Edgefield County Historical Society to host fall meeting

EDGEFIELD, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - The Edgefield County Historical Society will host its fall meeting on Oct. 23.

At the event, which will be open to the public, the society will discuss Mark Catesby, an 18th century naturalist who visited South Carolina and Edgefield in 1722 and 1723.

The speaker for this occasion will be Dr. J. Drew Lanham, an Edgefield County native who serves as the Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology at Clemson University and as Poet Laureate of Edgefield.

Lanham is also a recent recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellows Grant Award.

Catesby is of particular interest to Edgefield County because he visited here in 1723 after he trekked from Charles Town up to Fort Moore, on the Savannah River near present-day Beech Island.

In the ensuing decades, he became perhaps the best-known naturalists of the 18th century.

The fall meeting will be held at the Joanne T. Rainsford Discovery Center on Main Street in Edgefield at 3 p.m.