A rich and compelling story two-and-a-quarter centuries in the making will be celebrated this November here on the campus of our South Carolina Governor’s School for Agriculture at John De La Howe.

It’s called The 1797 Celebration, and on Saturday, November 5, our sprawling 1,310-acre John De La Howe farm site will spring to life for a day-long festival rooted in the history of the former Lethe Farm founded by enigmatic French physician John De La Howe. The theme for this family-friendly event is “Coming Home to John De La Howe.”

The festival is expected to unfold from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m., and it will coincide with a reunion of John De La Howe School alumni from across the country. The public is invited to attend. There will be no admission charge for the festival.

The day’s festivities will begin with the “Bull Run” 5K road race, which will give runners an opportunity to explore the winding gravel roads of the John De La Howe campus on foot. More details on race entry will be released later in September.

From 9 a.m. until 1 p.m., The 1797 Celebration will offer a wide variety of family-friendly activities for history buffs, including a display of documents and artifacts from the campus’s 225-year history; living history demonstrations featuring colonial re-enactors from the Living History Park in nearby North Augusta; participants from the nearby Willington On The Way history center; a petting zoo; agriculture-themed field games and competitions; and campus tours. Dr. De La Howe’s tomb and his Lethe Plantation home site inside the De La Howe Forest near the banks of Little River and Lake Thurmond also will be available to visitors for self-guided tours.

Live music and a parade around the 12-acre Governor’s Green at the center of the campus are planned during the day. Breakfast and lunch will be available for purchase.

The 1797 Celebration draws its name from the year that Dr. De La Howe passed away and his last will and testament provided for the establishment of a “farm school” to serve underprivileged children – specifically 12 boys and 12 girls – in the “useful arts related to farm life,” according to a history published in 1996 by the Bicentennial History Committee of the John De La Howe School. Our campus has served as an educational institution in some form since shortly after Dr. De La Howe’s death.

Its current mission as the state Governor’s School for Agriculture was begun by order of the General Assembly and signed into existence by Gov. Henry McMaster in a ceremony at the farm’s stonework dairy barn in late 2020.