This book, published by Arcadia Publishing in late 2021 in celebration of Boone’s 150th anniversary in 2022, explores the historical evolution of Boone from the 1870s to the present using selected images from Digital Watauga’s extensive collections. Named for the frontiersman Daniel Boone, the Town of Boone was first laid out in 1850 and officially incorporated in 1872. Nestled in an Appalachian stream valley, the Town of Boone was initially little more than a sleepy, ramshackle county seat, prompting one 1888 visitor to describe it as “a God-forsaken place.” In 1899, the founding of the Watauga Academy (today’s Appalachian State University) began a long history of synergy and occasional friction between town and gown. The 1918 arrival of the Linville River Railway launched the “Watch Boone Grow” campaign, turning Boone into a thriving commercial center. After World War II, improved roadways, cheap automobiles, and the nearby Blue Ridge Parkway made Boone a mountain tourism hub. The confluence of these forces—higher education, mountain tourism, and a commercial economy—has sometimes threatened Boone’s identity, but Boone’s reputation as an idyllic escape nevertheless endures.

All royalties and other net revenues received by Dr. Plaag from the sale of this book are directed entirely to the support of the Digital Watauga Project. This book can be purchased HERE.

Founded in 1786 and originally known as the Black Swamp Baptist Church, this congregation was a stalwart member of the Savannah River Baptist Association for the better part of two centuries. Little is known of its first two church buildings, but its third edifice, erected in 1825, presented an imposing appearance in keeping with the church's significance. By some estimates, the church at its antebellum pinnacle of influence produced as many as 50 white and 100 black ministers. When General Sherman's army passed through Robertville, South Carolina, in January 1865, however, they burned the church and the rest of the village to the ground.

Black Swamp's congregation endured, re-erecting the present church building, which was purchased from nearby Gillisonville, on the same site. Despite some lean years in the early twentieth century, the congregation, today known as the Robertville Baptist Church, remains active as an integral part of the Jasper and Hampton County communities. In this comprehensive history, regional historian Eric Plaag explores the church's past, weaving an engaging tale of survival, perseverance, faith, and rebirth. (Charley House Press, October 2021)

This report, completed in 2020, provides a detailed analysis of 131 pre-1980 buildings in downtown Boone, North Carolina, and the factors that shaped the development of downtown Boone. Organized around historic contexts, the report divides the period from colonial settlement to 1964 into a series of developmental stages that tell the story of how Boone’s downtown core changed over time. The architectural survey focuses on Boone’s extant resources, while also contextualizing them to downtown Boone’s architectural history. This survey report was completed in contemplation of a Local Historic District, which is pending designation by the Town of Boone as of 2021.

Beyond its context narrative, the report also contains detailed entries on each of the examined resources, including accounts of the resource’s construction, its tenancies (where known), and both past and present architectural configurations.

Ultimately, the purpose of this report is to provide the Town of Boone and its Historic Preservation Commission with a well-researched history of its individual buildings in downtown Boone and the contexts that connect those buildings to one another. This study should be used as a long-term planning resource for understanding and interpreting the Town of Boone’s history, revising and enforcing its community appearance standards, UDO, and other planning documents, and establishing strategies and protocols for preservation of its significant architectural resources in the downtown area.

Located in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, the Robert O. Colt III House has a number of legends, myths, and other lore attached to it. Some stories suggested that a son or nephew of Samuel Colt, famous as the “inventor” of the Colt revolver, was the builder of the house. Other stories referenced a possible tragic death in the house. Beyond this, there were stories that the Colt family had had conflicts with Moses H. Cone during their early days at Blowing Rock. In addition, there was uncertainty about the date of construction, with possible dates ranging from 1913 to 1918.

In December 2018, in anticipation of applying for an historical plaque from the Blowing Rock Historical Society, Drs. Peter and Valerie Purcell, the current owners, engaged Carolina Historical Consulting, LLC, to prepare a concise history of the property, the family’s history at Blowing Rock, and its connections to the Samuel Colt family. By pure coincidence, completion of this report coincides with the 100^th anniversary of the construction of the house.

On January 12, 2017, President Barack Obama authorized the establishment of a National Monument to the Reconstruction Era at four sites in Beaufort County—the Brick Baptist Church on St. Helena Island, Darrah Hall on the nearby Penn Center campus on St. Helena, a former firehouse on Craven Street in Downtown Beaufort, and the former site of Camp Saxton on the Beaufort Naval Hospital parcel in Port Royal. Because the designation does not include specific plans for how the sites are to be used, questions about the location of interpretive infrastructure and facilities for the new monument remain open. This report makes the case for Port Royal, SC, as the headquarters for an interpretive center for the new national monument. It was prepared on behalf of the Historic Port Royal Foundation and in consultation with the Town of Port Royal.

One of the last intact agricultural parcels in Whitemarsh and Springfield Townships (Montgomery County), Pennsylvania, Erdenheim Farm was at the center of the horse racing world from the 1860s until the late 20th century. With parcels owned at various times by such noteworthy Philadelphia figures as Atherton Blight, Dr. James A. McCrea, William A. Coulston, the Lukens family, John Faber Miller, Aristides Welch, Norman W. Kittson, Robert N. Carson, George D. Widener, Jr., and Fitz Eugene Dixon, Erdenheim has accumulated a rich and fascinating historical pedigree. The property also has a number of myths attached to it, including the longstanding rumor that Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert Kennedy, worked at the farm shortly before the assassination, and the old saw that Lafayette once slept there. In his history of Erdenheim, Eric Plaag separates the facts from the multitude of fictions, revealing the complex and intriguing history behind this important agricultural center straddling the gorgeous and popular Wissahickon Creek.

This history, which includes original photography by Eric Plaag, was privately published by the University of South Carolina in 2012 and is available for review at numerous archives and research libraries throughout the United States, including the Keeneland Library, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Free Library of Philadelphia. The University of South Carolina Press will issue a reprint in October 2015.

In July 2010, the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program (ABPP) announced that the South Carolina Research Foundation (through the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology) had been awarded a substantial grant to research, identify, locate, and provide baseline data on the current status of multiple battlefields, skirmish sites, camps, and citizen resources associated with Sherman’s March across South Carolina between January and March 1865. As a result of this work, more than 360 sites associated with the various routes of Sherman’s participating corps were mapped, documented, and contextualized. In addition to this important research and mapping work in the field, Eric authored the historic context narrative for this project, which was completed in Fall 2013.

For more than a decade, various historians and writers have been at work on a comprehensive history of the South Carolina National Guard (SCARNG). As part of a mitigation measure related to several SCARNG armory facilities located throughout South Carolina, the South Carolina State Historic Preservation Office, SCARNG, and the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology (SCIAA) agreed to revise the existing, unfinished SCARNG history and add several chapters to bring this history forward through Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Eric was hired by SCIAA to complete both the revision of the existing chapters and authorship of the additional chapters. The project was completed in Fall 2013.

Under a grant through the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of South Carolina in 2009, Eric served as the project historian and completed a settlement history of the land now occupied by the US Army and National Guard installation at Fort Jackson, located just to the east of Columbia, South Carolina. Originally established in 1917 as a World War I cantonment called Camp Jackson, the military installation sits on land that was once occupied by various rural farming communities, schools, churches, and plantations, including lands previously owned by the Wade Hampton family. The purpose of the settlement history project was to document the use of this land and its immediate surrounding area prior to the various transfers of these parcels to the federal government.

Eric worked with the Organization of American Historians and the National Park Service to write the administrative history of Fort Frederica National Monument, a National Park Service unit on Saint Simons Island, Georgia, that is dedicated to the archaeological and historical interpretation of the settlements at Fort Frederica as well as two key 1742 battles between British and Spanish colonial forces. Located squarely within the “debatable lands” of colonial Georgia, Fort Frederica was both a military installation and a thriving colonial town. The Battle of Bloody Marsh, fought a few miles south of the fort, marked the final attempt by the Spanish to drive the British out of Georgia. British victory at Bloody Marsh secured the crown’s control of the Georgia coast once and for all.

The administrative history project was designed to document community efforts to preserve the history at Fort Frederica, leading eventually to the establishment of the National Monument in 1945, as well as the National Park Service’s efforts to interpret, preserve, and educate the public about the extensive historical and archaeological resources at Fort Frederica.