was first settled in 1670.  Tradd was one of the earliest streets… along with East Bay, Broad, King, Meeting and Church Streets.  In the Hood.

But now…. let’s head on back to 19 Tradd.  Probably the  the first home owner for this property was a woman named Mary Fisher Bayley Crosse.

She was a Quaker Minister whose travels took her to many places, which included Turkey and New England during the 1600s.  I can hardly imagine….

Old Mary Crosse finally settled in Charleston.

She is one of a group of such preachers who are called the Valiant Sixty. She, and another friend, Anne Austin were “called by God” to preach.  Because of this… they were humiliated, beaten, and imprisoned on more than one occasion for promoting Quaker beliefs.  They were even stripped to the waist and flogged.

Their books were burned, their clothes were removed, and they were searched for signs of witchcraft. Then… of to the old slammer, the gallows, the dungeon…. yep, they were imprisoned. They were fed only because a compassionate townsman, Nicholas Upsall, bribed the jailer.   I’m guessing bread and water.

She died here in 1698 and is buried at the Quaker Burial Ground here.   Yes.  That was a long dang time ago.

Now…. isn’t that just pretty whack-a-doodle-do?

And that is just one story, from one little slice in time, from a single house, on just one particular street.  Amidst many.

What a world.  What a world.

So thanks for time traveling with me.  And thanks for being on time….

And….. I’m outa’ here now.  History.