Georgia Natural Wonder #33 - Coast of Liberty County (Part 1) - Colonial. 863

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Georgia Natural Wonder #33 Coast of Liberty County (Part 1) - Colonial

OK my goal wasn’t to get all historical and to stick with natural wonders, but there is so much history intertwined and this Georgia colonial history is new and interesting to me. I figured it might be for some of y’all too. I am not going to try to cover every island in Liberty County like I did in McIntosh County, the main island, St Catherines, has already been covered. The Liberty Trail includes several sites in Liberty County, let’s explore here before we move north to the next big barrier island, Ossabaw Island.



The congregation of the White Meeting House in Dorchester, South Carolina, numbered about 70 in 1752. They started making plans to move themselves and their church to Georgia because, they said, their area had become overcrowded, their land in some instances was unhealthy, no more grants of land were available in South Carolina, and they needed more land for their children. A better reason they wanted to leave South Carolina might be that the British governor at Charleston had demanded that their church help support the Established (Episcopal) Church put there under British law. They had no intention of doing that.



The White Meeting House was burned by the British in 1778, in 1794 the Church was reorganized and the building repaired. By 1815 the church ceased to function and gradually deteriorated. In 1886 an earthquake collapsed the building, leaving only one wall standing.



A total of 38 families and three single men came from South Carolina to the Midway District and Saint Johns Parish during the period 1752-1771 under the aegis of the White Meeting House. By the latter year there were an estimated 350 whites and 1,500 slaves in Saint Johns Parish who could claim some sort of a connection with the White Meeting House in Dorchester, South Carolina.


Colonial Dorchester today.

Midway Congregational Church is a strikingly beautiful historic landmark in Liberty County, Georgia. Founded in 1752, it was targeted by invaders in two wars. Today's white frame structure was built in 1792 and survived occupation by General Judson Kilpatrick's Union cavalry during Sherman's March to the Sea. Its predecessor was targeted and destroyed by the British during the American Revolution. It is a place of peace with a legacy of war. Congregational life revolved around the church and a sanctuary was among the first structures they built as they arrived on their new lands. Completed in 1752, the original Midway Congregational Church or Midway Meeting House stood on the site of the present structure. Land was reserved for a cemetery just to the west across the road that connected Savannah with Darien and Fort Frederica.


Midway Congregational Church

The Congregational churches, so named because the affairs of each church were directed by its own congregation, were part of the Puritan movement. They became critical parts of the Plymouth Colony, founded in Massachusetts in 1620. Over time the Congregationalists drifted south from New England, establishing the settlement of Dorchester in South Carolina and later the communities of Midway and Sunbury in Georgia. The desire of Congregationalist settlers to relocate from South Carolina into Georgia came at an ideal time for the government of that colony. Creek Indian raids were still a constant threat to the settlers on the Atlantic Coast and it was hoped that a large influx of new settlers to St. Johns Parish would serve as a bulwark against attack. With this in mind, 31,950 acres were granted to the Congregationalists and they began a massive migration down from Dorchester. Many were prosperous planters accustomed to the production of rice, indigo and other crops. With them they brought 1,500 slaves to continue this pursuit on their new Georgia lands.


Fort Dorchester South Carolina.

They started out life in the Midway District with all of the conveniences to which they had been accustomed in South Carolina. They had household furnishings, horses and mules, modes of transportation, looms for weaving cloth, mills for grinding corn and wheat, farm implements, hogs and cattle, and poultry. Above all, they had slaves to build their plantations in the Midway District. It took a while but the settlers gradually started building homes, or "retreats" as they called them, on inland higher ground, where the plantation family lived during the summer months to get away from the mosquitos.


Midway Museum.

Although James Edward Oglethorpe brought about a peaceful relationship with the local Creek Indians, a few of them still went on the war path and killed white settlers and carried off slaves. There was always the danger of an Indian attack. For this reason, some of the Midway District residents constructed their homes of cypress logs, which gave them a bullet-proof blockhouse. The first efforts to fortify the Sunbury vicinity actually predate the founding of the town itself. Captain Mark Carr, who later was instrumental in the founding of Sunbury, built a fortified plantation in the vicinity in 1741. Known as Carr's Fort, this outpost was attacked by Indians on March 18, 1741. Several people were killed and the plantation was looted. While no one is exactly sure of the location of Carr's Fort, there is some evidence that it might have been located within the boundaries of today's Fort Morris State Historic Site. In 1756 the residents of Sunbury, which by then was a growing town, learned that white men had killed some Creek Indians. On September 20 of that year they started work on a new fort "at Captain Mark Carr's." Despite several alarms, however, the feared Creek attack never came.



Neighbors of the Midway District residents in July 1757 were taken prisoners and had their vessel commandeered by a French privateer while on a trading voyage to Saint Augustine, Florida. The privateer captain told them he had heard of a ship with a rich cargo anchored off Saint Catherines Island. He demanded that they guide him to the area. They convinced the captain that they knew nothing of the ship and he released them and their vessel.On arrival at Saint Augustine the traders dispatched a letter overland to the Midway District warning its residents to take defensive measures should the privateer find Saint Catherines Island and attack them. On July 11, 1757, a defense force of about 25 men was organized at the Meeting House. The defense force set up a camp and built a log fortification on high ground overlooking the Midway River and Saint Catherines Island sound. Eight small cannons were placed in the fortification. The defense force remained on guard until August 1757. but the French privateer never appeared. Site of the fortification became Fort Morris at the beginning of the Revolutionary War.


View to marsh and ships from Ft. Morris State Park.

Sunbury, a seaport on the Medway River, is one of Georgia's most famous "dead" or lost towns.The town as platted was located on part of 500 acres that had been granted to Mark Carr by King George II on October 4, 1757. The town was named Sunbury, most likely because that was the name of Carr's ancestral home in Sunbury, Middlesex County, England. Founded in 1758, the original town had 496 lots, each 70 by 130 feet. Bay lots, numbers one through 40, fronted the river and extended to its low-water mark. The town was laid out with three squares and they were named Kings Square. Church Square, and Meeting Square. As many as five wharves lined the Medway River.


Leaving this image large of Old Sunbury.

All of the first buildings in Sunbury were made of wood. Tabby, a mixture of marsh mud, lime. and oyster shells, was used for foundations, chimneys, and outbuildings. Local residents and Savannah businessmen organized companies and built wharves and trading posts in addition to those already there. The wharves were made of palmetto pilings, filled with oyster shells and tamped earth, and covered with wooden flooring.



Many of the original residents were the same Congregationalists who moved down from Dorchester, South Carolina, and the city of the same name in Massachusetts. Other early residents included store owners, dock workers, sailors and practitioners of numerous different trades. Sunbury was declared a port of entry in 1761. Its first officials were Thomas Carr, collector, John Martin naval officer, and Francis Lee, searcher. It became a main shipping point and within less than 20 years Sunbury had a population of more than 1,000 residents. Exactly how big the town grew is uncertain, but there is little doubt that it rivaled nearby Savannah for a time before beginning a slow decline.



The Medway is one of numerous tidal rivers along the Georgia coast. Formed by the confluence of the Laurel View, Belfast, and Tivoli rivers, it’s only 11 miles long, and makes up part of the border between Liberty and Bryan counties. It was named for the Medway River in Kent, England, from which some of the settlers of old Sunbury hailed.



At its height, archaeologist Daniel T. Elliott, estimates that perhaps 200 of Sunbury's nearly 500 lots were occupied. By the eve of the American Revolution in 1774, Sunbury was at its height and boasted the second largest port on the lower Atlantic Coast, it was second only to Savannah in size. Coastal schooners and ocean-going ships left Sunbury via St. Catherines Sound carrying cargoes of timber, rice, corn, indigo and other commodities. The higher needs of the community were served by a Congregationalist Church founded in 1763-1765 with Rev. James Edwards as its pastor. A second church was established by the denomination a few miles to the west in Midway.


20th century remains Medway River.

It was in March 1758 that the districts of Georgia were abolished, and the colony was divided into parishes. The Midway District became Saint Johns Parish. As the number of plantations and farms in Saint Johns Parish increased, its productivity caused a rapid acceleration of imports and exports to and from the Sunbury port. The port was considered by 1769, in point of commercial importance, to rival the port at Savannah, Georgia. It continued in this prosperous state, with little interruption, until the Revolutionary War.


Sunbury is not such a big deal now.

During those early years, the principal trade of Saint Johns Parish was with the West Indies and the Northern colonies. From the former came supplies of rum and sugar. From the latter came rum, livestock, biscuits, and provisions. Saint Johns Parish exported rice, corn, peas, indigo, lumber, shingles, livestock, and barreled beef and pork. Merchants at Sunbury stocked such items as fashionable garments for men and women, books, hardware, flour, dried fish, medicine, Maderia wine, kitchen wares, jewelry, guns, and farm implements. They also had for sale fever powders, mustard, plain silver and gold-laced hats, silk and thread hosiery, pickles, rum and beer, Irish linens, cheese, butter, nails, and home furniture. Vessels occasionally arrived at Sunbury with manufactured goods usually from England. But such vessels generally used Savannah as a port of discharge. Sunbury merchants made wholesale purchases in Savannah and transported their cargoes back to Sunbury in sloops using the islands passageway.



There was an island adjacent to Sunbury which became an integral part of Sunbury's economic and social life. It was known as Bermuda Island because many immigrants from the Bermuda Islands settled there. Malaria fever decimated their number and the remainder eventually relocated elsewhere. Some residents of Sunbury established plantations on Bermuda Island and enjoyed country living with the convenience of an urban residence. The island could be reached by inlets from the water front at the mouth of the Medway River. Its residents however, built a causeway from the mainland to facilitate more convenient travel.



Below Sunbury, and on the causeway to Bermuda Island, was a locality known as "Stave Landing." It was there that staves and shingles were manufactured and shipped to other points. There was eventually a shipyard on the eastern side of Bermuda Island where vessels were built and repaired.

Colonels Island

Colonels Island was at first referred to as Bermuda Island, because so many immigrants from Bermuda resided there. Many of their number died of malaria or yellow fever. The remainder left the island fearing for their lives. By the time of the Revolutionary War, so many colonels, both real and imagined, had built plantations on the island that it became known as Colonels Island. Almost all of the plantation owners maintained town houses in Sunbury, and thus enjoyed country living with urban conveniences.


Stave’s Landing today more like private residence docks..

Joseph Law, a native of Scotland, migrated from South Carolina to the Midway District in 1754 and established Woodville, for some time the only major plantation on Colonels Island. As Sunbury grew, however, plantations proliferated on the island. Colonel Alexander Herron's plantation on Colonels Island was called "Herron's Point." His son later established a plantation near Savannah, Georgia, he called "Wild Herron." Colonel Audley Maxwell's plantation was called "Maxwell Point." A Suligree family established a plantation on the island they called simply "Suligree."



Reverend Charles C. Jones had a plantation and summer home on Colonels Island called "Maybank." It was once the home of Andrew Maybank. There was another plantation on the island during this time period called "Black Rock." Maxwell eventually bought "Suligree" and "Black Rock." Maxwell's daughter, Julia Rebecca Maxwell, married Roswell King Jr., son of the gentleman who established Roswell, Georgia. Their son, James Audley Maxwell King, built a plantation and home he called "Maxwelton." It became the property of his daughter, Julia King, who never married, and remained her property until she sold it in 1936 to George Brown, who also bought "Maybank," once the plantation and home of Andrew Maybank.


Pamona Road nature Area Colonel's Island.

Colonel Joseph Law, a direct descendant of the first plantation owner on the island, established a summer home on Colonels Island at Half Moon Bluff. When his daughters married they resided in Florida. His only son resided first in Ohio and then in Chicago, Illinois. It was never called anything but "Laws." The main house stood on five acres which were eventually bought by Roswell King Jr. There were two small islands near Half Moon Bluff called "Dunham Hammocks." The "Corduroy Road" connected them with Colonels Island. Reuben King, younger brother of Roswell King Sr., and Joseph Austin, owned the two islands. Reuben King married Abigail Austin, daughter of Joseph Austin.


A corduroy road was made of cut logs lashed together in the long grass of the countryside.

Joseph Austin owned "Melon Bluff' west of Half Moon Bluff. "Melon Bluff' was so called because so many large watermelons were once raised there.

Melon Bluff Nature and Heritage Preserve

Melon Bluff Nature and Heritage Preserve is one of the few privately owned nature preserves on the Georgia coast. The 3,000-acre preserve backs up to the North Newport River and offers more than 20 miles of trails through pinelands, coastal forest, and salt marshes that are open to hikers, bikers, kayakers, and horseback riders. History is also highlighted at Melon Bluff, with a former rice plantation on the property and a Civil War blockade-runner, The Standard, sunk at the bottom of the tidal river.


Confederate Blockade Runner.

The preserve is a charter member of the Colonial Coast Birding Trail established by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Surrounded by coastal marsh, moss-draped oaks and pines, and freshwater ponds, it serves as sanctuary to resident and migratory bird species, including osprey, herons, egrets, wood storks, pelicans, spoonbills, wild turkeys, bluebirds, swallows, painted buntings, and purple martins. Bald eagles are occasionally identified. Commonly seen in the dense, mixed hardwood and pine forest are deer, opossums, raccoons, and squirrels.


Putting the Ring in the Nose at Melon Bluff.

Like most coastal property, Melon Bluff has not escaped human intervention. It has experienced timber operations and rice production. The preserve is named for the eighteenth century plantation that once existed on the property. More recently, the property had been managed for pine timber like much of coastal Georgia. Conservationists Laura, Don, and Meredith Devendorf have chosen to protect and allow the landscape to renew itself through the creation of a nature preserve from this land that has been in the family since the 1930s. The family was also instrumental in establishing Seabrook Village.



An unusual feature of Melon Bluff is that it offers three historic B&B-style lodging options, Palmyra Barn (1930), Palmyra Plantation Guest House (1840), and The Ripley Farmhouse (1940). The three restored structures offer beautiful views of Dickinson Creek or the peacefulness of the coastal woodlands.



The Devendorfs keep a busy schedule of events year-round to interest visitors. The preserve participates in the national annual Audubon bird count and commemorates the anniversary of Prohibition with moonshine-making demonstrations and a kayak trip to an island where rum was stashed in the Roaring Twenties. Flatwater kayaking in the tidal rivers is featured, including sunrise excursions followed by a gourmet breakfast, heritage kayak tours, picnic paddles to a marsh island, and moonrise excursions followed by candlelit dinners. Another popular activity is a mule-drawn wagon tour of the preserve, where a guide describes the history of the area from Spanish times to plantation days.



The Melon Bluff Nature Center is where guests start their visit. Educational exhibits, a gift shop-bookstore, refreshments, and restrooms are available. Self-guiding nature and heritage tours are available. Bikes and binoculars can be rented, and on the weekend canoes and kayaks are supplied. Mule and wagon tours are scheduled at certain events or by special arrangement.

Directions: I-95 south from Savannah to Exit 13/76. Go east on GA 38 for 3 miles. Look for green Melon Bluff mailbox on right at 2999 Islands Highway. Nature Center and parking is on right.



King and Austin sold the two islands to Thomas Dunham, who had a plantation called "Cedar Point" on Colonels Island, and another plantation, "The Dunham Place," on the adjoining mainland. There was an area of Colonels Island called "Hickory Hill" famous for its pine and hardwood. Many a handle for hatchets and axes came from hickory trees in the area. Another area known as "The Hammocks" was covered with a fine growth of cedar trees, valuable for fence posts. Oysters from Colonels Island were said to be the finest along the Georgia coast. The hard marsh was excellent for raising cattle, horses, and hogs.

Youman's Pond and Colonel's Island

This freshwater pond found on Colonel's Island is an excellent bird-watching site. It has supported an active rookery for many years, and many bird species have been identified here, including black-crowned and yellow-crowned night herons, blue herons, various egrets, wood storks, ibis, wood ducks, and common moorhens. Dabbling ducks are common during migratory seasons. Great horned and barred owls, osprey, and turkey vultures are frequently seen in the area.


Night heron

The island is the easternmost piece of high ground in Liberty County before crossing the Newport rivers to St. Catherines Island. The southern half of the island is also known as Halfmoon Landing, named for the bend in the tidal river located here. Many bird species depend on a mix of habitats. They feed in the marsh and freshwater wetlands, then take refuge in nearby undisturbed maritime forest. Colonel's Island has a variety of natural habitats that support a diversity of avifauna.



In April 1773, the island was visited by famed naturalist William Bartram, who described the area in his famous book Travels of William Bartram. Bartram recorded "a great variety of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants." He wrote that deer "… are numerous on this island; the tyger, wolf, and bear, hold yet some possession; as also raccoons, foxes, hares, squirrels, rats, and mice, but I think no moles … opossums are here in abundance, as also pole-cats, wild-cats, rattle-snakes, glass-snake, coach-whip-snake, and a variety of other serpents." Deer are still common in the area, but tygers (panthers), wolves, and bears are long gone from Colonel's Island. One hopes the wildlife still living on Colonel's Island that depends on the sanctuary of Youman's Pond will not be driven away by further development.



Directions: I-95 south from Savannah to Exit 13/76. Go east on GA 38, continuing straight until GA 38 becomes a dirt road. Proceed through pastureland and stop at freshwater pond on right

Cay Creek Wetlands Interpretive Center

Cay Creek Wetlands Interpretive Center is an excellent example of tidal, freshwater wetlands, which provides a unique opportunity for education and appreciation. The area is rich in diversity- Bay, Cypress, and Oak trees are abundant, as are Palms, Palmettos, and Magnolias. The area provides the habitats for numerous species of animals, including birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and…



The famed naturalist William Bartram stopped in Sunbury on his way south to Florida in 1773:

There are about one hundred houses in the town neatly built of wood frame having pleasant Piasas around them. The inhabitants are genteel and wealthy, either Merchants or Planters from the Country who resort here in the Summer and Autumn, to partake of the Salubrious Sea Breeze, Bathing & sporting on the Sea Islands.


William Bartram

LeConte-Woodmanston Plantation National Historic Site

The former plantation site of the famous LeConte family offers a variety of experiences for naturalists, including exploring the restored rice fields and gardens that belonged to the family and looking for wildlife that frequent the second-growth cypress swamps. Botanists with an interest in historic gardens will enjoy their time here.



Woodmanston, a 3,354-acre rice plantation, was established in 1760 in St. Johns Parish by John Eatton LeConte. It was one of the largest in the South. The 63.8-acre historic site, surrounded by pine plantations and Bulltown Swamp, protects the heart of the plantation where the main house and gardens were located. A nature trail leads from here over a trunk canal to former rice fields and a cypress swamp. With restored trunks in the dikes, the former fields can still be flooded using gravity flow, just as they were 240 years ago. LeConte-Woodmanston Plantation was unlike most coastal plantations that used tidal waters to flood their fields. The swamp water is dammed, then drained into the rice fields. Managers of the site plan to grow rice again as an educational tool. Hikers can explore the old fields and Bulltown Swamp blackwater ecosystem and cypress forest along the top of the centuries-old dikes, which were constructed by slaves from clays found in the swamp.



Bulltown Swamp is the headwaters of the South Newport River, which flows into Sapelo Sound. Vegetation at the site is the result of wild regeneration of land that has experienced farming and logging. More than 25 varieties of tree can be found on the property, including pond and baldcypress; overcup, live, laurel, water, and cherrybark oak; sweet and blackgum; and Ogeechee lime. The understory consists of red titi, wax myrtle, holly, and plum, and vines include Cherokee rose, smilax, trumpet creeper, and jessamine. Wet areas support swamp lily, iris, ferns, primrose-willow and pickerelweed.


Front gate.

Wildlife is plentiful, and it is common to observe deer, raccoons, opossums, armadillos, wild hogs, pileated woodpeckers, ibis, vultures, and kingsnakes. Waterfowl is abundant in the swamps during migratory seasons, as are otters during the entire year. Alligators are surprisingly absent.



Three generations of LeContes lived at Woodmanston, along with at least 200 slaves. John Eatton LeConte was the grandson of Guillaume LeConte, a French Huguenot who migrated to New York in the 1690s to avoid religious persecution, and the nephew of Thomas Eatton, a prominent Savannah merchant who may have influenced LeConte to invest in Georgia. John Eatton LeConte had a brother, William, who founded Sans Souci Plantation in Bryan County.



Naturalist William Bartram traveled through the property in 1773.



John Eatton LeConte was an early supporter of the American Revolution, and was entrusted with delivering rice and sterling to Boston patriots who were suffering from the British embargo of Boston Harbor. During the Revolutionary War, the original plantation house was burned by British troops in November of 1778 as they advanced on Midway down the Fort Barrington Road. Sometime before 1789, another house was built at the plantation. It was fortified and featured a palisade stockade. In 1789, this "fort" was attacked by Indians and was successfully defended by LeConte and his slaves. LeConte later had two sons, Louis, born 1782, and John Eatton LeConte Jr., born 1784.

Gardens today.

Around 1812, Louis married Ann Quarterman of Midway and acquired Woodmanston. Louis, a graduate of Columbia College in New York, planted and nurtured the 1-acre floral and botanical garden of international repute at Woodmanston, and fathered two sons, John and Joseph, who were to go on to international fame as educators and scientists. His family is considered to be Georgia's most distinguished family of scientists. Both sons graduated from Franklin College, which was to become the University of Georgia.



Louis LeConte not only ran a productive rice and cotton plantation, but he excelled in growing many unusual native and exotic plants, and was one of the first to cultivate Camellia japonica outdoors in the South. His garden was "the richest in bulbs I have ever seen," wrote Alexander Gordon in Gardener's Magazine. His son Joseph wrote in his Autobiography of Joseph LeConte that his father's "beautiful garden became celebrated all over the United States, and botanists from the North and from Europe came to visit it, always receiving welcome and entertainment, sometimes for weeks at his home." Joseph recalled that some of the camellias were "trees" that were 1 foot in diameter and 15 feet tall.



Louis LeConte's brother, Major John Eatton LeConte Jr., was at one time a co-owner of Woodmanston and considered the foremost authority on the natural history of Georgia at that time. John Eatton also was an accomplished artist. Some of his paintings are in the collection of the University of Georgia. His son, John Lawrence LeConte, became a leading entomologist of the latter half of the nineteenth century. Two bird species are named for him: the LeConte thrasher (Toxostoma lecontei), and the LeConte sparrow (Ammospiza leconteii). The LeConte sparrow winters in southeastern Georgia and was named for John Lawrence LeConte by John James Audubon. Not only do two birds carry the LeConte name, but so do two mountains (one in the Smokies and the other in the Sierras); many other landmarks in the Sierras including a lake, a falls, a divide, and a dome; a glacier in Alaska; three species of plants; three fossils; a pear tree (Pyrus lecontei); a mouse; a school; three university buildings; and three avenues (located in Athens, Atlanta, and Berkeley, California).


Got a C in History LeConte Hall.

After Louis LeConte's death in 1838, the estate was divided into smaller tracts for his heirs and the gardens were soon neglected. After 1843, no member of the family resided in the old plantation house. During the Civil War, the plantation was raided and destroyed. Over time, the property was neglected, was farmed and logged, and became a pine plantation and reclaimed bottomland, and the plantation was lost.



Hard work and initiative rediscovered Woodmanston. An avid amateur horticulturist, Col. Claude A. Black, who learned about the plantation in 1971, began a dedicated search for the garden site. Finally, in 1973, he and a friend, William Fishback, found traces of the old garden: two sabal palm trees (one live, one dead), an ancient red seedling (Norman Red) camellia plant, and a few crape myrtles. Brunswick Pulp and Paper Company planned to log the site, but Black convinced the company to hold off. An organization was quickly formed to preserve the site, and it was placed on the National Register of Historic Sites. In 1977, the C.B. Jones family donated the tract to The Nature Conservancy and Brunswick Pulp and Paper donated the timber rights. The title was transferred to the Garden Club of Georgia, which transferred it to the LeConte-Woodmanston Foundation in 1993. The Foundation continues fundraising activities and restoration work at the historic property, and plans to build a visitors center.

 

Directions: I-95 north from Brunswick to Exit 12/67. Go north on US 17 for 3.7 miles. Turn left on Sandy Run Road. Drive 4.3 miles and turn left onto dirt road. Drive 1 mile south to historic marker. Follow signs to parking area for LeConte-Woodmanston.



A subordinate attitude in Saint Johns Parish toward British colonial authorities in Georgia was heightened when Lyman Hall, a physician and outspoken critic of the authorities, migrated with his second wife from Connecticut to Saint Johns Parish. Hall purchased land just north of the Meeting House and established a home and plantation he called Halls Knoll in 1769-1770. His wife was a descendent of the Puritans who established Windsor, Connecticut, in 1635, and both immediately became members of the Meeting House. He established a medical practice in Sunbury and both of them became active in political and social circles there and in Savannah. Full tangent on Hall, a signer of Declaration of Independence, in Liberty Coast Part 2.



The pace of life in Sunbury by 1774 was brisk and exciting. Roughly one-fourth of all vessels making port in Georgia came to Sunbury. It was a large town and there was quite a bit of entertainment for visitors. There were well-stocked general stores, billiard rooms, pubs, gambling of various types, rooms and women for rent, and a cosmopolitan atmosphere caused by the ocean traffic. When several vessels docked at Sunbury at the same time, the town was boisterous and unruly. Watchmen employed by the wharf owners kept, or restored, order when things got out of hand.


Ruins of a much more modern (1900's) Plantation on Medway River.

Plantation society in Saint Johns Parish in 1774 was centered in Sunbury and Bermuda Island. The more affluent families owned townhouses in Sunbury and maintained plantations and homes on Bermuda Island and elsewhere in the parish. They traveled to Savannah, Georgia, at least twice a year for social and business reasons. Parish planters often gathered for political and social reasons at a tavern and inn named the "White House" on the south bank of the Ogeechee River at Kings Ferry crossing.


Kings Ferry is an RV resort today.

People who owned little more than the clothes on their back started drifting into Saint Johns Parish on foot a few years before the Revolutionary War. They squatted on the backwoods property of other people, cleared small fields which they tilled by hand, hunted and fished to supplement their meager diet, and lived in log huts they built themselves. They trapped animals and sold the skins in Sunbury for that which they could not produce themselves. It appears that their only ambition was simply to survive.


Lodge marker Sunbury Cemetery.

Solomon's Lodge No. 1, F. & A.M. was organized as a Masonic Lodge on February 21, 1734. Masonic tradition holds that its first worshipful master was General James Edward Oglethorpe, English soldier, statesman, humanitarian, and founder of Georgia, who raised the flag of England at Savannah on February 12, 1733. Solomon's Lodge was chartered by the Grand Lodge of England in 1735, making it the second chartered lodge in the Americas, In 1786, the Independent Grand Lodge of Georgia, F. & A.M. was created and proclaimed by concerted action of Solomon's Lodge and the one other lodge then existing in the State. Solomon's Lodge No. 1 was chartered as the first lodge of Georgia.From its beginning in 1734 Brethren of Solomon's Lodge have served with distinction in vital positions of leadership in public and fraternal affairs of city, colony, state and nation. The Lodge produced the first Grand Master of Georgia, F. & A.M., William Stephens, who governed the Georgia craft from 1786 - 1788 and 1793 - 1813.



Saint Johns Parish, during those days just before the decisive summer of 1775, was in a state of indecision about rebellion against the English. Residents of the parish were well aware that the military posture of the colony left much to be desired. Population of the colony at that time was about 17,000 whites and 15,000 slaves. The colonial militia numbered about 3,000. Our GNW gal today getting ready to fight the British invaders.



Wow ........ all that and we ain’t even got to the Revolutionary War yet. Wish there were more images of the plantation homes. If the British didn't burn them, looks like the Yankees did. Ain't nothing hardly left for a county with so much history. Part II of Liberty County tomorrow.