Resurveyed, in 1853 by William Hughes. County Surveyor of Liberty County. Georgia.
J. Bien, Photo. Lith. N. Y.
During his tour of inspection in 1755, Governor Reynolds was so much pleased with the natural advantages of the Great Ogeechee river, that he selected a bluff upon its right bank, some fourteen miles from the sea, as a location for a new town, which, in honor of his relative the Lord High Chancellor of England, he named Hardwick.
In his letter to the Board of Trade he says: “Hardwicke has a charming situation, the winding of the river making it a peninsula; and it is the only fit place for the capital.[235] There are many objections to this town of Savannah being so, besides its being situated at the extremity of the province, the shoalness of the river, and the great height of the land, which is very inconvenient in the loading and unloading of ships. Many lots have already been granted in Hardwicke, but only one house is yet built there; and as the province is unable to be at the expence of erecting the necessary public buildings, and the annual sum of £500 allowed for erecting and repairing public works, entertaining Indians, and other incidental expenses being insufficient for all those purposes, I am in hopes your Lordships will think proper to get a sufficient sum allowed for erecting a Court-House, an Assembly-House, a Church, and a Prison at Hardwick; which will be such an encouragement to private people to build there as will soon make it fit for the seat of government to the universal benefit of the province.”[236]
Upon the agitation of this project to transfer the capital of the colony from Savannah to the Great Ogeechee,[237] twenty-seven lots were quickly taken up in the town of Hardwick, and twenty-one thousand acres of land in its vicinity were granted to various parties who favored and promised to develop the enterprize. DeBrahm proposed that the place should be fortified by the erection of three polygons, six hundred feet each, and three detached bastions, to be armed with twenty-five cannon; and suggested a garrison of one hundred and fifty men.[238]
The Home Government neglecting to furnish the necessary funds, and Governor Reynolds being without the means requisite to compass the contemplated change, his scheme of transferring the seat of government to Hardwick was never consummated, and the town, deprived of its anticipated dignity and importance, developed simply into a little trading village adapted to the convenience of the few who there located and cultivated lands in the vicinity.[239]
By DeBrahm[240] it was reckoned among the five sea-port towns of the province. Although for many years a port of entry, its commerce was wholly domestic and coastwise, being chiefly confined to the conveyance of the products of the region, in small vessels, to Savannah, and the transportation, in return, of such articles and supplies as were needed by the planters.
By the act of the 15th of March, 1758,[241] dividing Georgia into eight parishes, “the town of Hardwick and district of Ogechee on the south side of the river Great Ogechee, extending north west up the said river as far as the lower Indian trading path leading from Mount Pleasant, and southward from the town of Hardwick as far as the swamp of James Dunham, including the settlements on the north side of the north branches of the river Midway, with the islands of Ossabaw, and from the head of the said Dunham’s swamp in a north west line,” were declared a parish by the name of St. Philip.
In 1786[242] regulations were prescribed for the inspection of Tobacco at a warehouse to be erected at Hardwick.
By an Act, assented to on the 19th of December, 1793,[243] a new County was laid off from Chatham, and, in honor of a venerable patriot,[244] was called Bryan.