Traveling with others has taught me that all of us see new places through a particular frame or perspective.  It might be the architecture of the area, the plant life, the shopping opportunities, or even whether or not there’s an available Taco Bell, but all of us have some criterion by which we judge an area.

For me there’s no doubt it’s the story of a place that I’m interested in.  When I’m driving somewhere new, I look around and want to know what life was like there 100 years ago or back when Europeans first arrived or even further back, before the Europeans showed up.

That curiosity about the story of a place is the reason I prefer rural areas.  Driving down a country road, uncluttered by strip malls or subdivisions, it’s easy to imagine the same road as it might have been 100 years earlier.  Duplin County has long stretches of such roads going along the coastal plain where you feel you can almost hear the spirits of those who’ve gone before.  Even if you are deaf to those spirits of the past, you can see plenty of evidence of them in the private family cemeteries that dot the roadside and the road signs that flash by with names like Arthur Boney, Lum Williams, Myrtle Sholar, and Joe Hop Williams.

My destination in Duplin County was the historic home of the Kenan family in Kenansville, Liberty Hall.  My tour there was mildly interesting but it was the getting there that I’ll remember best.

County #4 – Duplin – May 23, 2012