Explorers walk on Lake Marion
By Warner M.Montgomery warner@thecolumbiastar.com

Members of the Explorers Club expedition to Lake Marion pictured above are (kneeling, l-r) Warner Montgomery, Sandra Matthews (Santee Cooper), Susan Welch (Santee Cooper), name unknown (Santee Cooper), Dehn Ganey (Santee Cooper), (standing) Barry O'Reilly, Cato Holler, Ginny Newell, Bob Wilkins, Jim Welch, Jon Leader,Nena Powell Rice, Janet Ciegler, Peggy O'Neal, Ann Jennings,Marcy Walsh, Carroll Furman, Norman Walsh, Keith Gourdin, and John Cely. Not pictured are George Bell and Stephanie Burke.

The Santee Cooper lakes, Marion and Moultrie, are at their lowest level since constructed in 1939. Homes, graves, and even a town have recently emerged from the depths. Last Saturday, February 4, members of the Greater Piedmont Chapter of The Explorers Club ventured onto the dry lake bed of Lake Marion with a team from Santee Cooper.

The explorers visited Belvidere Plantation, established in 1770 by the Sinkler family and flooded in 1939. The last Sinkler, Gen. Charles St. George Sinkler, died in the home in 1934. His heirs, Mrs. W. Kershaw Fishburne and Mrs. Dunbar Lockwood, lost the property to Santee Cooper. The slave graveyard and the old home site were visible.

The expedition also included the Lost Town of Ferguson which was founded by B.F. Ferguson and Francis Beidler as a saw mill town on the Santee River in 1890. A town developed around the mill. Mr. Ferguson died in 1915 and the mill closed in 1920. Remains of the mill, the hospital, the warehouse, homes, and the dock were visible.