Mandarin Museum News

March 2024

Embrace the Mandarin Experience

----Warmest regards,

----Brittany Cohill

----Executive Director

All Month During Museum Hours

Every Wednesday-Saturday

10:00 am to 4:00 pm

Stop by and enter for your chance to win this EXTRA LARGE turtle handcrafted by Mandarin's own Don "Frogman" Bowden. It is free to enter, only one entry per person. The lucky winner will be drawn in mid-April.

First Saturday @ the Museum

Saturday, March 2

10:00 am to 2:00 pm

All historic buildings throughout Walter Jones Historical Park will be open to the public. Stroll along the park's paved pathways and stop in to the 1898 St. Joseph's Mission Schoolhouse for African American Children, the 1892 Losco Winery, the 1876 Barn, and the 1875 Webb-Jones Farmhouse.

Located just down the road from Mandarin Museum & Walter Jones Historical Park, the historic Mandarin Store & Post Office will also be open to visitors (12471 Mandarin Road). Admission is free.

Meet the Maple Leaf Divers

Saturday, March 2

10:00 am to 12:00 pm

Maple Leaf Shipwreck Gallery

Meet the men who dove the Maple Leaf Shipwreck! This is an informal, conversational-style event. Drop in anytime between 10:00 am and noon to hear about their story of discovery, recovery, and preservation of artifacts from the Union steamboat Maple Leaf that was sunk by a Confederate mine off Mandarin Point in the St. Johns River.

Music Under the Oaks

Sunday, March 3 (weather permitting)

2:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Museum Front Lawn

Join Mandarin Museum and North Florida Folk Network for an afternoon under Mandarin's historic oak canopy. Bring your acoustic instrument and join the jam session OR bring your chair or blanket and enjoy a day in the shade, taking in the melodic sounds.

Mandarin Museum and the 1898 Schoolhouse will be open to visitors during the event. Admission is free.

Photo courtesy of Olis Garber.

Third Thursday Lecture

Thursday, March 21

6:30 - 8:00 pm

Mandarin Community Club

12447 Mandarin Road

As part of our spring 2024 lecture series, "Our Mandarin Neighbors," attendees will hear from longtime Mandarin resident, Judge Henry Davis. Judge Davis grew up in Jacksonville and graduated from a segregated Douglas Anderson High School. Coming of age during the 1950s and '60s Black struggle for civil rights, Davis felt strongly he could make a difference by studying and practicing law. After serving as a naval officer in the Vietnam War, he graduated with his law degree from FSU. He worked for the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. before entering private practice. In 1992, Florida Governor Lawton Chiles appointed Davis to the Duval County Circuit Court, making Judge Davis just the second Black circuit court judge in Northeast Florida.

Refreshments begin at 6:30. The program begins at 7:00. Admission is free.

This month's program is held in partnership with Mandarin Community Club.

A special thank you to our generous sponsors for making "Our Mandarin Neighbors" possible!

February's program with Irene & Andrew Jaffa is now available on Mandarin Museum's YouTube Channel. Thank you to KBArt Photography and Olis Garber Photography for your generosity!

Opening Reception: Memphis Wood Revisited

Friday, March 29

6:00 - 8:00 pm

Mandarin Museum

Mandarin Museum has partnered with MOCA in celebration of 100 years of contemporary art in Jacksonville.

On Friday, March 29th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, Mandarin Museum will open its Spring/Summer 2024 art exhibition titled Memphis Wood Revisited. Curated by Dr. Elizabeth Heuer, UNF Associate Professor of Art History, and Nofa Dixon, UNF Associate Professor Emerita of Art and Design, the exhibit will feature pieces from Mandarin Museum’s permanent collection, UNF Special Collections, and select pieces on loan from local collectors of her work.

Memphis Wood Revisited celebrates the significant cultural impact Memphis had on Jacksonville’s art and arts education scenes over the course of six decades. Mandarin Museum is thought to have the largest known institutional Memphis Wood collection, adding more than 40 works through a gift from MOCA Jacksonville in 2022.

Admission to the opening reception is free. Refreshments will be served.

Brenda Councill's "Harriet Beecher Stowe in Mandarin" made it safely to the bronze foundry this week! Now begins the five-month-long "lost wax" process of casting the life-size clay version in bronze. Once complete, the statue will be installed in Walter Jones Historical Park alongside Mandarin Museum.

Thank you to those who have committed their support to making "Harriet Beecher Stowe in Mandarin" a reality.

Orange Blossoms | $25,000 - $34,999

Rosamond Warren Allen

in honor of her great-great grandmother, Harriet Beecher Stowe

Mandarin Oaks | $10,000 - $24,999

Rosemary McCorkle

Thomas Davant Johns, Ph.D. and Gretchen Schaef Johns, M.D.

in memory of Thomas Joseph Agee

in honor of Sandy Arpen

Magnolias | $2500 - $9,999

Cheryl S. Cummer

Larry and Emily Lisska

Eric and Naomi Gillis

Sandy and Tracey Arpen

Lee and Mindy Hanna

James C. and Nancy Capps Hoover in memory of the Hoover and Capps families

Ferrigno Family

in honor of Hope Ferrigno

Colonel John T. and Judith Winkler

George Ash and Kate Arpen

Patrick Plumlee and Laura D'Alisera

in memory of their parents

Marilyn Carpenter

in memory of Pete Carpenter

Don and Pam Chandler

Janelle and Bill Watson

Friends of Historic Mandarin | up to $2499

Bhide & Hall Architects

Matt Carlucci Insurance Agency, Inc.

Pam Neumann

in memory of Dave Neumann and Ed Ralph

John and Leyda Cooksey

Carol Hazouri

Deborah Harmon

Jim and Renee Waler

Jay Caffey

Mel and Sheryl McNichols in honor of Sandy Arpen

Mr. and Mrs. James M. Barker, IV

Virginia B. Barker

Steve and Kathy Rawlins

Rev. Roger L.D. and Elvia Williams

Elizabeth Meux

Peggy and Bill Armstrong

Byron and Marsha Peacock

Carol and Jeff Anderson

Claire King

Jeff and Carrie Councill

Bonny Councill

Pam Neumann

in honor of Carolyn Hall and Bettye Stilley

Bettye Stilley

in honor of Pam Neumann and Carolyn Hall

Gabriele Dempsey

in memory of Ruth Heerling

Anne Morrow

Leslie Anderson

Stacy Anderson

Evalyn Campbell

John and Kathleen Holler

Payson J. Tilden

Thomas Entenza

Friends of Gabriele Dempsey in her honor

Courtenay Wilson

Lynn McManus

Ruth Stein

Marilyn Stein

Margaret Gellatly

Blair Woolverton

Renate Hixon

We have rolled out our 2024 membership program with new benefits at the individual, family, and patron levels! Every contribution made through the purchase of an annual membership enables us to fulfill our mission.

New titles that share the stories of Mandarin's history, culture, and natural resources will be hitting the Museum Shop shelves throughout the month. Pick one up on your next visit!

"The two volumes . . . provide a definitive history of the Timucuan chiefdoms from their pre-Columbian existence to their eighteenth-century extinction. Worth’s work is essential reading for students and scholars of borderlands and colonial Florida anthropology and history. His scholarship is superb, and he employs primary source materials unknown to previous researchers in the field.” - American Historical Review

"Will appeal to a very wide audience that includes scholars in a number of fields, amateur historians and archaeologists, and people interested in Native American studies . . . and will serve as a paradigm for understanding the same developments elsewhere in Spanish Florida and the wider Spanish colonial world." - John H. Hann, author of The Native American World Beyond Apalachee: West Florida and the Chattahoochee Valley

John E. Worth is a professor of anthropology at the University of West Florida. He is the editor and translator of Discovering Florida: First-Contact Narratives from Spanish Expeditions along the Lower Gulf Coast.

Mandarin Frog Painting

Saturday, April 6

10:00 am - 12:00 pm

Museum Front Lawn

Reservations are now being accepted for the Saturday, April 6th Mandarin Frog Painting. Pick, paint, and take home your very own Mandarin Frog (or turtle or squirrel). Advanced registration is required by emailing info@mandarinmuseum.org. The cost is $22, payable upon arrival.

Mandarin Newsline





Read 2023 and 2024 current and past issues of the Mandarin Newsline online now!

This free newspaper allows Mandarin Museum to share history, events, and programs with the public. The newspaper remains free to readers due to the robust local advertising. Please visit, shop, and eat at those businesses who support the community in this way.

...look for ways you can help build community!

We are so grateful for the Magnolia Garden Circle. Last month, their members enjoyed a guided group tour at the museum and park. Before departing, they presented a $500 donation to Museum Executive Director Brittany Cohill. Donations like these help support quality programming and operations throughout the year. Such a kind and thoughtful gesture from an equally kind and thoughtful group of women!

Thank you to all our community partners!

Mandarin Museum is funded, in part, through the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville and the City of Jacksonville.