One of the best things about being old is that I was alive to do things Way Back When that I can't do today.

We read a news story in 1987 about John Sledge researching the age of the Weeks cabin in Bon Secour, so off we went on one of our Saturday field trips in Baldwin County. We found it right at the end of County Road 10 where the road runs slap into the Bon Secour River. A beautiful shoefly gazebo circled an ancient oak, and George Brown came out to show us his pride and joy: the cabin he claimed to be the oldest in the county. He had moved the two-room house from its original location on Weeks Bay where it had been built by Nicholas Weeks.

I had already heard stories about old Mrs. Weeks from my friend Glynis Mason whose family spent summers in a cabin next door. She said the children loved to sit on the porch and hear stories of the earliest Creole settlers in the area. Her tales were part of the reason I wanted to see this building.

George welcomed visitors and always left the door unlocked. He had furnished the house with many period pieces, including some of his own family furnishings. His namesake ancestor was one of the earliest settlers in the area, owning many more acres than the current homestead.

On that field trip, we actually got a two for one deal. In his front yard were the remains of what has been dubbed the Mystery Fort. We saw a rectangle of bumpy lumps that looked like cement to us, but were told they were made of tabby, a common material used in the 1500-1700s by French and Spanish, who are most commonly thought to have built it. Tabby is made by grinding oyster shells, burning them to create quicklime, then mixing with sand, rocks and water to make a type of cement. The mixture is poured into wooden framework to dry to a durable building material. The building measured 16 by 32 feet, had three doors, no windows and a cement type floor. Even though the building was most likely a home or trading post, the name Mystery Fort is sure a lot more fun.

Speculation about these remains has been bounced back and forth between experts for over 100 years, but if you really want to find out the stories of old things, you should ask a local. So, we did. Luckily for us, when I recently asked Janice Hudson if she knew anything about the fort, I hit a gold mine, or maybe it was a tabby mine. Because, of course, she is kin to nearly everyone in the story. She remembers walking through the woods to the ruins when they were on Heritage Point. She told us of the many stories of pirate treasure buried and cautioned about holes left by treasure hunters throughout the dense growth. She has collected documents and organized them in a good old three ring binder. If you younger readers don't know what that is, just ask a grandparent. Clue: it is not a computer program but is designed to hold all the docs you print off the internet because everyone I know uses one for just that. Turning the pages in her scrapbook outlines the mysterious and sometimes confusing nature of the ruins.

The first document is a detailed timeline of the fort created by Jeannette Bornholt, local researcher extraordinaire. After intense study, she proposed that the ruins could well be the remains of a church shown on a 1735 French map of Apalache Village (Bon Secour.) Her outline begins with indigenous peoples and shell middens and ends with the up-to-date mystery of the fort. After the information on Spanish and French ownerships Janice filed news articles about more recent interest in the tabby.

Dateline 1902: Louis Chaudron gave a talk on the Mystery Fort to the Iberville Historic Society in Mobile. He refers to the site as a "creep goblin home and the sight of it makes one shudder." His talk spurred a society field trip to the site the following year.

Dateline 1903: The Mobile Item: "To Bon Secour. Members of the Iberville Historical Society Go to Investigate Ancient Ruins." The ruins were called early Azalee Indian or Spanish.

Dateline 1913: Brown home offered for sale as the oldest known homestead in Baldwin County.

Dateline 1939: Miller family demolished the old John Cook home, found walls built of tabby. Dr. Louis Tucker, an 1896 Episcopal minister is cited as describing the fort remains as made of cocina, a Spanish cement.

Dateline 1964-1967: David White, Florida State University, and Greg Waselkov, University of South Alabama made archeological studies of the four tabby sites found at the time. Artifacts found at the site included pottery and iron hardware dating from the early 1700s. Report states crumbling ruins were on the site at the arrival of Nicholas Cook in 1790s.

Dateline 1969: Ruins were moved to the grounds of the George Brown home.

Dateline 1985: John Sledge commissioned to photograph historic buildings in Baldwin County by the Baldwin County Historical Development Commission. He was so intrigued by the Weeks cabin, he brought Dr. Elizabeth Gould to visit and evaluate its age, perhaps the oldest in the state. He also photographed the tabby ruins on the Brown property.

Dateline 1988: After George Brown's death, ruins were returned to their original location. An interview with Jack Taylor in 1991 reports that Jack asked Dr. Shorter of USA to help locate the original location of the ruins.

Dateline 2025: Gulf Coast Media Folklore column by Harriet Outlaw: Certainly not a research article, but claims the ruins are now a major part of Baldwin County Folklore.

Who doesn't love a mystery? I know you want to know where those remains are today, but all I can say is that it is still a Mystery Fort. And you could always ask a local.