Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation, Fort Frederica, & Sapelo Island

Taking a step back in time at Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation May 24^th

We visited the Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation to learn about how important rice was during the plantation era.  William Brailsford was the first person to reside at Hofwyl-Broadfield after the Revolutionary War.  Hofwyl-Broadfield started out as a rice plantation until 1913.  It survived as a rice plantation almost 50 years after slavery was abolished.  Hofwyl-Broadfield was a dairy farm to generate enough money to pay of the estate’s debts.  Five generations resided at Hofwyl-Broadfield until the last relative Ophelia Dent died in 1973 in the Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation house.  She left the estate to the State of Georgia in her will, so that it could be preserved. 

The Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation was a perfect location for a rice plantation.   According to James Bagwell’s chapter called Rice in Rice Gold: James Hamilton Couper and Plantation Life on the Georgia Coast (2000) “Georgia and South Carolina were the most favored states, having 6-7 feet tides over the area.  The planters found this level to be most satisfactory for the flooding and draining of their rice fields” (85).  Rice was the cash crop of the deep south.  According to the Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation documentary Hofwyl-Broadfield, like other southern plantations, was hit hard after the Civil War because plantation owners were unable to get the cheap slave labor they once commanded before slavery became illegal.  James Dent, unlike most plantation owners after the Civil War continued to live the plantation life even though he hardly had enough money to pay the laborers (freed slaves).  When descendants of plantation properties across the south sold off their plantations to pay off their debts, James Dent did not cave into the easy way out of debt.  James Dent did everything he could to save Hofwyl-Broadfield that included changing Hofwyl-Broadfield to become a diary farm instead of a rice farm.  Even though the diary farm would not bring Hofwyl-Broadfield back to its rice farm glory days, James Dent’s diary farm solution would get Hofwyl-Broadfield out of debt during World War II.              

     

When I first got to the Hofwyl-Broadfield plantation, I did not realize how important the family legacy was to each owner of Hofwyl-Broadfield.  No matter how the economy was for the people living at Hofwyl-Broadfield plantation, they were determined to preserve their family’s heritage by preserving the property that they have called home since the late 18^th century.  One thing that I notice about today is that people are not very motivated to preserve their family heritage, and the Dent family of Hofwyl-Broadfield were people who would do anything to preserve their history, regardless of costs.  I was surprised to find out that friends, family, and other guests came to stay at Hofwyl-Broadfield for weeks or even months.  Those people would come to visit Gratz, Miriam and Ophelia Dent.  Hofwyl-Broadfield is a unique place that has shown me how far people are willing to go in order to preserve their heritage, and we would not been able to visit if it was not for Ophelia’s decision to give Georgia Hofwyl-Broadfield so that the public can learn more about this unique place in Southern Georgia.           

A walk down Broad Street during the 18^th Century, Fort Frederica May 25^th

We visited the Fort Federica national park to learn about how important the fort is to Georgia’s history.  Fort Frederica was initially established by as a fort to protect the rest of Georgia from the Spanish in Florida.  General James Oglethorpe was the person who established Fort Frederica in 1736.  Several years later, Fort Frederica became a “boom town” that attracted hundreds of European immigrants from England, Scotland, and present day Germany to the thriving fort city.  Fort Frederica’s location was crucial to the British victory over the Spanish when they invaded St. Simon’s Island in 1742.  After the Spanish invasion Fort Frederica began to decline, as James Oglethorpe’s regiment left in 1749, and by the American Revolutionary War Fort Frederica became a ghost town in ruin.            

According to the National Park Service’s Fort Frederica website, James “Oglethorpe's foresight in establishing Frederica was rewarded in 1742 during the War of Jenkins' Ear. Spanish forces from Florida and Cuba landed on St. Simons Island.”  James Oglethorpe’s decision to establish Fort Frederica at its current location paid off greatly in The Battle of Bloody Marsh during the War of Jenkins' Ear.  According to the National Park Service’s Map of Fort Frederica, The Battle of Bloody Marsh got its name from the bloody marsh during the battle, “legend has it the marsh ran red with blood…” The close proximity of Fort Frederica allowed for General James Oglethorpe to get more reinforcements paid off greatly in the end, since James Oglethorpe drove the Spanish off St. Simon’s almost seven days later.  That battle was a turning point in the War of Jenkins' Ear that halted Spanish invasion of Georgia and the rest of the British North American colonies.  If it were not for General James Oglethorpe’s leadership to defeat the Spanish on St. Simon’s Island, it would allow for the Spanish to continue north to possibly conquer the other 12 British Colonies.  Despite the name of The Battle of Bloody Marsh, the casualties were minimal according to the map.                     

I really enjoyed our visit to the once thriving fort town of Fort Frederica.  It felt weird to walk through a grass field with a few ruins that once was a thriving British settlement.  The Battle of Bloody Marsh was a battle that I did not study in any of my American History classes that I have taken in grade school and at Hampden-Sydney College.  If General James Oglethorpe’s regiment fell to the invading Spanish forces, Georgia would be known as a state that allowed for the Spanish forces to conquer the rest of the American colonies controlled by Britain.  The Battle of Bloody Marsh should be a battle that gets more attention in American history classes, because our country’s history and fate would have been changed completely if General James Oglethorpe did not suppress the Spanish invasion.  I hope to learn more about this once thriving community that is the reason why I was raised to speak English and not Spanish.           

         

The island that is separated from the rest of reality, Sapelo Island May 26^th

When we visited Sapelo Island I thought that we would primarily focus on the plantation that Thomas Spalding once owned, I was wrong.  During our tour of Sapelo Island with our tour guide from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Adam, we spent most of the time talking about the ecology of Sapelo Island and how it affected life during the plantation era.  The island was believed to be first colonized by a Spanish missionary in the 17^th century, and it eventually became an island that is privately owned mostly by Gullah decedents who live on the island year round with less than 70 residents residing on the island.    
   

According to Burnett Vanstory’s chapter on Sapelo and Blackbeard Islands from Land of the Golden Isles (1956), “ Thomas Spalding eventually owned nearly all of the island; he cut timbers for shipbuilding, cleared hundreds of acres, and developed his property into one of the finest plantations in the South” (58).  Thomas Spalding was a man who was “one of the leading agriculturalists of his day” who not only turned Sapelo Island into a very cotton plantation, but he also created a lumber mill on Sapelo Island (60).  In Georgia’s Land of the Golden Isles, Thomas Spalding “predicted that Georgia would one day be a grazing country,” and his cotton plantation is a prime example of Georgia being phenomenal grazing country (60).  Our tour guide Adam told us that Sapelo Island was evacuated during the Civil War, and the Island after the Civil War it was uninhabitable.  Thomas Spalding could not bring the plantation back to its historical glory that he built from the ground that turned into a hunting island.  After the Civil War during the Reconstruction Era, many plantations could not return to their glory like Thomas Spalding’s Sapelo Island plantation, because plantation properties were destroyed from the war, the high cost of labor, or the land was reposed to the former slaves by the Union Army.     

When our tour guide Adam drove us down the main road from the ferry dock he told us how it fells like he is in one of the tour vans in the movie Jurassic Park, and I felt the same way as we were driving into the woods of Sapelo Island.  I have never seen such a remote community as Sapelo Island where less than 70 residents live, cars still have inspection stickers from the 1990s on their license plates, and there is no law enforcement agency on Sapelo Island.  The remote community of Sapelo Island is a unique community that is somewhat separated from the rest of society.  Throughout the continental United States there are not many communities that are as remote as Sapelo Island, and I am surprised that Sapelo has not turned into the next Hilton Head Island or St. Simon’s Island.  I hope to get enough people to stay in the mansion for $200 a night in the future!