Thyatira

"They call the wind 'Thyatira'". At least that was what kept bouncing around old B'rer's brain every time he saw the name.

B'rer and the Missus were out in the hinterlands once again and spotted a sign:

Now we've all used the term 'frontier', but seldom does it sink in just what that means and where it was at various points in history. In basic, generalistic terms it refers to the outer limit of "civilized" settlements. The Frontier differs from the boundaries of a State or Territory in that it is generally not under the jurisdiction of a formal government. That is, it is more the "wilds". As (cough) Civilization moves in and takes hold, and formal government is enacted, what the Frontier (it was originally the Front Tier, but that is a much longer and convoluted matter!) is pushed out. So it was that what was deemed "The Frontier" in the United States varied over the decades and centuries. In Colonial times places like Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, most of Georgia, and other 'eastern' lands were The Frontier. As these lands were populated, the States grew and the Frontier was pushed westward.

In 1796 the land where this church sits were barely out of the official Frontier stage. In fact, this area had only been an official part of the State of Georgia a mere 10 years. And we are talking about a church that was established only 13 years after the end of the American Revolution. You are not getting much older unless you start looking at any Native Tribes who previously occupied the area. Raids and attacks were not exactly over at this point! Let's just say that the locals were not always welcoming of the newcomers.

So seeing anything away from the original Parishes (Didn't know that Georgia started with Parishes and changed to Counties later? Well you learned a thing!) dating from that period makes the old ears perk up! There weren't a lot of them to begin with and few survive to this day. They are all worthy of exploration.

Mrs. B'rer got a good laugh when B'rer tried pronouncing the name. It was not one he had heard of before let alone tried speaking aloud. Apparently it is Thy-a-teerah. 

Go figure.

Sadly, everything from the early days was either a field stone or was a wooden marker long disintegrated. More permanent markers tended to date from the late 1800s on.

Mrs. B'rer asked across the cemetery what the USS Akron was. My ears perked up.

This is footage of the airship the year before it crashed at sea and was lost taking 73 of the 76 member crew with it.

Almost everyone knows of the Hindenberg Disaster, largely because of the dramatic film of the event. Both ships were Zeppelins/Dirigibles  (A Zeppelin or Dirigible differs from a Blimp by having a rigid frame. You can see the frame of the Hindenburg in the crash film and that of the Akron in photos in the Wiki link above).

Turns out that one of the crew from the airship has a marker in the cemetery. This is almost certainly a cenotaph as I am relatively certain that few of the victim's remains were recovered.

Why all this interest? The Akron was a greater disaster in terms of loss of life than the Hindenburg. Indeed, it had greater than DOUBLE the fatalities (73) of the Hindenburg (35). It remains (and unless some twist of fate resurrects the use of rigid frame airships will forever be) the greatest airship disaster in history.

Think of the Akron as the airship equivalent to the Sultana. Never heard of the Sultana? Bet you have heard of the Titanic, though. Numbers vary, but in most respects the Sultana surpasses the Titanic as a worse (the worse?) maritime disaster. It was a riverboat with a capacity of 461 passengers and crew. It had 2,137 people on board when its boiler exploded and it sank. Depending on whose numbers you believe, it had more fatalities than the Titanic. To have been carrying the same level of excess passengers as the Sultana the Titanic would have had to had a over 16,100 people on board instead of the 2,208 it actually had!

Look at all the learning you are getting today!

If you are curious, William's rating was Pattern Maker - 1st  Class. The acronyms for Naval Ratings (all military ratings and ranks for that matter) could almost make for a book themselves. They are incredibly varied. If you pause to consider this one, it begins to make sense. An airship has a cloth or material covering made of many different sections. The same holds true for much of the interior as well. Whenever something had to be repaired, a pattern was necessary. And someone had to draw them up. Hence a Pattern Maker rating. Not something you would likely see today.

No doubt that William was excited to be so far from his country roots. To be in the service, seeing the country and world. Pity he did not live long enough to return home with all the tales of his adventure.