A phrase that I have heard many a time since moving to Newberry a little over two months ago, to start as the new director of the Newberry Museum, is “all roads lead to Newberry.”
At first, I chuckled and thought this was just a quirky local mannerism. But now, having lived here for two months and delved into local histories, I have found that it is an apt description of not just the county’s history, but my own personal connections to it.
I was born in Western North Carolina, where my father’s family roamed the mountains of Madison and Buncombe County, N.C. for over two centuries. A fair portion of my mother’s side of the family; however, are South Carolinians, from where else but Newberry County. I have vague memories as a child of passing through Newberry, but never really delved into my family connections until I moved here. Turns out, my ancestors were the Folks of Pomaria with some Huttos and Bebanbaughs thrown in for good measure. One Newberry ancestor who I grew up hearing about was Levi Folk. In the museum, there is a display in the military exhibit dedicated to Levi. He was a soldier during the Spanish-American War of 1898, and he volunteered to take part in experiments looking into the causes of the yellow fever and malaria epidemics sweeping through the ranks in Cuba. Levi was awarded a Congressional Medal for his bravery. I grew up on stories about him, but for some reason it never clicked that he was a Newberrian. Imagine my surprise when I was walking through the gallery soon after starting and I find him in the very museum where I am now employed.
On top of those family connections, it seems that my path through life guided me here. Prior to taking on my current position at the museum, I was working on my Ph.D in early U.S. history at Mississippi State University. MSU is located in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi. It turns out that Oktibbeha, and its neighboring counties of Noxubee, Winston, Lowndes and Clay, were originally settled by people from Newberry County. The names that can be found all over Newberry County: Kinard, Hutto, Sloan, and many others; can also be found in the same part of Mississippi I so recently left. It even turns out that through the Hutto branch of the family, I may have inadvertently met some of my kin down in Mississippi. On a recent visit to some friends in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, we discovered that one friend’s ancestors lived and are buried in Prosperity. In returning from that trip, I passed through the little community of Beth Eden in Winston County, Mississippi, dominated by its old Lutheran church. According to folks down there, the community was settled by people from the community of Beth Eden here in Newberry County.
All of this just goes to show that for me at least, all roads do indeed lead to Newberry.