Connemara [1]
Connemara
Connemara [2], located in Flat Rock, [3] was the last home of famed poet and historian Carl Sandburg [4]. Christopher Gustavus Memminger [5] of Charleston, S.C., former Confederate [6] secretary of the treasury, built the property as a summer house in 1838. Memminger called the property Rock Hill, but a later owner, Capt. Ellison Smythe [7], renamed it Connemara. Sandburg bought the property in 1945, seeking peace and solitude for his writing as well as a place for his wife Lilian to raise champion dairy goats. He wrote almost one-third of his works during his 22 years at Connemara. On 17 Oct. 1968, Congress established Connemara as the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site [2] to be administered by the National Park Service [8]. The historic site consists of the antebellum house, a dairy goat barn complex and a representative goat herd, sheds, rolling pastures, mountainside woods, walking/hiking trails, two small lakes, ponds, flower and vegetable gardens, and an orchard.
Additional Resources:
Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site: https://www.nps.gov/carl/index.htm [2]
Carl Sandburg Tributes, UNC Libraries: http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/s/Sandburg,Carl.html [9]
Our State, UNC-TV Carl Sandburg: http://www.unctv.org/ourstate/episode208/index.html#sandburg [10]
Learn NC: http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/8636 [11]
1 January 2006 | Williford, Jo Ann