Georgia Natural Wonder #37 - Bryan County Shore (Part 1) - Antebellum. 1,236

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Georgia Natural Wonder #37 - Bryan County Shore (Part 1) - Antebellum

We continue our coast to mountains series today coming back to the Atlantic Ocean. Moving north of Liberty County, we come to Bryan County.



There may not be an actual barrier island for this county but it is more than worth an exploration for two parts as Georgia Natural Wonder #37.



Richmond Hill, situated on the Ogeechee River fifteen miles south of Savannah, is the largest municipality in Bryan County (although Pembroke is the county seat). According to the 2010 U.S. census, the population is 9,281. It is best known as the winter residence of the automotive pioneer Henry Ford during the 1930s and 1940s. The city limits of Richmond Hill have expanded to the east along S.R. 144, where there are a number of planned developments. This area contains large amounts of marsh and riverfront property.



Farther to the east are Fort McAllister Historic Park and the small community of Keller. Residents of the entire South Bryan County area rely on Richmond Hill proper for basic services, and must travel through the city to leave the county, especially when commuting to Savannah via U.S. 17 or I-95. Most South Bryan residents, especially the large percentage of relative newcomers, would likely say they were "from Richmond Hill." The history of the area goes back to the earliest days of the Georgia colony, when General James Oglethorpe built Fort Argyle near the juncture of the Ogeechee and Canoochee rivers.



The Fort location is in Fort Stewart in Bryan County, Georgia. It was an English military settlement. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 31, 1975. Access is restricted.There were actually two or possibly three forts near this location - the first being constructed in 1733, a second around 1742, and a third in the 1760s.



In 1733, General James Oglethorpe established the Colony of Georgia, named for King George II of England, and laid out its first city, Savannah. It wasn’t long before the earliest English colonists began branching outward to the surrounding regions. One of the earliest grants made by Oglethorpe was in 1734, for 2,000 acres on the Ogeechee River at Sterling Bluff where present-day Ford Plantation sits.



The grant was made to Hugh and William Sterling. The Sterlings ultimately abandoned the grant, and the land passed to John Harn, who named it Dublin Plantation and began cultivating rice as part of an agricultural enterprise. In 1747, Harn planted the now massive Live Oaks that form the letter “H” at the entrance to The Main House.









The legalization of slavery in 1750 and the availability of agricultural bottomland near the Ogeechee River led to rapid settlement in lower St. Philip Parish (Bryan Neck) before the American Revolution (1775-83). In 1793 Bryan County was created from Chatham and Effingham counties and was named in honor of the colonial patriot Jonathan Bryan (1708-88). The seat of government was soon established at Cross Roads, at the intersection of the Darien –Savannah Stage Road and the Bryan Neck Road, the present-day site of Richmond Hill. As the population of the area expanded north of the Canoochee, the county seat was moved in 1814 to an area known as Court House, later called Eden, and still later the unincorporated township of Clyde.


Richmond Hill today.

Planter and politician Jonathan Bryan was born in Pocotaligo, South Carolina in 1708. His first contact with Georgia came when James Oglethorpe and the first settlers arrived at Port Royal in early February 1733. While the colonists stayed in barracks at a Carolina Ranger outpost, Bryan accompanied Oglethorpe on an advance visit to the Savannah River to look for a place to settle. In 1740, he returned to Georgia as an officer in a South Carolina militia unit that accompanied Oglethorpe’s unsuccessful military expedition against the Spanish fort in St. Augustine. In 1751, Bryan received a land grant in Georgia and moved to the colony, where he began building rice plantations in the Savannah area. When Georgia became a royal colony in 1754, Bryan was asked to serve on the governor’s council. He also served as a justice of the general court, colonial treasurer, road commissioner, and captain of a militia unit. After the Stamp Act, however, Bryan became associated with the patriotic movement. During the American Revolution, Bryan was captured by the British and imprisoned for two years. Upon his release, he found that his wife had died and his Georgia plantations were in ruin. After the war, he worked diligently to regain his wealth. In 1788, he died near Savannah. Five years later, the General Assembly named newly created Bryan County in his honor.



Because of the proximity of the Ogeechee River, rice became the primary cash crop of the local agricultural economy. Lower Bryan County was the locale of some of the most productive rice plantations of tidewater Georgia in the three decades before the Civil War. The larger operations were those managed by the area's leading slave owners. These included the several plantations of Thomas Savage Clay, the largest being Richmond-on-Ogeechee (formerly Dublin), later managed by his sister, Eliza Caroline Clay. The Clays also operated Tranquilla, Tivoli, and Piercefield, the latter three being largely devoted to the cultivation of provision crops and cotton.


Richmond-on-Ogeechee, probably built sometime after 1821 when Dublin plantation was purchased and renamed by the Clay family. Burned in December of 1864 during Sherman's March to the Sea.

Richard James Arnold of Providence, Rhode Island, had two large holdings, Cherry Hill (the rice tract adjacent to Richmond), and White Hall farther downriver. Arnold additionally held several smaller rice tracts, including Orange Grove, Mulberry, Sedgefield, and half of Silk Hope, all within the present town limits of Richmond Hill.


Cherry Hill, built in 1874 by William Elliott Arnold to replace the original plantation house burned in 1864.


Whitehall plantation house, built sometime in the early 19th century. Whitehall was the ancestral plantation of Louisa Caroline Gindrat, whose husband was Richard James Arnold. Arnold received the plantation as a wedding dowry from the Gindrat family. The house burned in 1914 after years of being uninhabited.

George Washington McAllister planted rice at Strathy Hall and cotton at Genesis Point. Strathy Hall was constructed circa 1840 by George W. McAllister who owned Strathy Hall Plantation, a large rice plantation on the Ogeechee River. Based on photographs, the house was much larger in the early 20th century, due to additions and alterations. Henry Ford removed the additions when he bought the property in the 1920s. The house is raised slightly on brick piers. The inside walls are plastered and have a concave molding. The floors are made of pine.


Strathy Hall.

The Maxwell family cultivated various holdings throughout Bryan Neck, chiefly in the vicinity of the Belfast River, and Charles W. Rogers was the section's largest cotton planter at Kilkenny Plantation on the lower end of the neck.


Kilkenny plantation house, built circa 1845 by Charles William Rogers. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


Cottenham plantation house, built sometime in the first half of the 19th century and owned by Charles William Rogers. Demolished in the 1930s.

Of these, Richard James Arnold was the most prominent. According to the U.S. agricultural census of 1860, he owned 11,000 acres in lower Bryan County, with 195 slaves cultivating the lower Ogeechee's largest rice yields supplemented by two other primary staples, sugar cane and Sea Island cotton. Arnold's rice crop in 1859 was listed as 665,000 pounds, by far the largest of the local planters.



Shipment of rice from the region was expedited by the completion of the Savannah–Ogeechee Canal in 1830.

Tangent Savannah–Ogeechee Canal - The completion of the Erie Canal in New York in 1825 marked the beginning of the American canal era, as the residents of virtually every state in the Union scrambled to begin canal projects. Savannah began developing a project to connect the Savannah, Ogeechee, and Altamaha rivers with a canal. This project would link Savannah's port with farmers in the developing interior regions drained by these respective rivers. With the state investigating the construction of a canal system, Savannah's boosters saw an opportunity for their project to become part of the state system. This in turn would make Savannah the terminus of the entire canal system.



As the momentum behind canal construction slowly grew, Savannah citizens requested that the state legislature hire an engineer to survey a canal route from the Savannah River west to the Ogeechee River and to report on the feasibility of canal construction across the route. When the legislature failed to act on the request, a private entrepreneur named Ebenezer Jencks undertook the project with the endorsement of city leaders.



By December 1824 Jencks had acquired a charter from the legislature that authorized not only the construction of a canal to the Ogeechee River but also an extension to the Altamaha River. Jencks then began corresponding with the father of the Erie Canal, Governor De Witt Clinton of New York. Encouraged by Clinton's enthusiasm, he hired the governor's son, De Witt Clinton Jr., to survey the proposed route.


This photograph captures the canal between 1888 and 1889, after it had been supplanted by railroads as the primary shipping method within the state.

With high hopes and much anticipation, work began on the Savannah, Ogeechee, and Altamaha Canal on May 15, 1826, as workers cleared the route from the Savannah River to the Ogeechee. By November slave laborers had begun excavating the sixteen-mile canal. At this point, however, the project hit a snag. As the Board of Public Works began surveying, it became apparent that the dreams of canal boosters conflicted with the state's geography. Virtually every route surveyed from the Piedmont northward to the Tennessee border was completely impractical for canal construction. As a result, the board recommended in fall 1826 that the state abandon its plans for canal construction and explore the use of railroads to satisfy the state's transportation needs.


The Central of Georgia Railway overpass in Savannah crosses the Savannah-Ogeechee Canal, shown around 1888. The bridge still exists in Savannah today.

Despite this turn of events, work continued on the Savannah canal project. But construction costs exceeded and it became clear that the second phase of the canal would never be built. In 1827 De Witt Clinton Jr. quit the project. Soon Ebenezer Jencks sold all of his interests as well, and the canal project continued under the supervision of the company's board of directors. In 1829 the Savannah and Ogeechee Canal was finally completed.



It was sixteen miles long, five feet deep, thirty-three feet wide on bottom, and forty-eight feet wide at the waterline, and it had three wooden locks. As a local transportation project the canal was vital to the development of Savannah's economy. Rice, bricks, cedar shingles, and other bulky items were brought by canal barges into the city for export. Ultimately, however, the railroad replaced this and other canals. They rocked for 25 years, paid for themselves.



The Savannah, Albany, and Gulf Railroad, built in 1856 to link Savannah with southwest Georgia, passed through Bryan Neck, traversing the rice fields of Richard Arnold and William J. Way. The station depot of the railroad was designated Ways Station, No. 1 1/2. A small settlement developed at Ways Station, the forerunner of Richmond Hill.



In 1861, in response to Union naval threats to the southern approaches of Savannah, Fort McAllister was built on the Ogeechee at Genesis Point, several miles southeast of Ways Station.



Tangent Fort McAllister was a Confederate earthwork fortification near the mouth of the Ogeechee River in Bryan County. The fort played an important role in the defense of Savannah during the Union navy blockade of the Georgia coast.



Built in 1861 at Genesis Point, the fort was constructed on the plantation of Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Longworth McAllister, for whom it was named. Fort McAllister provided protection from the U.S. Navy for the southern flank of Savannah, about fifteen miles to the north, during the Civil War (1861-65). It also afforded defense for the productive rice plantations of the lower Ogeechee River basin, and for the Savannah, Albany & Gulf Railroad Bridge, a key transportation link, farther upriver.



The earthworks were designed by military engineers to absorb considerable punishment from Union bombardment. The fort was built chiefly for defense against naval attacks, rather than against a landward assault. Fort McAllister had ten large-caliber guns and facilities for the heating of "red-hot shot," cannonballs that, when striking their targets, could set wooden warships ablaze. Named for a local family that had a nearby plantation and built by Confederate Capt. John McCrady, the engineer who designed the defenses of Savannah, Fort McAllister was a massive fort that was described by a Union officer as "a truly formidable work." It featured seven gun emplacements separated by large traverses; 10 other cannon; a 10-inch mortar located outside the fort; a center bombproof used as hospital, supply area, and bomb shelter when the fort was shelled; a barracks and officers quarters; and several powder magazines.



On January 27, 1863, the Montauk, the second monitor-class ironclad constructed by the Union, led a five-ship armada up the Ogeechee to within 1,500 yards of the fort, and opened fire with its big guns. Captain John Worden, who captained the original Monitor against the C.S.S. Virginia (or Merrimack) in the classic battle at Hampton Roads, Virginia, shot 61, 15-inch shells at the fort for five hours. They created huge craters in the ramparts but caused no damage of consequence and no casualties. Confederate guns scored 15 direct hits on the ironclad but did little more than make slight dents in her armor. That night at the fort, the Confederates sneaked out of their bombproof and filled the huge holes with sand, making it as good as new.


USS Montauk and her sister ships shell Fort McAllister

Frustrated, Worden and his men returned on February 1, 1863 to make another effort to destroy the fort. Their 48 strikes on the fort did little damage to the Confederate battery, but the commandant of the garrison, Major John B. Gallie, was killed while directing part of the defense. Located upstream was the Nashville, which had been converted into a raider and renamed Rattlesnake. On February 27, the ship came downriver to attempt to escape, but was forced to retire by the blockading Federal Navy. At Seven Mile Bend on the Ogeechee, she ran aground and could not be freed. The next morning, the Montauk navigated up the river and fired on the Rattlesnake, while two other Union vessels fired on Fort McAllister, which fired on the Montauk. The Rattlesnake caught fire and exploded, which shook windows 12 miles away in Savannah. Returning downstream later that day, the Montauk struck a mine, causing another explosion and damage to the Union gunboat. Several days later, the ironclad was unable to join the Federal squadron of nine vessels—three ironclads, three wooden gunboats, and three mortar schooners—that fired on the fort for seven hours in the heaviest bombardment the fort was ever to experience. At the conclusion, the commanding officer, Captain Percival Drayton, decided that no damage had been done that "a good night's work could not repair." The Union Navy retired, to leave the fort unmolested for 21 months.


Anchor from rattlesnake.



McAllister never fell to Union naval forces because of its unique earthen construction. This was in sharp contrast to the much larger and supposedly impregnable Fort Pulaski at nearby Cockspur Island, which fell after less than thirty-six hours of bombardment by Union forces using newly developed rifled artillery. (Rifling, or the addition of spiral grooves within a gun's barrel, made these weapons especially effective against Fort Pulaski's masonry fortifications.)



Elements of the right wing of Union general William T. Sherman's Army of the Tennessee crossed the Ogeechee River in early December 1864, near the end of its March to the Sea. Sherman's orders to Major General O. O. Howard were to capture Fort McAllister from the landward side, so that the Union army might be resupplied from navy transports anchored offshore. Reduction of Fort McAllister would also open the "back door" to Savannah for Sherman's forces.



On December 13, 1864, Hazen's 4,000-man division was deployed to storm the fort. Sherman and Howard climbed to an observation platform erected on top of an abandoned rice mill to observe the progress. In the surrounding woods Hazen formed his three brigades commanded respectively by Colonels Theodore Jones, Wells Jones and John M. Oliver. As the sun was setting, a Union Navy ship, USS Dandelion, steamed into view from Ossabaw Sound. Sherman signaled that the fort was still in enemy hands but would be theirs in a minute. Just then Hazen's men emerged from the woods and advanced towards the fort widely spaced apart to limit effectiveness of artillery. Confederate Major George Wayne Anderson commanded about 230 veteran troops in Fort McAllister. Hazen's troops charged through the abatis and buried torpedoes and soon reached the parapet and overwhelmed the defenders; the fort fell in 15 minutes.



Sherman was overjoyed with the victory and rowed down the Ogeechee to view the fort. That evening at Lebanon plantation, now serving as Gen. Hazen's Headquarters, Lt. Col Strong, General Sherman and Gen. Hazen had supper with Major George Wayne Anderson, Commander of the now defeated fortification who was confined there at Lebanon, in his childhood home. During this meeting, General Sherman expressed great frustration at Major Anderson having planting land mines along the land route into the fort, finding it a less-than gentlemanly tactic. General Sherman personally ordered Major Anderson to join the details of captured Confederates tasked with clearing these mines following the battle.



The day after the battle, Sherman rowed out to Dahlgren's flagship to greet the admiral. Sherman also had reason to be proud of the troops that had taken part in the victory at Fort McAllister. These were the same troops he personally led as a division commander at Shiloh and a corps commander at Vicksburg. With his supply line now open, Sherman could now prepare for the siege and capture of Savannah, a goal he would achieve by Christmas.



For the remainder of the war, Fort McAllister served as a prison for Confederate soldiers captured on the upper Georgia coast. After the war, the fort fell into ruin and remained so until the late 1930s, when it was restored as a historic site for the public through funding provided by Henry Ford, who owned the property at that time. Fort McAllister is now maintained by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources as a state historic park, with a museum, guided tours, and interpretive programming.



After the Civil War, emancipated African Americans on Bryan Neck began to purchase their own land from plantation owners. Amos Morel, the head slave for Richard J. Arnold, became the most prominent freedman of the section as well as the largest landowner. Blacks worked for wages at the revived Ogeechee River plantations, and the area prospered until hurricanes in the 1890s wiped out the rice industry in tidewater Georgia. Later many blacks found employment in the local lumber industry. In about 1904 the Hilton-Dodge Lumber Company of Darien opened a large sawmill and timber-exporting center at Belfast, near Ways Station. This activity continued until 1916.


Hilton Dodge Lumber Company lower bluff mill.

Our GNW gal today keeping in the Southern Belle theme. Added two for voting.



Tomorrow for Georgia Natural Wonder #37 - Bryan County Shore (Part 2). A big man floats up the Ogeechee River to Ways Station looking to build a rubber tree plantation.