We drove our Jeep back to Brunswick from Destin and will rent a car to return to it when we head back home late September. This gave us such an advantage in seeing the area. St. Simons has a WWII Homefront Museum dedicated to the people who stayed home to support the war. John took his turn at the radar training station.
Next we drove to Darien GA and saw a sign to the Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation on the Altamaha River. It was a rice plantation because of the marshes that was only owned by one family with five generations. The last surviving woman died in 1973 and left the estate to the state of Georgia. So all of the furnishings and books were left intact making it very personal. Speaking of personal. The docent asked us where we were from and John had to add Florala, Alabama. Seems she went to high school with John and was a freshman when he was a senior! Wow! I would have taken a picture of them together but we were in a large group and then she talked so much that she had to excuse herself and run to the front door where the next group awaited. Anyway, she was quite knowledgeable but John insists she was not an old girlfriend. Now back to the plantation history….I learned that life was much harder for the slaves producing rice rather than cotton because of the wet conditions that they worked in coupled with mosquitos and diseases. In fact, the plantation owners never spent the night in the house during the summer until around 1930 when the owner put screens on the windows and fireplaces. He was a screen pioneer after researching the cause of malaria.
Here are some pictures from the interior of the house. We should have one of these toilet cabinets on the boat! Much better than a coffee can when the old toilet broke. Haha
I’m writing this during Hurricane Dorian. Yes, I’m way behind on my posts but I procrastinate writing because…..there are so many other things that I prefer to do….like even cleaning. Oh well, if I don’t do this I know that I will forget so much of this adventure. Last night I wrote quite a bit but because of so many people in the hotel waiting out the storm, I suppose the internet was compromised and everything I wrote did NOT save…..arghhhhhhhh…
The dishes above were not expensive in their day. In fact, they were so inexpensive that they were used on ships in crates as ballasts for balance. Don’t you love the meat platter? It is one inch lower on one side so that the au jus can collect for some good biscuit sopping! And several of these serving dishes are hollow so that hot water can be inserted to keep the food warm. I want some of those dishes! Don’t tell John because he thinks I’m obsessed with dishes.
John enjoyed all the farm equipment. As a young man, he used to use a sickle mower just like this one! It requires four mules to pull it. And the large metal bowl is not a syrup maker as I thought but for hog killing day. The pig would be thrown into this boiling water to help loosen all the hair. So why did they go to that trouble? Because the fat was cut off to the skin to reduce to lard for frying and the skin was cut up in pieces to make cracklings and pork rinds. If a hair was left on the skin, John and his brother would be in a world of trouble! I don’t know if you’ve ever had crackling corn bread but it’s marvelous.
So the last generation to live in this house was two sisters and their brother…..all spinsters. The last sister outlived them both by 20 years and the day before she died she took her car to the grocery store. We were told that it still runs!
There were two magnificent oaks, one on each side of the home that were verified to be over 800 years old. They were named after the two sisters, Miriam and Ophelia Dent. Nothing is more magnificent than a tree! These two sisters saved the plantation from bankruptcy when rice was no longer a viable crop due to not being able to find workers. They started a dairy and used the proceeds to pay off all debts before they closed it.
After the plantation we rode into Darien which is also home to Fort King George State Historic site built in 1721 as the southernmost outpost of the British Empire in the Americas at that time. Great Britain, France and Spain were all competing to control the southeast. Many of the soldiers died at Fort King George but none from battle. They suffered from river flooding, starvation, alcoholism and desertion. Interesting, Oglethorpe later brought Scottish settlers over who were successful making a life who many of the towns, counties and roads are named for today.
This barrack housed 100 soldiers so either they slept several to a bed or they were on shifts.