Georgia Natural Wonder #37 - Bryan County Shore (Part 2) - Henry Ford. 1,034

[Top Row Dawg]

Georgia Natural Wonder #37 - Bryan County Shore (Part 2) - Henry Ford

We did Part 1 of Bryan County yesterday covering the Colonial - Antebellum - Civil War history of Bryan County. Today we post about the main thing Bryan County is known for.  Henry Ford, the great American industrialist, first visited the Savannah area in 1917. In that year, Ford explored the Georgia coast and Ogeechee River by yacht with his close friend and famous naturalist, John Burroughs. By that time, Henry Ford was a household name for the great automobile dynasty he founded in Detroit, Michigan. He was also the world's first billionaire. On occasion, Henry Ford, John Burroughs, Harvey Firestone, and Thomas Edison subsequently took camping trips up the Ogeechee River and elsewhere.


Navy rented Henry Ford’s yacht for $1 per year during WW II. Patrolled Georgia coast.

Henry and Clara Ford had a winter home in Fort Myers, Florida. During the 1920s, however, they were tiring of it because of a lack of privacy. Henry and Clara Ford explored the Savannah and Ogeechee Rivers during a trip in 1925. The Fords discovered the ruins of the Richmond Plantation main house, burned by Sherman's Federal troops in 1864. The site was surrounded by giant live oaks on a picturesque bluff overlooking the river, Mrs. Ford decided she wanted to build a southern-style home in that exact spot. By that time, there was very little wealth in the area. It was only a poor agricultural community surrounding a railroad depot known as Ways Station.


Automotive magnate Henry Ford stands with his wife, Clara, at their Richmond Hill residence circa 1940. The Ogeechee River runs behind the trees shown on the right.

In 1936, Ford broke ground for a beautiful Greek revival style mansion on the banks of the Ogeechee River. The grand house, made of Savannah-gray brick, had marble steps, air conditioning and an elevator.



It sat on 55 acres of manicured lawns and flowering gardens.



The house became the center of social gatherings with visitations by Vanderbilts, Rockefellers and DuPonts. It remains the centerpiece of The Ford Plantation today.



Soon after their visit, Ford's agents purchased the tract containing Clara's building site and additional surrounding property. The property comprising the Ford's personal estate contained the acreage historically associated with the Richmond, Cherry Hill, and Silk Hope Plantations. Ford obtained options to buy many other larger tracts on the Ogeechee Neck. His agents tried to disguise Ford's identity, but word spread quickly that he was purchasing massive acreage in the Ways area. Newspaper articles soon appeared which demanded to know his intentions. Henry Ford was a complex man, and he had several reasons (besides privacy) for establishing himself on the Ogeechee Neck in lower Bryan County.


Front.

During the early 1920s, Henry Ford was distressed that the British, who controlled the world's rubber production, arbitrarily doubled its price. During a conversation with his close friend Harvey Firestone, the two industrialists decided to begin a research project to find a domestic source for rubber to break the British monopoly. They sought help from another mutual friend, Thomas Edison. Together, the three men organized the Edison Botanic Research Corporation in 1924 and set up an experimental laboratory and agricultural fields in Fort Myers, Florida. Ford established a similar complex near his home in Dearborn, Michigan and established a rubber tree farm in the Rio Tapajos region in Brazil. It was soon apparent to locals that Henry Ford must be establishing yet another "experimental farm" at Ways Station, Georgia. Ford's agents eventually purchased over 70,000 acres in and around Bryan County.


Rear.

Henry Ford was not a single-minded industrialist, however. He was a philanthropist and genuinely concerned with people's welfare. When Ford asked his agents what most local residents did for a living, they said "they make moonshine liquor". Ford stated that he intended to give them better employment opportunities. He established a sawmill at Ways Station and lumbering soon became the area's primary industry. The chief product of the mill was prefabricated tenant houses which were provided to employees at reduced costs. An associated carpenter shop also produced crates, wooden forms for concrete fence posts, caskets, furniture, kindergarten toys, and church pews. The carpenters even constructed Little Lulu, a 28' cabin cruiser powered by two Ford V-8 automobile engines.


Expansive horse farm on Ford estate. Caretaker homes in rear. Lots of wood structures.

Although Henry Ford had only completed the sixth grade, he strongly valued education. On his arrival in Bryan County, Ford immediately provided funds to local schools and announced his intention to establish a boys trade school at Ways Station. He also ordered construction of a consolidated school for whites which provided a standard high school education, and an equivalent George Washington Carver School for blacks.


Henry Ford (top row, second from left), who made Richmond Hill his winter residence during the 1930s and 1940s, poses with students from the George Washington Carver School around 1940. Ford built the school for African Americans as part of his effort to improve educational opportunities for Richmond Hill residents.

Malaria was rampant in the region and the population suffered from abnormally high cases of typhoid fever, syphilis, smallpox, diphtheria, and hookworm. Ford supported the Ways Station Health Clinic; he assumed control of it in 1935 and tripled its capacity. Citizens received treatment and medication at no expense. Doctors told Ford that sanitation was one of the root causes for the area's poor health. He purchased cement-enclosed "sanitary" privies specified by the county and provided them to every family free of charge. For Henry Ford, these philanthropic enterprises provided a challenging hobby and intense personal satisfaction.


Ford lived a different lifestyle at Richmond Hill.

While at Ways Station, the Fords resided at the Cherry Hill House, the residence originally constructed by Thomas Arnold in the 1870s. This house was adjacent to Clara's "dream house" site on the Richmond bluff. Planning began on Henry and Clara's "Southern style" residence in 1935 and it was finally completed in 1937. The Cherry Hill residence became a guest house. Ford converted an old rice mill into a personal research laboratory and a powerhouse. They named their new winter estate Richmond Hill Plantation.



Of course, "Richmond" was the historic plantation name of their building site. When asked about the "Hill" part of his estate's name Ford commented "Anything not a swamp around here is named a hill". Although Henry Ford is often quoted as saying "history is bunk," it is clear he was interested in the area's history. He purchased and paid for restoration of nearby Fort McAllister, he likewise had a number of old plantation and former slave houses restored, and he commissioned a written history of Bryan County plantations on the Ogeechee Neck.


Cherry Hill today.

In 1937, Ford hired one of Edison's chief chemists at Fort Myers, H.K. Ukkelberg, to supervise the farm crops and to direct a newly constructed research laboratory at Richmond Hill. Rubber experiments were no longer a priority since synthetic rubber seemed the most viable alternative to breaking the British monopoly. Instead, Ford instructed Ukkelberg "to find new crops or better varieties of old crops grown in this section, and to develop new uses for these crops and for available waste materials".


Henry and Clara putting around in an early Ford at Richmond Hill.

Some of the most notable projects included extraction of starch from sweet potatoes and water chestnuts, soybean yield experimentation, and the use of slag as a soil conditioner. Many oil producing plants such as tung trees, perilla, chia, castor beans, and abutilon were planted and tested. Alcohol was distilled from rice and sweet potatoes and mixed with gasoline for use as fuel. The old rice dikes were restored and the fields were used for experimental acreages of English peas, carrots, mustard, turnips, beets, broccoli, rutabagas, onions, cabbage, Irish potatoes, okra, cucumbers, cotton and other crops. The most favorable results on the old rice fields were made with Iceberg lettuce. It was found to have "a particularly better flavor" than lettuce grown on uplands, and it made a better profit than other crops.



Specialized lettuce packing sheds were constructed adjacent to the marshes and the crop was grown commercially.

Sterling Creek lettuce shed.





Cherry Hill lettuce shed.





He improved roads and other infrastructure, and generally brought Ways Station into the twentieth century. Ford was also responsible for the construction of a number of public buildings, including a kindergarten, which now houses the museum of the Richmond Hill Historical Society, and a chapel which now houses St. Anne's Catholic Church. Both are located on Georgia S.R. 144, also known as Ford Avenue within the Richmond Hill city limits.


St. Anne church today.

In 1941, local citizens voted to change the name of Ways Station to Richmond Hill to honor Ford. This was not a good year for the community however. The Richmond Hill laboratory (not to be confused with Ford's personal laboratory/powerhouse) burned later that year and was not rebuilt. Most of the research projects were abandoned. By then, World War II had diverted Henry Ford's attention. The U.S. Army obtained several hundred acres for the establishment of an anti-aircraft gun training facility, Camp Stewart, and the Coast Guard even requisitioned Little Lulu for patrol duty. Henry probably did not notice these changes, however. He spent much of his time in Detroit overseeing the production of aircraft, tanks, trucks, jeeps, landing craft, and all the items necessary for a full-scale war. Henry Ford suffered a stroke in early 1945 and he gave control of the Ford Motor Company to his grandson, Henry Ford II. Mrs. Ford assumed direction of the Richmond Hill operations.


He built the Richmond Hill Community House in 1936.

By all accounts, the spirit at Richmond Hill changed markedly after Henry's stroke. In late 1945, Clara ordered a confidential assessment of the operations and ordered nonprofitable projects closed down. Many philanthropic donations ceased, and even the expense for upkeeping Fort McAllister and several small cemeteries on the estate were questioned. The trade school and girls school were closed in 1946 and costs in general were drastically reduced. Henry Ford died in April 1947, and he willed the Richmond Hill property (with the exception of Clara's house and grounds) to the Ford Foundation. He had invested $4,267,000 for the Richmond Hill property which was appraised at $3,000,000. According to tax returns, he had lost $3,525,600 on operations and contributed $429,235 for education.


Ford on steps of his winter house at Richmond Hills Plantation.

Except for the sawmill, all of the Richmond Hill operations were gradually closed down and sold. Clara died in September 1950 and the Richmond furnishings were removed to Dearborn and auctioned. The most profitable enterprise, the sawmill, burned on May 11, 1951. The Ford Foundation announced a complete discontinuance of operations on September 6, 1951. School properties were transferred to the Bryan County Board of Education. The rest of the Richmond Hill property was sold, most of it to the Southern Kraft Timberland Corporation and the International Paper Company.Richmond Hill was incorporated in 1962, and it remained a quiet rural community until about 1980, when the building of interstate highways in the area and the influx of Chatham County residents into lower Bryan spurred rapid growth. Ford's holdings eventually totaled 85,000 acres of agricultural and timber lands, most of which is now owned by the State of Georgia or ITT Rayonier, a timber company.



The Ford Plantation has now been redeveloped as a luxury resort, with vacation cottages, a clubhouse, tennis, and golf. After Clara Ford's death, the Ford mansion remained unused for almost a decade. In 1959, the house and 1200 acres was sold to a New Hampshire industrialist. The property changed hands several times over the next two decades with various schemes to utilize the impressive estate. In 1978, the mansion was used as a restaurant, but failed after only one year of operation. The condition of the Ford House deteriorated to a point around 1980 when became dilapidated and it was used only to store hay.





The house was rehabilitated in 1981 when a Saudi Arabian entrepreneur, Ghaith R. Pharaon, purchased the estate. Like others associated with this tract, Pharaon is an interesting individual. He was educated in France and Lebanon in his younger years, while his university education was in the United States with degrees from the Colorado School of Mines, Stanford University, and an MBA from Harvard. Pharaon owned homes in Paris, London, Jeddah, Hong Kong, Borneo, Cannes, and a castle in the Dordogne at Montfort, France. He purchased the Richmond Hill estate and converted the Ford House into his residence. He also remodeled Ford's old powerhouse/laboratory into offices for InterRedec, the corporation which controlled his business interests in the United States



Pharaon caused many changes to the Ford estate in the 1980s. He rehabilitated the Ford House and Laboratory, constructed a new garage building near the mansion, moved and rebuilt the Cherry Hill House, and expanded Ford's yacht basin into a marina which could accommodate larger vessels.



He made significant changes to the estate's landscape, including the addition of numerous plantings. Pharaon ordered roads constructed and paved; he also modified the original Ford house entrance into a formal drive, complete with iron fences salvaged from New Orleans. Other modifications included placement of numerous statues and concrete balustrade fences, and construction of a swimming pool.


No house allowed, larger than the Ford House.


Weddings among the Dublin Oaks.

The most significant alteration to the estate grounds was the construction of a world class golf course designed by renown golf course architects, Pete and P.B. Dye. Although Pharaon did not play golf, he told the Dyes to "Give me a truly inspirational golfing experience that may encourage me to take up golf some day". More than half of the 509 acre Sterling Bluff Golf Course was constructed on the old Cherry Hill rice fields, which were filled in for the purpose. The Sterling Bluff Golf Course was named one of the "Top 100 Golf Courses in 1988 by Golf Digest Magazine.


Sterling Bluff golf course.

TRD Addendum to original post.

In looking at my map of Bryan County I see that we overlooked the northern half. We didn't even mention the county seat of Pembroke.


Bryan County Courthouse.

Pembroke was founded in 1892 as a railroad town and turpentine shipping center. It was named after early resident Pembroke Whitfield Williams. It was incorporated in 1905.The Bryan County seat was voted to be moved from Clyde to Pembroke in 1935, with the first County Commissioners session in Pembroke taking place on February 15, 1937.


Downtown Pembroke.



On June 16, 1962, Police Chief Waldo E. Jones was killed in an auto accident while attempting to apprehend three alleged intoxicated subjects travelling on Highway 67.


Jones

Pembroke was the birthplace of jazz musician Jabbo Smith.


Smith

Keller is a small unincorporated community located in southern Bryan County, east of Richmond Hill. Its boundaries are ill-defined, but the community could be said to be centered on the intersection of S.R. 144 and Belfast-Keller Road. Currently the area, like most of South Bryan, is an unincorporated community of extensive residential development with a number of planned neighborhoods. It is near Fort McAllister. 


Keller Flea Market has a Big Cow out front.

Bryan Neck Presbyterian Church, established in 1839 and rebuilt in 1885, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is located on Belfast-Keller Road about a mile from the S.R. 144 intersection. A number of antebellum plantation houses or sites exist along the marshes and waterfront areas of extreme south Bryan County, though none are in public hands or are preserved as historic sites.



Ellabell is a haven for outdoor recreation. Tee off at Black Creek Golf Club or canoe the cool waters of the Ogeechee River.


Vanishing Ellabell.

Glen Echo is an historic plantation house near Ellabell, Georgia, United States. The house was built circa 1773 and is an early example of Plantation Plain style. Records show that the land of Glen Echo Plantation was granted in the colonial era through a king's grant to a member of the Bird family. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.


Glen Echo today.

Notable People Ellabell.

Mattie Belle Davis, first woman judge of Metropolitan Court of Dade County, Florida and first woman in Florida elected to the American Bar Foundation, the second woman to be elected in the US. A street in Ellabell is named in her honor.


Judge Mattie

Justin Smiley, Former NFL Player


Roll Tide Justin

Clyde is an extinct town in Bryan County. Clyde once held the county seat of Bryan County. The community was named after Field Marshal Colin Campbell, 1st Baron Clyde (1792–1863), a Scottish soldier. A variant name was "Eden". A post office called Clyde was established in 1887, and remained in operation until 1941.


Jesus what a tangent link Clyde has above.

Hardly anything found on Blitchton or Groveland so nothing to report there. Black Creek is the location of the arms manufacturer Daniel Defense.


Cindy Daniel, Executive Vice President of Daniel Defense with  Georgia Governor Nathan Deal.

That about covers the history and towns of Bryan County, but this is a Natural Wonder Forum so before we finish this post today, let’s see what the Sherpa Guides say about Bryan County.

Richmond Hill Fish Hatchery

Established by the automobile magnate Henry Ford and the state of Georgia in 1938, this facility raises more than 30 million fish of all species and sizes each year. Open to tour, children are often fascinated by the hatchery's operations, which have a tremendous impact on the state's native fisheries. Fish produced here are stocked in reservoirs, lakes, and streams all around the state. The hatchery is also working on saving the rare robust redhorse, a sucker that was believed to be extinct only to be found a few years ago in the Oconee River.


Male striped bass.

With 41 ponds (21 acres of water on 87 acres), the hatchery annually produces approximately 1.2 million bluegill and 250,000 redear sunfish, 100,000 largemouth bass, and 120,000 channel catfish fingerlings for stocking private ponds and public lakes. More than 20 million striped and hybrid bass fry are artificially propagated each spring from wild broodstock collected from inland reservoir populations. Roughly 1.4 million striped and hybrid bass fingerlings are reared for inland reservoir stockings, and 50,000 intermediate size striped bass—8 to 10 inches long—are produced for restoration of the Savannah River population. Popular fishing rodeos, called Kids Fishing Events, are held each year at three ponds that hold channel catfish.



Ford donated the original land for the Richmond Hill Fish Hatchery to the State of Georgia in 1936 with the express purpose of establishing a fish hatchery. The first fish spawned in the hatchery were American shad, which were to be used to stock the Ogeechee River. Civilian Conservation Corps workers performed initial construction under the direction of J.O. Bacon, and in 1938, the hatchery was opened and operated by the Georgia Game and Fish Division. The hatchery has been renovated and expanded several times since then.





Hatcheries around Georgia perform important restoration work for fish species threatened with extinction. The Richmond Hill Hatchery perhaps represents the last, best hope for a very rare species of fish, the robust redhorse (Moxostoma robustum). This large fish, growing to 30 inches long and 17 pounds, was a plentiful and easily captured source of food for Indians in Georgia and the Carolinas, according to archeologists. With a delicious, white flesh and a predictable migratory behavior, the robust redhorse was to southeastern Indians what salmon was to Indians of the Pacific coast: a dependable food source. Plentiful in Piedmont and Upper Coastal Plain rivers of Georgia and the Carolinas, vast numbers of large fish would migrate in April and May to shallow gravel bars to reproduce—so shallow that their backs would be exposed and easy for Indians to spear.


Kids fishing event.

In 1870, the great naturalist Edward Drinker Cope captured a robust redhorse and wrote a brief, two-paragraph description of the fish. He sent it to be held in a natural history collection but the specimen was lost. More than 122 years would go by before anyone was to again capture the fish, realize what it was, and describe it for science. Since Cope's time, the Piedmont and Upper Coastal Plain rivers have gone through tremendous changes from damming, siltation, and pollution. Robust redhorses suffered as a result, along with the effects of loss of suitable nesting habitat, the extirpation and extinction of their favorite food (mussels), and predation by introduced species such as flathead catfish. How much Georgia's rivers have changed is not widely understood by the public. When geologist Sir Charles Lyell wrote about the Altamaha River in 1845, he emphasized how clear it was, which is hard to believe today if one has spent any time on that magnificent, muddy river.


Robust Redhorse

In 1991, five large robust redhorses were collected from the Oconee River by fishery biologist Jimmy Evans and technician Wayne Clark of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The fish were unlike any species known to occur in that river and they were shipped to fisheries experts for further study. Dr. Byron Freeman of the University of Georgia eventually recognized that this fish was the same described by Cope many years ago. Some of these reproducing fish have been captured, and thanks to fishery science and a grant from Georgia Power, propagation techniques were developed which eventually produced 8- to 10-inch juveniles. These fish were released into the Broad River to see if they could survive. Only time will tell if the robust redhorse will recover, or be lost again, this time forever.

Richmond Hill Historic Society and Museum, Richmond Hill City Recreation Area

This museum is dedicated to the history of the Richmond Hill and south Bryan County area. Exhibits cover the plantation, Revolutionary War, Civil War, and Henry Ford eras. Georgia's first royal governor, John Reynolds, tried to move the state capital from Savannah to a nearby site on the Ogeechee River, which he wanted to name Hardwicke. He preferred the Ogeechee River because compared with Savannah, the river at that time had a deeper channel, had a less lofty bluff, was more centrally located on the coast of Georgia, and was located farther away from the rival port of Charleston. He wrote that Hardwicke "has a charming situation, the winding of the river making it a peninsula; and it the only fit place for the capital." His plan was thwarted due to a lack of funds.



Having more influence on the area was Henry Ford, who found refuge in the area from the pressures of his automobile enterprise. Ford purchased 85,000 acres and built 292 residential and commercial buildings, including churches, schools, commissary, medical facilities, Richmond Hill Fish Hatchery, and his winter home, Richmond Plantation.



Located on GA 144 behind the Richmond Hill City Hall is the Richmond Hill City Recreation Area, a new 335-acre park that is a charter member of the Colonial Coast Birding Trail. Opened in the summer of 1999, the park borders Gill's Canal and features 300 acres of wetlands, a 5-acre lake, and 35 acres of park uplands. A network of trails are found at the park, including the 3-mile birding trail that borders the wetlands.


Gil's Canal.

Richmond Hill Wildlife Management Area

Approximately 3,720 acres in Bryan County are open to hunting for deer, turkey, small game, foxes, bobcats, raccoons, opossums, and doves. The property is west of Kilkenny Creek and east of GA 144, located west of Ossabaw Island.







Uncle John Dawg Addendum

Gregg Allman's home his last 15 years was Richmond Hill. Beautiful place on the water.





Wow, Bryan County. We thought we would only cover the barrier islands but this history and mainland coast provides so much information. I hope you guys are enjoying this; I know it has opened a whole door of Georgia for me. Back to the mountains tomorrow for a post that hopefully won’t take 5 or 6 hours to do. Ford Model T. - Georgia Natural Wonder Gal for today.