Fort King George

Fort King George , a mile east of present-day Darien, was the first English settlement of coastal Georgia. The fort was established to deter French expansion into the Altamaha region, as well as to assert British claims against the Spanish who had maintained a string of missions along the lower south Atlantic coast in the previous century. Fort King George served as a "trip-wire." An attack by either France or Spain against the lonely outpost would represent an act of war against England.

The Georgia colony, when Fort King George was established in 1721, was a dozen years from its birth. South Carolina claimed the coast down to 29 degrees north latitude, just south of the Spanish stronghold of St. Augustine.

South Carolinians also wanted a fort to the south to aid in the protection of their colony. A site was chosen on the first high ground on the north branch of the Altamaha but, instead of strong young fighting men to garrison the fort, the British government sent a regiment of invalid soldiers instead.

Colonel John Barnwell, an Irish settler who lobbied hard for the fort on behalf of South Carolina interests, was appointed to lead the expedition to the Altamaha and build the outpost he called "King George's Fort."

Utlilizing South Carolina rangers and sawyers, including some slaves, Barnwell oversaw the construction of a three-story cypress blockhouse in the fall of 1721 at a total cost of about 1,000 pounds sterling. South Carolinians, who regarded the Savannah River as the practical southern boundary of their colony, now had some security with Fort King George established 65 miles south of that river.

Barnwell had chosen the site well from a military standpoint, but it was not a healthy area, even by 18th century standards. In those days, the only way to preserve meat was to thoroughly salt it. Salt meat tended to rot in hot, damp weather, and nothing was known of the need for fresh fruits and vegetables in the diet. Thus, the men were often sick. Fort King George had a high death rate and burial ground just west of the blockhouse attests to this. The garrison was largely idle as there was little action against the French or Spanish, or their Indian allies.

A fire in 1725 and a haphazard reconstruction of the barracks afterwards left the fort in poor condition, and the garrison was withdrawn in 1727. Two South Carolina rangers were kept on station at the site to keep an eye on enemy movements in the area until 1734. Two years later, Oglethorpe's Highlanders arrived to establish another military outpost on the site.

The fate of the original Fort King George blockhouse is unknown. Since Barnwell designed it to be easily dismantled, it might well have been moved to another location.

In 1988, through a cooperative effort between the Lower Altamaha Historical Society, which raised $50,000, and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which maintains the site and provided matching funds, the Fort King George blockhouse was reconstructed to the specifications of the original plans by Barnwell. The present blockhouse and surrounding palisades, earthworks and moat are almost an exact duplicate of the Fort as it was in 1721 when Barnwell built it.

The blockhouse, typical of other frontier fortifications in use in colonial America, dominated the fort and offered expansive views of the inland waterways. Fort King George's blockhouse had three floors: the first two floors to serve as repository for ammunition and stores and to provide firing positions for musket-bearing soldiers as well as naval carriage-type cannon; and a third floor for musket defense and observation purposes.

The Scots Highlanders Settle Darien

General James Edward Oglethorpe founded the new Georgia colony at Savannah on February 12, 1733. He soon realized the need for military outposts to the south to protect the main settlement at Savannah. The purpose of the Georgia colony was largely military at first (as well as philanthropic). Thus, Oglethorpe decided upon an outpost on the former site of Fort King George on the Altamaha and a more elaborate fortification on St. Simons Island, a short distance south of the Altamaha.

In October 1735, a band of Highland Scots recruited from the vicinity of Inverness, Scotland by Hugh Mackay and George Dunbar sailed from Inverness on the Prince of Wales . In early January 1736, they arrived at Savannah and, on Oglethorpe's orders, began making plans for settling at the mouth of the Altamaha.

On the 19th of January, after traveling down the inland waterway by boat, the Highlanders landed at Barnwell's Bluff on the site of Fort King George. There the Scots established the settlement they called Darien, in memory of the ill-fated expedition made by their countrymen to the Isthmus of Darien in Panama in 1697. There were 177 people in this hardy band of Scots, including women and children, and they were led by John McIntosh Mohr and Hugh Mackay.

The men were trained Highland warriors, among the world's finest fighting soldiers and especially selected by Oglethorpe for the purpose he had in mind. The Highlanders emplaced cannon on the earthworks of Fort King George; huts were built for the soldiers and those who had brought their families. A small kirk was built for the purpose of holding divine services. The Scots had brought their own minister, Rev. John McLeod of the Isle of Skye, recently ordained by the Prebyterian congregation in Georgia.

Captain Dunbar wrote to the Georgia Trustees: "The Scots have settled at Barnwell's Bluff on the Altamaha and desire their town shall be called Darien.

On February 22, 1736, Oglethorpe made his first visit to Darien. The occasion marked the first military parade of British troops to be held in Georgia. In their honor, Oglethorpe wore the Highland habit. As they marched in review before him, the Highlanders made an impressive sight in full regalia, with claymore, side arms and targes (shields).

In the summer of 1736, Oglethorpe again visited and on this occasion he laid out the town of Darien on a high bluff overlooking the river about one mile west of the Barnwell Bluff outpost. Here, Fort Darien was to be built; a town was surveyed and town squares laid out with commons on the east and north and acreage lots to the west of Fort King George.

Late in 1739, the District of Darien was laid out, comprising an area approximating that of present-day McIntosh County. For a time, the town of Darien was called New Inverness to distinguish it from the District.

The Birth of McIntosh County

After the Revolution, St. Andrew's Parish became a part of Liberty County which had been created in 1777.

In 1793, McIntosh County was formed from Liberty, and the seat of government was established at Sapelo Bridge. A courthouse was set up in the home of John McIntosh, a parade ground was laid out for the local militia, and the little town became a stopover point on the state route between Savannah, Darien and St. Marys.

After 1806, Darien began to experience rapid growth due to its favorable position at the mouth of the Altamaha River, which gave the town great potential as a port of export.

The Altamaha was a primary conveyor from the Georgia interior. Great barges and so-called "Oconee boxes" of cotton from the upcountry plantations were floated down the Altamaha to Darien for shipment to northern and European markets. By 1819, regular steamboat service had been established between Darien and Milledgeville. Darien was becoming a cotton-exporting center of significance, rivaling Savannah in importance.

Darien as a Great Port

In 1816, Darien was incorporated, and the seat of county government was moved there from Sapelo Bridge two years later. A local newspaper, the Darien Gazette , was established, and, early in 1819, the Bank of Darien opened for business.

The bank began with a capital stock of $1 million. Half owned by the State of Georgia, the bank's first Board of Directors included some of McIntosh County's most prominent citizens: Thomas Spalding, John McIntosh, Scott Cray, James Troup and James Dunwody. Representing the stockholders on the Board were Calvin Baker, Barrington King, John Kell, Henry Harford and Jonathan Sawyer. Spalding served as the bank's first president, from 1819 to 1826, after which Anson Kimberly, then James Troup, served a president. Ebenezer S. Rees was cashier.

The deposits of Federal funds in the Bank of Darien in the 1820s reached huge proportions, later peaking at $1.6 million in 1836, when Darien was at the height of its commercial prosperity. The bank had branches in the Georgia cities of Savannah, Augusta, Milledgeville, Macon, Marion and the gold mining towns of Auraria and Dahlonega. The bank was a major backer of the gold fields of North Carolina and north Georgia in the late 1820s and early 1830s.

The Rice Plantations

Near the coast, the fresh-water rivers, such as the Altamaha, are affected by the rise and fall of the tides from the Atlantic Ocean to about thirty miles inland. This setting made possible the utilization of the flushing effects of fresh and salt water tides for systematic, irrigation purposes, which are necessary for the cultivation of rice. The great watershed of the Altamaha delta between Darien and Glynn County's northern sections made possible the development of prosperous rice plantations.

The peak of the rice industry in McIntosh County was reached in the decade of the 1850s. The local plantations along the Altamaha River branches and Cathead Creek west of Darien accounted for the bulk of the rice being exported from Georgia during the antebellum period.

The rice fields on these plantations averaged in size from 300-600 acres; in the peak decade of the 1850s, there were about 2,800 slaves being utilized by the Altamaha valley rice planters. Pierce Butler and P.M. Nightingale, the two biggest planters in terms of volume, sometimes had yields of more than one million pounds of rice per year between 1850 and 1860. Butler, at one time, had 505 slaves on Butler's Island.

The Tidewater Plantations

The United States census of 1850 lists a total of 117 plantations and farms in McIntosh County, some of them owned by a group of men who were among the wealthiest planters in Georgia. For the period prior to the War Between the States, McIntosh was one of the most productive agricultural regions of the state - a far cry from the present day when there is little or no agricultural activity on a commercial scale in the county.

Plantation Life

In the antebellum plantation days of McIntosh County, many of the local plantations had fleets of small boats with which communication was made between each other. Prior to the Civil War, crew racing became the most popular sporting event of the region. The plantation owners entered their boats in annual regattas for prices running as high as $10,000.

The racing boats were usually constructed of seasoned cypress logs, hulled out in the form of shells. They were from 25-to-50 feet long with 12-foot oars mounted in outboard riggers. As the Negro oarsmen pulled with a quick motion, they chanted songs which enabled them to keep together; the chanteys were as much a part of the races as the rowing itself. The master of the plantation usually served as coxswain.

Darien's Decline

During the first few years of the 1830s, Darien reached the peak of her commercial greatness. Exports of baled cotton from Darien were exceeded only by the ports of Charleston and Savannah. Darien's waterfront was fully developed at this time, and ships crowded the Darien River and Doboy Sound harbors, awaiting cargoes of cotton, rice and lumber.

But the prosperity did not last. The downfall of Darien as a great cotton port was brought about by two factors: The national Panic of 1837 and the development of railroads in Georgia, all of which bypassed Darien. By the early 1840s, most of the cotton from Georgia's interior was being shipped by rail to Savannah for export.

In 1841, the Bank of Darien's charter was denied renewal by the state legislature and by 1842, the doors of the bank had closed forever. With the closure of the bank and the declining shipments of cotton down the Altamaha, Darien's economic fortunes began a gradual downturn.

In 1847, Reuben King, in correspondence with a friend, wrote: "The City of Darien has become a very poor place. Lots improved or unimproved are valueless...No prospects for the future can be seen.

Sapelo Island and Thomas Spalding

Sapelo, McIntosh County's barrier island off the coast, fronting on the Atlantic Ocean and bounded on its west by marshes and a network of tidal rivers and creeks, has a history as interesting and as diverse as that of the mainland.

In 1790, a syndicate of Frenchmen fleeing the Revolution in their homeland acquired ownership of Sapelo Island. These men embarked upon a series of events and misadventures which make for perhaps the most interesting, certainly the most intriguing, period in the history of the island.

Lewis Harrington, agent of the French owners of Sapelo, had in 1797, purchased the Chocolate tract on the island's north end, fronting on Mud River. (Chocolate, according to letters and deeds from 1797, was called that by its French owners. It was not, as local legend persists, a derivative of Le Chatelet corrupted by the slaves.)

Several years later, Danish sea captain Edward Swarbreck acquired Chocolate. It was he who constructed the tabby buildings, ca. 1819, the ruins of which are still standing at the site. About 1827, Chocolate was purchased by Dr. Charles Rogers, who had extensive agricultural operations there prior to his selling all of the north end to Thomas Spalding in 1843. Spalding presented the north end lands as a wedding gift to his youngest son, Randolph.

In 1801-02, Edward Swarbreck and Richard Leake began negotiations for the purchase of large tracts of land on Sapelo. Leake died in 1802, and his son-in-law, Thomas Spalding of St. Simons Island and 28 years old at the time, completed the purchase. With the help of a loan from British bankers, Spalding acquired 4,000 acres on Sapelo's south end.

Thus began a period in Sapelo's history when the island became a real income-producing plantation for the first, and only, time. Only during the period of Thomas Spalding's ownership, from 1802 until his death in 1851, has Sapelo been a profit to its owners.

Spalding was the son of James Spalding (d.1794) of St. Simons, being descended from the Spaldings of County Perth, Scotland, who held the Barony of Ashantilly. His mother, Margery McIntosh Spalding, was a descendant of the McIntosh clan which had settled Darien in 1736.

Thomas Spalding of Sapelo is a personage of great and enduring historical significance in the annals of McIntosh County. One of the most resourceful and innovative planters in all of the deep South, Spalding was held in high esteem and was considered, in his time, to be an agrarian genius whose methods were adopted by many other southern planters. Spalding served in the Georgia legislature, representing McIntosh County, for a number of years, and was also a U.S. congressman for a term until 1806, after which he returned to coastal Georgia for good to develop his properties on Sapelo, Creighton and Black islands.

In 1816, Spalding, for the sum of one dollar, sold five acres of land on Sapelo's south end on Doboy Sound, for the purpose of erecting a lighthouse. The Doboy Sound harbor entrance, converse to that of Sapelo Sound to the north, was a difficult one for mariners to approach. The offshore shoaling of Chimney Spit and other bars created problems for naviation. In 1819, the Federal government contracted with Winslow Lewis of Boston for the construction of a brick 65-foot lighthouse tower in round-form, topped by a 15-foot iron lantern. The lighthouse was completed in 1820, as was a wooden ranging beacon on the north shore of Wolf Island just across the Doboy Sound entrance from Sapelo light.

McIntosh County and the Civil War

Few Georgia counties - even those in Sherman's path in late 1864 - suffered the hardship and deprivation of Civil War as much as McIntosh County. The fortunes of the planters were irretrievably lost, the plantations were destroyed, the lumber industry devastated, and even the once-thriving seaport town of Darien was destroyed as the result of the "total war" tactics of a renegade Union field officer.

But by far the greatest single act of destruction by the Federals in McIntosh County during the war was the wanton devastation of the undefended little town of Darien in June 1863.

Darien was largely deserted when the Yankee ships arrived at the bluff and landed their troops on the waterfront in the area of the present-day Darien bridge.

The troops ransacked many of the town's houses and shops, destroyed the sawmills which were the lifeblood of the community, hauled off tons of sawn lumber and baled cotton, and removed many family possessions.

Just before they departed, Montgomery gave orders for the entire town to be burned. The watefront was ablaze from one end to the other as the fire, spurred on by the wind and large supplies of turpentine and rosin in the warehouses, quickly swept through the town. All that was left standing were the thick walls of the two-story warehouse building on the upper bluff, a portion of the Methodist Church and two or three smaller buildings, including the frame residence which still stands at the corner of Highway 99 and Rittenhouse Street.

The Timber Boom

Darien immediately began rebuilding after the war. The first thing to be revived in the town was the timber business. The sawmills were restored at Lower Bluff and Cathead. Timber began to be rafted down the river from the upcountry as early as 1866, and ships from afar began calling at Darien to load timber and sawn lumber. By 1868, the local timber brokers were reporting the shipment of 20 million board feet of yellow pine timber and lumber in one year from Darien bound for U.S. and overseas ports.

During the timber "boom era", which lasted from 1866 to about 1914, the sawmills at Darien, Doboy, Union Island, Hird Island and Mayhall Island turned out huge volumes of sawn lumber from the rafts that poured down the river from the interior.

The Railroads and Timber

In February 1890, the Darien Short Line Railroad began limited operations in McIntosh County. The line, plagued by financial and political troubles almost from its inception in 1885, was envisioned as a means of shuttling timber to Belleville and the Sapelo Sound loading grounds from two directions: from the vast Hilton & Dodge timber land holdings in western McIntosh, Liberty and Tattnall counties, as well as from the busy sawmills of Darien.

The Short Line was the forerunner of full-fledged rail service in McIntosh County. It was in January 1895, when the laying of track was finally completed from Belleville to Darien, where the line terminated at the depot on Columbus Square. By this time the Darien Short Line had become the Darien & Western, and it gave the town its first rail connection with the interior. Up to that time, Darien had been totally dependent on water transportation; there had been no access to the south at all except by water - the bridges across the Altamaha delta would not be a reality until 1914.

In 1906, the Darien & Western merged with two other area lines to form the Georgia Coast & Piedmont Railroad. The G.C. & P Railroad Company began construction of trestle-work across the Altamaha delta marshes in 1912.

In 1914, the work, which included high-level steel bridges over the South Altamaha and Darien rivers, was complete and Darien, for the first time, was linked by rail to Brunswick and other points south.

When the Georgia Coast & Piedmont went bankrupt in 1919, a group purchased the bridges and trestlework and constructed a highway, completed in 1921, to connect Brunswick and Darien.

Howard Coffin and R. J. Reynolds on Sapelo

In 1911, Howard E. Coffin, Chief Engineer and Vice-President of the Hudson Motorcar Company of Detroit, visited Sapelo Island during a hunting trip. So taken was Coffin by the beauty and tranquility of Sapelo and the Georgia coast, that he began a series of transactions, completed in 1912, by which he purchased almost the entire island.

As hard depression times set in after the crash of 1929, Coffin and Jones, in order to keep their real estate and resort venture on Sea Island solvent, sold Sapelo to tobacco king Richard J. Reynolds. The depression ruined Coffin; the loss of his beloved wife from heart failure and his equally-beloved Sapelo within the space of two years, left him a broken man. He died in 1937. Over the years, the remarkable contributions of Howard Coffin to the growth and development of coastal Georgia have been more and more recognizable.

R. J. Reynolds owned Sapelo Island from 1934 until his death in 1964. He made further improvements to the main house by modernizing the electrical and communications system. Reynolds also engaged the noted muralist, Athos Menaboni, to render the beautiful mural scenes of tropical birds which still adorn the walls of the solarium and other parts of the house.

The greatest Sapelo legacy left by Reynolds was the creation of the Sapelo Island Research Foundation (1949), which led to the creation of the University of Georgia Marine Institute in the south end quandrangle complex of buildings.

In 1969, the widow of R. J. Reynolds (he was married four times) sold Sapelo to the state of Georgia, and thus was established the R. J. Reynolds Wildlife Refuge on the northern half of the island. The southern portion was acquired by the state in 1976 and was designated a National Estuarine Sanctuary in the system administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources supervises the island which has been open for public day tours since 1977.