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PICKENS COUNTY - "Pickens County has so much history that people don't even know about," said Marjorie Schaefer with the Pickens County Historical Society. "Most of the people who live here don't even know about."

Society members work to preserve the county's history and tell its stories.

The society will hold its semi-annual membership meeting 3 p.m. Sunday Oct. 19 at the Hampton Memorial Library in Easley.

Local outdoor writer and naturalist Dennis Chastain will be the guest speaker at the meeting.

Chastain is involved in the effort to protect recently discovered rock art at the Hagood Mill.

Plans are to display the Hagood Mill petroglyphs, the only petroglyphs discovered on publicly owned property, by constructing the South Carolina Rock Art Center around them to protect them from the elements.

Chastain is also involved in tracing the Old Cherokee Path, a Cherokee trail that ran from Tennessee to Charleston and ran through the Hagood Mill area.

Non-members are welcome to attend the meeting.

"We've always met in Pickens, but we're trying to move things around and meet in different places," Schaefer said. "This is a county thing.

"We want people from everywhere," she said. "We need members."

The society is currently undergoing a membership drive to increase its membership rolls, Schaefer said.

The society currently has 190 members, Schaefer said.

Single memberships are $10, couples $15.

Memberships do not obligate members to anything, Schaefer said.

"You can come to a meeting, you can not come to a meeting," she said. "You can do something, you can not do something. It doesn't matter. We want you."

A class is the works to each those interested in being docents at the Hagood-Mauldin

House and Irma Morris Museum, which the society owns and operates.

"We're in dire need," Schaefer said. "We need three people there every Saturday that it's open and sometimes it's really hard to keep it manned. We'd like to be open a little more often and probably will be in the future."

The Hagood-Mauldin House is open the first and third Saturday of the month April through October.

The society is also looking for help maintaining the house's gardens, Schaefer said.

"What we'd like to do is have members take over a small plot and take a responsibility for keeping that clean and planting flowers in season," she said. "It doesn't have to be a big plot, just a small one. Anybody's who interested in that, we'd love to have them."

The society is also actively involved in the effort to restore the Bradley-Boggs House in Pickens.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the society, which will mark the occasion with a anniversary and Christmas celebration Dec. 6 in the Liberty.

For more information about Pickens County Historical Society, or to join, call PCHS vice-president Wayne Kelley at 878-1322.