Fort Frederica National Monument | St. Simons, Georgia
St Simons GA 31522Javascript must be enabled to view this map.
Visitors who want a full picture of Georgia's founding must visit this serenely beautiful national park, an archeological site that quietly tells the story of a British settlement that successfully defended the colony in wartime, but quickly reverted to nature in times of peace. Reclaimed by historians, today it is the enchanting site of an excellent park and museum with many stories to tell about Georgia's colonial past. Shaded by some of island's oldest live oaks, the historic site overlooks the winding Frederica River and windswept marshes of Glynn, which murmur past the silent ruins of the eighteenth century ghost town.
Naturalists will enjoy viewing wildlife in the park and adjacent marsh. Live oaks estimated to be between 100 and 200 years old dominate the site, accompanied by laurel oaks, pecans, red cedar, cabbage and sago palms, and holly. Most impressive may be the century-old giant muscadine grapevine, located near the town gate, and a tremendous loblolly pine, located across the moat from the barracks ruins. Wildlife in the park includes pileated, downy, and red-bellied woodpeckers, songbirds, deer, raccoon, armadillos, and flying squirrels. The marsh is home to alligators, river otters, and a variety of shore and wading birds.
Gen. James Edward Oglethorpe, long regarded as the founder of Georgia, first visited the area in 1734 and selected the site of an abandoned Indian field for the fort's future location. Strategically located on a modest bluff overlooking a tidal tributary of the Altamaha River, the site enjoyed natural defenses that made it virtually impregnable against enemy attack. Both the river and the town were named Frederica, in honor of Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales, the only son of Britain's King George II.
The arrival of Oglethorpe with 116 settlers in March 1736 marked Fort Frederica's birth. As the southern-most settlement in British North America, it guarded not only St. Simons Island, but the entire colony of Georgia against the Spanish in Florida. The settlement of Frederica consisted both of a town laid out in a grid pattern much like Savannah and a fort to defend the approaches on the Frederica River. The town consisted of 84 lots, 60 by 90 feet, divided into two wards by orange tree-lined Broad Street. Settlers built palmetto huts to provide temporary shelter, but these were soon replaced by regular wooden-frame structures and even more substantial two-and three-story houses made of brick and tabby. Oglethorpe built the only house he ever owned in Georgia, Orange Hall, a short distance away.
Prominent among Frederica's early residents were two Anglican ministers, John and Charles Wesley, perhaps best remembered for their role in establishing the Methodist Church. Charles Wesley, who later wrote more than 6,000 hymns, including "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," served as Oglethorpe's secretary and Frederica's first minister. John Wesley paid five brief visits to Frederica between April 1736 and January 1737 to preach and minister to the needs of the people there.
A moat and two wooden palisades separated the star-shaped earthen fort from the town. In its final form, it consisted of an officer's quarters, a powder magazine, two storehouses, and a blacksmith shop where the armorer of the regiment worked. A spur battery supporting six or seven cannons, including several 18-pounders, projected into the river. Although the town was not initially fortified, following the outbreak of war between Britain and Spain in 1739, a six-foot deep moat and two ten-foot high cedar palisades were built surrounding it. Fort Frederica was connected to a sister fort on the south end of St. Simons Island by the Military Road, a narrow path that led through the island's dense forests.
On a trip home to Britain in 1737, Oglethorpe secured command of a 630-man regiment of regulars, the 42nd Regiment of Foot. These soldiers added muscle to Georgia's defense and made Frederica Georgia's first military town, many years before Columbus, Warner Robins, or Hinesville came into being. The money the soldiers spent became the lifeblood of Frederica's economy, providing many of its citizens with their principal source of income. At its peak, 400 to 500 people called Frederica home, which had attained the appearance of an English village.
Wartime activity at Frederica culminated in the summer of 1742 when Spain, retaliating for a British attack on St. Augustine, Florida two years earlier, launched a full-scale military invasion of the Georgia colony. Comprising approxinlately 1,500 soldiers and a fleet of thirty-six ships, Spanish forces had reason to be confident in the success of their mission to destroy the colony. Although safely landing their entire army on St. Simons Island on July 5-6,1742, the Spanish did not bargain on the spirited British resistance that they encountered. In two battles that occurred on July 7, Gully Hole Creek and Bloody Marsh, the British managed first to surprise their opponents amidst the island's dense foliage and then repulse them entirely despite their superior numbers, thereby effectively ending more than a century of rivalry over the territory.
Following the formal restoration of peace between Spain and Britain in 1748, Frederica's military role ceased. Its garrison was disbanded and many of the townspeople, now lacking a source of income, moved away. Largely abandoned by the mid-1750s, the town's destruction was completed by a fire of unknown origin in 1758.
With Fort Frederica all but forgotten in the years to follow, the effort to preserve its ruins began at the turn of the twentieth century. A group of local citizens led by historian Margaret Davis Cate saw their efforts rewarded in 1936 when Congress officially established the national monument. The park was formally dedicated in 1945.
Touring Fort Frederica today, one can wander the old streets, view house foundations, and read signs that explain the significance of each site. Still visible is the foundation of the Hawkins-Davison House where John Wesley encountered the wrath of Mrs. Beatre Hawkins, who attacked him with a pistol and a pair of scissors. He made good his escape, but not before she had bit him and torn his shirtsleeve with her teeth. The trace outline of the fort still guards the Frederica River as it flows to the sea. Although erosion over the years removed much of the original earthworks, recent stabilization of the riverbank has brought a halt to that process. Still standing despite the ravages of time is only a remnant of the large tabby fort, a silent witness to the former grandeur of British imperial ambitions in North America.
