Hawkins-Davison Houses, Frederica, St. Simons Island, Georgia

by Margaret Davis Cate; Charles H. Fairbanks

This old Town of Frederica was a thriving community in its day. The streets were lined with houses, some built of brick, some of tabby, and others of wood. John and Charles Wesley, founders of Methodism, who came to Georgia in 1736 as missionaries of the Church of England, were in charge of religious affairs. The town government consisted of a magistrate, recorder, constables, and tythingmen. There were two taverns, an apothecary shop, and numerous other shops and stores. The trades and professions were represented by the hatter, tailor, dyer, weaver, tanner, shoemaker, cordwainer, saddler, sawyer, woodcutter, carpenter, coachmaker, bricklayer, pilot, surveyor, accountant, baker, brewer, tallow candler, cooper, blacksmith, locksmith, brazier, miller, millwright, wheelwright, husbandman, doctor, surgeon, midwife, Oglethorpe’s secretary, Keeper of the King’s Stores, and officers of Oglethorpe’s Regiment. Frederica was a barracks town, so that its business life was dependent on the money brought in by the soldiers of the Regiment.

After the British victory at Bloody Marsh and the defeat of the enemy in the Spanish Invasion of 1742 (War of Jenkins’ Ear), peace was made with Spain by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748; and the regiment of British soldiers was disbanded the following year.

Having gloriously achieved the purpose for which it was built, Frederica now became a “Dead Town.” Gone were the soldiers who had given it life, followed by the tradesmen and other settlers. The houses fell into decay, brick and tabby walls tumbled, and fire took its toll. Much of the old brick and tabby was hauled away and used in structures erected during the plantation era and, in time, no evidence remained on the surface to show that these houses had ever existed. Other families came, built their houses on these sites, and for generations lived within the confines of the old town.

Of the several buildings Oglethorpe had erected within Fort Frederica the ruin of only one remained and this was situated on the property of Mrs. Belle Stevens Taylor. In 1903, Mrs. Taylor, through her friendship for Mrs. Georgia Page Wilder, President of the Georgia Society of the Colonial Dames of America, gave to this Society the plot of ground on which stood this ruin, which the Colonial Dames repaired and saved for posterity.

Map of Frederica made in 1796 by Joshua Miller, Deputy Surveyor, Glynn County, Georgia. Original in Georgia Department of Archives and History, Atlanta

Four decades later, under the leadership of the late Judge and Mrs. S. Price Gilbert of Atlanta and Alfred W. Jones of Sea Island, the Fort Frederica Association raised the funds necessary for acquiring the lands occupied by the old fort and town. In 1945 the property thus acquired was taken over by the National Park Service and is now known as the Fort Frederica National Monument.

Little was known about the lay-out of Frederica. Twenty-five years ago the only published map which gave information about the pattern of the town was that which forms the frontispiece for the chapter on “Frederica” in Dead Towns of Georgia by Charles C. Jones, Jr.[2] Though this map gave the plan of the old town, it was too small to be of any value.

The only maps available which gave any detailed information about the fort and the town were those made in 1796 by Joshua Miller, Deputy Surveyor of Glynn County, Georgia. These were made by order of the General Assembly of Georgia, which named Commissioners for the Town of Frederica, directing them to have a resurvey made to lay out the town “as nearly as possible to the original plan thereof....”[3] One was a detailed map of the Town of Frederica, showing the lay-out of the town, with the streets, wards and lots, together with the number of each lot. Then, for the first time was it possible to locate the exact lot on which any particular settler had lived.[4]

In 1952 original manuscript maps of Fort Frederica and the Town of Frederica, dated 1736, were found in the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, Providence, R. I. The legend states that these maps were made “by a Swiss engineer,” whom the author has identified as Samuel Augspourger, a native of Switzerland, who was surveyor at Frederica in 1736.[5] The Augspourger map of Fort Frederica is most valuable, giving information about the fort, parapets, palisades, moat, and other details which had hitherto been unknown. However, Augspourger’s map of the Town of Frederica gave no information as to the lot numbers, names of streets, and other details which were desired.