Fort Frederica : The History Of A Colonial Ghost Town

One of the earliest colonial sites in Georgia is Fort Frederica on St. Simons Island. Founded in 1736, this short lived settlement would play a decisive role in America’s history. Along with Savannah and Darien, it was founded by James E. Oglethorpe to prevent the Spanish in Florida from threatening the British settlements in South Carolina.

The coastal area between Charleston S.C. and St. Augustine Fla., known by some as “the debatable land,” was contested between Britain and Spain as their political relationship grew increasingly worse.

Of all the settlements Oglethorpe helped create, Ft. Frederica was his favorite. He kept a house on the outskirts of the small town and spent as much time there as he could. The streets he laid out in the town were well planned and spacious.

He allowed each settler to have a building lot in town as well as 50 acres in the nearby countryside for crops and gardens. The town and fort were strategically placed to guard against the Spanish encroachment, all planned by Oglethorpe for optimum efficiency and defense of the island.

Following a failed attempt by Oglethorpe to oust the Spaniards from St. Augustine in 1740, it was only a matter of time before the Spanish struck back at the English settlements. In the summer of 1742, the Spaniards sent 50 ships and several thousand soldiers in retaliation for the attack on the Spanish fort of San Marcos.

Although Oglethorpe had over a thousand Indian troops to add to his roster of regular soldiers and settlers, he was still outnumbered. When the ships were spotted from the southern tip of St. Simons island Oglethorpe fell back to Ft. Frederica to make a stand.

The Spanish managed to get very close to the Fort but were beaten back by the valiant efforts of the British, Scotch, and Indian allies. But the final battle came later that day when Oglethorpe’s men ambushed an advancing column of Spanish soldiers in a marshy area and routed the group.

The Battle of Bloody marsh, as it would come to be known, turned out to be the final skirmish between the two European powers. The Spaniards fled the island and was never again a threat to the English colonization effort.  Oglethorpe's plan had worked, but this spelled the end for Ft. Frederica

Unlike the settlements of Savannah and Darien, which continued to grow and prosper, Ft. Frederica quickly fell into disrepair following the end of British/Spanish hostilities. When the several hundred soldiers occupying the fort were sent elsewhere in 1749 the town slowly fell in disrepair.

Many of the townspeople left for Savannah or the Carolinas but a few hung on until a fire destroyed much of the settlement in 1758. Although some people resided there for a few more years, eventually it was totally abandoned.

William Bartram, noted naturalist, visited the dying town in 1774 and found only a few houses still being occupied and the rest in disrepair. The site was abandoned and largely forgotten until the early 1900’s when the land was acquired by citizens of St. Simons Island and donated to the federal government for historical preservation.

The town and fort have been, and still are, the objects of archaeological excavations and studies. Much had been learned about the everyday life of the small frontier town and its very intrepid inhabitants. It takes special people to do historical deeds. Not all heroes are famous.

Like any small town, Fort Frederica had its share of characters and scandals which sometimes survive longer than other seemingly important events. Charles and John Wesley, considered the founders of Methodism, were both run out of Ft Frederica at different times. John had his cassock chewed and torn by a leading citizen’s wife after she pulled a gun on him and tried to stab him with a pair of scissors.

Of course, John eventually had to flee Georgia to avoid a lawsuit from disgruntled Savannah citizens because of his treatment of a young lady who spurned his courtship. The Wesley’s seemed to have this affect on many of the Georgia colonists who had grown accustomed to a certain independent thinking.

Today, Ft. Frederica fits the part of a colonial ghost town. The live oaks, with their wisps of Spanish moss waving gently in the breeze, give a backdrop to the eerie quietness of the former settlement. The streets are now marked with modern signs as to say, “we are still here, even though the people are gone .” Only a few small remnants of the fort itself remains, but it is easy to imagine what it looked like in its heyday.

The foundations of some of the houses are very interesting to examine. As in Savannah, Oglethorpe laid out the streets to perfection. Some of the houses were quite impressive for the time and resembled those in a quaint English hamlet. One gets a feeling of sadness somehow when walking the streets as if the town died all of a sudden. Which, in a way, it did.

But the town served its purpose and made its mark in history, even though this history is little known outside of Georgia schoolrooms. Walk the grounds of the town if you ever get the chance. Imagine yourself on this isolated isle so far from civilization. Many could not accustom themselves to the life here and fled to the Carolinas. But those who stayed helped to make America into the wonderful country it is today.