Polly Huff, curator at the Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Georgia Museum of Agriculture and Historic Village, will speak on the Turnwold Plantation Buggy on Dec. 9 at 3 p.m.  in Atlanta at the 60th anniversary of Joel Chandler Harris Day in Georgia.

The celebration will be held at The Wren’s Nest, Atlanta’s oldest house museum and the former home of Harris, who enthralled children of all ages with his tales of Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit.  The date also marks the 170th year since Harris was born.

Huff will host Conservation Conversations as a part of the event which begins at noon and runs until 7 p.m. She will be stationed beside the Turnwold Buggy, which was donated to ABAC’s Georgia Museum of Agriculture earlier this year.

Accompanying Huff to Atlanta will be students from Dr. Charlotte Klesman's Communications 3100 class at ABAC.  This class is one of three classes that worked with Huff on a semester-long project centered around the Turnwold Buggy.  Klesman and students from the class will attend the event at the Wren's Nest as a conclusion to their project.
 
Harris was hired in March 1862 as an apprentice on the 1,000-acre Turnwold Plantation near Eatonton.  As a part of his duties, Harris had full access to Turnwold’s slave quarters and to the kitchen, where he listened to African-American animal stories related by Uncle George Terrell, Old Harbert, and Aunt Crissy.  They told stories about Brer Rabbit and other creatures.

When he began writing 10 years later, Harris used these animals as models for Uncle Remus, Aunt Tempy, and other figures.  Harris’ fictionalized autobiography, “On the Plantation,” chronicles the influence of the Turnwold years on his development.

While Harris was at Turnwold, the buggy, which has undergone a complete refurbishing, was undoubtedly used on many occasions. However, it was hidden away when General William T. Sherman’s troops ransacked Turnwold in 1864 during the Civil War.

Eventually disassembled, the buggy was found in one of the farm buildings at Turnwold years later by the late Fred Herring, who was contracted to take down a barn. The late Lonnie Cooper of Colquitt County purchased the buggy from Herring more than 20 years ago and put it back together.

“In 2018, Lonnie’s family decided to donate the buggy to the Museum to get it restored and placed on display,” Huff said.  “The Cooper family made the donation in honor of Fred and Lonnie-the two men responsible for salvaging the buggy. The buggy is believed to have been originally made in Barnesville, Georgia.”

After an extensive restoration process, the Georgia Museum of Agriculture unveiled the historic buggy in an exhibit on Nov. 3.  And now the buggy is going to The Wren’s Next for Joel Chandler Harris Day.  It will then return to the Museum in Tifton.

The Joel Chandler Harris Day Celebration will also include a meet and greet with Santa, storytelling with Gwendolyn Napier on Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby, a storytelling performance of “Three Not-So-Ordinary Joes” by Julie Hedgepeth Williams, a Jazz Matters Concert, and The Christmas Carol Experience by Brian Clowdus Productions.