A farmer volunteer guide at the living history farm.
Farming is the foundation of American history but sadly, farms are quickly disappearing from the daily landscape of the typical American experience. Generations of kids are growing up without a clear understanding of where their food comes from and how it’s produced. The L.W. Paul Living History Farm provides an active example of how small, one-horse family farms operated generations ago.
cotton fields
Located a few miles outside of Myrtle Beach in Horry County, SC, the L.W. Paul Living History Museum offers opportunities to witness and participate in centuries -old farm activities like cotton picking, grinding sugarcane and grits and syrup making. A popular weekend excursion, crowds of families were strolling the 17 acre farm when I visited.
Each season brings new activities so I observed fall activities like meat curing and grinding grits. The grits mill was a community machine that farmers would use together and give some of their corn as payment. Another area featured clothes dying, where women used plants to make dyes. Black walnut was used for brown, madderoot for red and acorn for a yellow shade. Mules plowed fields and tobacco was hung up in small shacks to dry.
The L.W. Paul Living History Museum showcases such an authentic farming experience that it was featured in the movies “Cold Mountain” and “The Patriot”. Admission is free and hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 9-4PM. For a little more elegant relaxation after so rustic an experience, head to Tilghman Beach & Golf Resort and enjoy panoramic views of the beach in two or three bedroom luxury condos.
Photos courtesy of Rosalind Cummings-Yeates