A Low Country Diary

Bessie M. Lewis was the historian of McIntosh County, Georgia, for over fifty years. As a published author, newspaper editor and educator, she was the first to introduce academic rigor into local research starting in the 1920s. Lewis's primary focus was the early settlement of Darien and the county during the colonial period. Her important research on colonial Fort King George at Darien brought that long-lost outpost into the public awareness for the first time, and ultimately led to it becoming one of the leading state historic interpretive sites in Georgia. For nearly two decades prior to her death in 1983 at the age of 94, Miss Lewis contributed a weekly column to the Darien News, "Low Country Diary," containing anecdotes and stories of local history and culture while also conveying her abiding love of animals, both wild and domestic. In this collection, Miss Lewis's protégé, coastal Georgia historian Buddy Sullivan, has assembled and edited the best of her "Low Country Diary" columns as an interpretation of McIntosh County history through the thoughts and diligent research of Miss Lewis. Sullivan was inspired by the work of Bessie Lewis going back to his early childhood growing up in McIntosh County. In the early 1990s, he succeeded his late mentor as the official local historian with his own published work, the comprehensive "Early Days on the Georgia Tidewater," a volume recently revised and expanded by the author in a new 1,000-page 2016 edition. In the present collection, Sullivan has come full circle in his career as a historian in sharing the popular and entertaining writings of Bessie Lewis with a new generation of readers. Interspersed throughout with the editor's own notes and commentary on the writings of Miss Lewis, "A Low Country Diary" will likely become a valuable addition to the literature of the Georgia coast, and will serve as a useful supplement to "Early Days on the Georgia Tidewater" for those delving into the history of Darien, McIntosh County and the Georgia coastal country.