So long as Fort Argyle was garrisoned, the ten freeholders who established their plantations in its vicinity strove to render their cultivation profitable: but, upon the withdrawal of the Rangers, eight of them removed, and within a short time all signs of industry disappeared.
The labors of the Scottish colonists at Joseph’s Town were prosecuted but a few years, and that settlement was quickly numbered among the failures which occurred on every hand.
Near fort St. Andrew on the north-east extremity of Cumberland island grew up the village of Barrimacké, which, about 1740, embraced some twenty-four families. When General Oglethorpe’s regiment was withdrawn from the southern frontier, this town speedily died, and for more than a century all traces of its former existence have been entirely wanting.
Similar is the history of the German village of gardeners and fishermen which stood near the southern end of the military road connecting Frederica with St. Simons.
Of the meagre and uneventful lives of Acton and Vernonburgh on Vernon river, of Goshen and Bethany near the Savannah, of Williamsburgh, and Fort Barrington on the Alatamaha, and of Queensbury on the Great Ogeechee, we feel scarce called upon to speak. Were we not dealing exclusively with the dead towns of Georgia, we might enumerate others which, in their moribund condition and present dilapidation, perpetuate little more than the names and sites which they at first received.
Of the more prominent plantations established at an early date we may mention those of Colonel Cochran, Captain Gascoin, and Lieutenant Horton on St. Simon’s island,—of Messrs. Carr and Carteret on the main,—of Sir Francis Bathurst, Walter Augustine, Robert Williams, Patrick Tailfer, Jacob Matthews, Mr. Cooksey, and Captain Watson on the Savannah river,—of Mr. Houstoun on the Little Ogeechee,—of the Messrs. Sterling on the Great Ogeechee river,—of Messrs. Noble Jones, Henry Parker, and John Fallowfield on the Isle of Hope,—of Oxtead, the settlement of Mr. Thomas Causton on Augustine creek,—of the Hermitage, the abode of Hugh Anderson,—of Mr. Thomas Christie,—of the twenty German families sent over by Count Zinzendorf,—of Mr. William Williamson,—of the Trustees, committed to the care of William Bradley,—of Mr. Thomas Jones,—and of president William Stephens at Bewlie. This last plantation consisted of a grant of five hundred acres at the mouth of Vernon river, and was confirmed by General Oglethorpe on the 19th of April, 1738. Of this place Mr. Stephens, on the 21st of March, 1739, writes as follows: “I was now called upon to give the Place a Name; and thereupon naturally revolving in my Thoughts divers Places in my native Country, to try if I could find any that had a Resemblance to this; I fancied that Bewlie, a Manor of his Grace the Duke of Montague in the New Forest, was not unlike it much as to its Situation; and being on the Skirts of that Forest, had Plenty of large Timber growing everywhere near; moreover a fine Arm of the Sea running close by, which parts the Isle of Wight from the main Land, and makes a beautiful Prospect; from all which Tradition tells us it took its Name and was antiently called Beaulieu, though now vulgarly Bewlie; only by leaving out the a in the first Syllable, and the u in the end of the last.”[273]
This is the true account of the original cession and naming of that attractive bluff rendered memorable in after years by the debarcation of Count D’Estaing on the 12th of September, 1779, and by the erection of formidable batteries for the protection of this approach to the city of Savannah during the Confederate struggle for independence.
These plantations, and others which might be enumerated, have, with a single exception, so far as our information extends, lost all traces of primal occupancy and passed into the ownership of strangers. We allude to the beautiful plantation of Wormsloe on the Isle of Hope. Of this interesting spot we have the following description penned by an intelligent visitor who made his observations in 1743. He was then, in an open boat, journeying towards Savannah from St. Catharine’s island, where a short season had been spent in the companionship of the friendly Indians who were dwellers there. “We arrived in somewhat more than two Days at the Narrows where there is a kind of Manchecolas Fort for their Defence, garrison’d from Wormsloe, where we soon arriv’d. It is the settlement of Mr. Jones 10 Miles S. E. of Savannah, and we could not help observing as we passed, several very pretty Plantations.