Planned Local Event #2 -- Segway Tours

Segway Tours

Tuesday, May 12th 11:00a or 2:00p
Cost: $35 per person per tour

You’ve seen them on TV and watched police and city commuters ride them, now experience the fun and ease of riding a Segway (a self-balancing personal transporter), for yourself. After adequate training and practice time, we’ll glide around downtown Raleigh, listening to our tour guide tell stories about the various historic homes and government buildings we pass. Participants must be at least 18 years old, less than 260 lbs. and have the ability to stand for at least an hour. Helmet and bottled water are provided. We’ll depart from the conference center 45 min. before each tour begins and walk a few blocks to Triangle Segway for our training time. After the tour, we’ll walk the few blocks back to the conference center.

Meet our New Convention Center! Part II

Here are some photos from opening day showing the large convention center exhibit hall! Future posts will show off other areas of this wonderful new facility!

Come and visit it personally in May 2009!

Meet our New Convention Center!

Several of the local planning committee visited the New Convention Center (home of NGS 2009) on it's opening day! Here are some photos from that day showing the main entrance area/lobby! Future posts will show off other areas of this wonderful new facility!

Come and visit it personally in May 2009!

Planned Local Event #1 -- Raleigh Trolley Tours

Now that the details of our exciting "local events" have been finalized -- it's time for us to share them with you! Let's start with the tours aboard Raleigh's historic Trolley!

Raleigh Historic Day Tour

Tuesday, May 12th
9:30a-3:30p
Cost: $45 per person (lunch on own)

You’ll leave the convention center aboard a historic trolley and have a guided tour of several downtown Raleigh sites.

• Joel Lane House with its authentic 18th century garden, is the oldest dwelling in Raleigh.


• Mordecai Historic Park includes the Mordecai House, President Andrew Johnson’s birthplace, St. Mark’s Chapel, and other historic buildings and gardens.


• Lunch on your own in Raleigh’s Historic City Market


• Historic Oakwood Cemetery, the final resting place of 2,800 Confederate Soldiers, five Civil War generals, seven governors and many others. A cemetery historian will share colorful stories about their lives.

Raleigh Evening Orientation Tours
Tuesday, May 12th
4:00p-5:15p, 5:20p-6:35p or 6:40p-7:55p
Cost: $15 per person per tour

Ride the historic trolley and learn your way around downtown Raleigh. Discover how conveniently close you are to the State Archives, restaurants, shops, museums and art galleries. A tour guide will point out landmarks and tell colorful stories about historic downtown. Each tour lasts approx. 1 hour 15 min. Includes choice of sitting or standing. Drop off and pick up at conference center only.

Caswell County Historical Association

The Caswell County Historical Association (CCHA) promotes the study of local history and genealogy, collects and interprets local artifacts, preserves local historical structures, provides information about Caswell County online, and assists Caswell County with heritage tourism projects.

The main CCHA website contains hundreds of articles on various aspects of Caswell County's history and the genealogy of its people. In addition to its main website, the CCHA operates a lively Message Board (350 subscribers), has created an online Family Tree (34,000 entries), offers an online Photograph Collection (15,000 images), has partnered with Cemetery Census to share online information about Caswell County cemeteries, and operates a Weblog.

The CCHA Website received the 2008 North Carolina Genealogical Society Award for Excellence in Web Presence (for a freely accessible website promoting North Carolina genealogy).

CCHA members receive as benefits the Lives and Times quarterly newsletter, a Members-Only Area at the Main Website, and free access to the Richmond-Miles History Museum, which the CCHA owns and operates and is located in the historic Graves-Florance-Gatewood House. A major attraction at the Richmond-Miles History Museum is the Maud Gatewood Exhibit.

Not only was this famous North Carolina artist born in Yanceyville, she was born in the house that now serves as the Museum. Gatewood was arguably the most important living North Carolina painter and considered by art historians, curators, museum directors and collectors as one of the most important painters in North Carolina history. This photograph shows part of the Maud Gatewood Exhibit, including the last canvas on which she worked.

The CCHA, in partnership with the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, established the Caswell County Historical Association Collection. The materials are housed at the Wilson Library in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This allows the CCHA to share more broadly its collection of historical materials, provides them a safe repository, and eventually will make much of the collection available online, which should greatly assist those conducting Caswell County research. The centerpiece of the collection is the 1840s Tobacco and Slave Ledger the CCHA recently obtained and restored.

The CCHA has published several books over the years, including:

• When the Past Refused to Die: A History of Caswell County North Carolina 1777-1977, William S. Powell (1977).


• An Inventory of Historic Architecture: Caswell County, North Carolina, Ruth Little-Stokes (1979)


• The Heritage of Caswell County, North Carolina, Jeannine D. Whitlow, Editor (1985)

And the CCHA is currently working on a photographic history of Caswell County to be published by mid 2009.

CCHA President Karen Oestreicher can be reached at: karen@ncccha.org