'Gascoigne Bluff' is a
bluff next to the
Frederica River on the western side of the island of
St. Simons which was a
Native American campground, the site of a
Franciscan monastery named San Buenaventura, and the site of the
Province of Georgia's first naval base.
It was named for Captain
James Gascoigne of the
sloop-of-war,
HMS Hawk, which lead the first
British settlers to the coast of Georgia.
Timber harvested from 2,000
Southern live oak trees from Gascoigne Bluff was used to build the
USS Constitution and the five other
original US Navy frigates under the
Naval Act of 1794. The ''Constitution'' is known as "Old Ironsides" for the way the cannonballs bounced off the hard
live oak planking.
Hamilton Plantation
''Hamilton Plantation'' is a site managed by the
National Park Service located at Gascoigne Bluff.
The remains of this
antebellum plantation contain two surviving
slave cabins, which were part of a set of four built before
1833. Among the better examples of surviving slave cabins in the
South, they are composed of
tabby, a cement consisting of lime, water, and crushed oyster shells. The cabins have built-in windows and a central chimney.
James Hamilton Couper, namesake of the owner and manager of the plantation, was an architect and a builder. He designed and built the cabins to house the slaves who served in the plantation's main house. Utilizing a duplex plan to house more than one family, the cabins were originally part of a planned community of slave dwellings.
External links
★ The
National Park Service maintains
a site for Hamilton Plantation
★
a Golden Isles Navigator page about the location
★
A ministry site that maintains a history of the area