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HAWKINS-DAVISON HOUSES FREDERICA St. Simons Island, Georgia

Reprinted from THE GEORGIA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Vol. XL No. 3 Sept. 1956

Publication No. 2 FORT FREDERICA ASSOCIATION

The Original Houses of Frederica, Georgia: The Hawkins-Davison Houses

The recent excavation of the building sites in the old Town of Frederica has stirred interest in this now "Dead Town" and in the fortification, Fort Frederica.

Fort Frederica, located at a bluff on the western shore of St. Simons Island, Georgia, and on the Inland Waterway, was founded in 1736 by the British under the leadership of James Edward Oglethorpe, as an outpost to protect the colony of Georgia and the other British possessions to the north against the Spaniards in Florida. It became one of the most expensive fortifications built by the British in America and the military headquarters for a string of fortifications erected along this southern frontier of Britain's provinces in North America.

The Town of Frederica, adjacent to the fort, was settled by forty families brought here at that time. These settlers built Fort Frederica and manned the fortifications until the coming of the regiment of British soldiers two years later.

Occupying about thirty-five acres of land, the town was half a hexagon in shape, divided by Talbott Street, generally called Broad Street, into two wards--North Ward and South Ward--and was laid out into eighty-four lots, which were granted to the settlers and on which they built their homes. About half a mile from Frederica, and surrounding the town on three sides, were the garden lots while the fifty-acre tracts granted the settlers were located in various parts of St. Simons Island.

Later, a larger area of safety being necessary, the entire town was fortified and surrounded by a moat, the banks of which formed the ramparts of the town. A wall of posts ten feet high, forming the stockade and palisade, flanked both sides of the moat, with five-sided towers on the corner bastions. Entrance into the town was through the Town Gate.

This old Town of Frederica was a thriving community in its day. The streets were lined with houses, some built of brick, some of tabby, and others of wood. John and Charles Wesley, founders of Methodism, who came to Georgia in 1736 as missionaries of the Church of England, were in charge of religious affairs. The town government consisted of a magistrate, recorder, constables, and tythingmen. There were two taverns, an apothecary shop, and numerous other shops and stores. The trades and professions were represented by the hatter, tailor, dyer, weaver, tanner, shoemaker, cordwainer, saddler, sawyer, woodcutter, carpenter, coachmaker, bricklayer, pilot, surveyor, accountant, baker, brewer, tallow candler, cooper, blacksmith, locksmith, brazier, miller, millwright, wheelwright, husbandman, doctor, surgeon, midwife, Oglethorpe's secretary, Keeper of the King's Stores, and officers of Oglethorpe's Regiment. Frederica was a barracks town, so that its business life was dependent on the money brought in by the soldiers of the Regiment.

After the British victory at Bloody Marsh and the defeat of the enemy in the Spanish Invasion of 1742 , peace was made with Spain by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748; and the regiment of British soldiers was disbanded the following year.

Having gloriously achieved the purpose for which it was built, Frederica now became a "Dead Town." Gone were the soldiers who had given it life, followed by the tradesmen and other settlers. The houses fell into decay, brick and tabby walls tumbled, and fire took its toll. Much of the old brick and tabby was hauled away and used in structures erected during the plantation era and, in time, no evidence remained on the surface to show that these houses had ever existed. Other families came, built their houses on these sites, and for generations lived within the confines of the old town.

Of the several buildings Oglethorpe had erected within Fort Frederica the ruin of only one remained and this was situated on the property of Mrs. Belle Stevens Taylor. In 1903, Mrs. Taylor, through her friendship for Mrs. Georgia Page Wilder, President of the Georgia Society of the Colonial Dames of America, gave to this Society the plot of ground on which stood this ruin, which the Colonial Dames repaired and saved for posterity.

Four decades later, under the leadership of the late Judge and Mrs. S. Price Gilbert of Atlanta and Alfred W. Jones of Sea Island, the Fort Frederica Association raised the funds necessary for acquiring the lands occupied by the old fort and town. In 1945 the property thus acquired was taken over by the National Park Service and is now known as the Fort Frederica National Monument.

The only maps available which gave any detailed information about the fort and the town were those made in 1796 by Joshua Miller, Deputy Surveyor of Glynn County, Georgia. These were made by order of the General Assembly of Georgia, which named Commissioners for the Town of Frederica, directing them to have a resurvey made to lay out the town "as nearly as possible to the original plan thereof...." One was a detailed map of the Town of Frederica, showing the lay-out of the town, with the streets, wards and lots, together with the number of each lot. Then, for the first time was it possible to locate the exact lot on which any particular settler had lived.

Information about the Frederica settlers and their way of life has been buried in old letters and other records. Only by careful reading of available material in the scores of published and unpublished volumes of the colonial records of Georgia could small bits of such information be found and pieced together to give the picture of early days at Frederica. It is known that records were kept of the lot owners, for Oglethorpe wrote the Trustees in 1738, "I send you a Plan of ye Town of Frederica with the Granted Lotts & the names of the Possessors" but this list has not yet been located among Georgia's early records.

It is believed that this list was compiled in England by Viscount Percival, Earl of Egmont, President of the Board of Trustees for the Founding of the Colony of Georgia, from information sent over from Georgia from time to time. As is so often the case with such records, there were errors. One such instance is the listing of lot number 2, South Ward, Frederica, for Samuel Davison and the same lot for Dr. Thomas Hawkins. Since the Hawkins and Davison families came to Frederica at the same time and were among the first settlers of Frederica, it is obvious that both of them could not have had lot number 2, South Ward.

Davison left Georgia in 1741, moving to Charleston, S. C., and Dr. Hawkins returned to England in 1743. In 1767 George Mackintosh petitioned for lot number 1, South Ward of Frederica "formerly belonging to Dr. Hawkins." His petition was not granted. In January of the following year Christian Perkins, widow, petitioned the Colonial Council, stating that "there was a Lot in Frederica known by the Name of Dr. Hawkins's which was left in the Care and Possession of the Petitioner's late Husband by John Hawkins the said Doctor's Brother who was supposed to be entitled thereto That her said Husband from the Time the said Lot was so left with him to the Time of his Death had the Possession thereof and constantly accounted for the Taxes and other Provincial Duties," and asked that it be granted to her. This was done, the lot being recorded as number 1, South Ward. Thus, in this 1768 record we have proof that lot number 1, South Ward belonged to Dr. Hawkins, leaving Samuel Davison in undisputed possession of lot number 2.

The families who occupied these two lots were different in every way. Dr. Thomas Hawkins and his wife, Beatre, who occupied lot number 1, were troublemakers; in fact, Mrs. Hawkins was known as "a mean woman." Samuel Davison, with his wife, Susanna, their little daughter, Susanna , and sons, John and Samuel , who lived on lot number 2, were good citizens and well liked by the other settlers.

Dr. Hawkins was one of the important personages in the community. Not only was he the surgeon in Oglethorpe's Regiment and the medical doctor for Frederica and the other settlements nearby, but he kept the apothecary shop, and was First Bailiff. His house on Broad Street was his residence as well as headquarters for his work. Here he saw patients and dispensed drugs from his apothecary shop. He claimed his improvements were "superior to any other."

In addition to his pay as surgeon in the Regiment, Hawkins received a salary of thirty pounds a year as First Bailiff and was allowed twelve pounds, three shillings, four pence, for clothing and maintaining a servant, together with an allowance of four pounds for the expense of "public rejoicings, Anniversary Days, etc." Also, he had an allowance of ten pounds for acting as correspondent with William Stephens of Savannah.

The Trustees sent him quantities of drugs, sugar, and tallow, to use in his work. To enable him to go to Darien and other parts of the Colony to visit the sick, he was allowed twenty-five pounds a year for the upkeep of his boat, as well as the services of two of the Trustees' servants. Hawkins made charges for equipment for this boat, such as blocks and rope, which the Trustees refused to pay. Likewise they refused to pay the charge of one shilling for sharpening two surgeon's saws, and fifteen shillings for cleaning and grinding his surgical instruments. In fact, he never seemed able to put through an expense account!

When he was not paid the sums he claimed, he wrote: "I continue the care of the sick, widows, servants and Indians and objects of charity as well as the bailiffship but cannot get regular payment...." He further claimed "my constitution ruined by fatigue; character hurted by Malicious Aspersions, My Dues kept from me."

There were those, however, who did not think he had earned all he claimed. Thomas Jones wrote that "he had not administered one dose of physic to any poor person but refused, unless paid for which has been done by contributions from the inhabitants...."

Oglethorpe defended Hawkins and wrote the Trustees: "I do well know that he has attended the Sick very carefully and that he constantly went up to Darien when I was here, and I suppose he did so when I was not, It is no little thing to go in open Boats in all Weathers near Twenty Miles & no small Expence to hire Men and Boats ... for tho he is very capable of Doing his Duty as a Surgeon he is very ignorant in Accounts."

Perkins, Moore, Calwell and Allen were among the Frederica settlers who had altercations with Hawkins and two of his neighbors wrote that "if it were not for debts and demands made on Hawkins there would be little use for Court at Frederica." In 1742 he was removed from office as First Bailiff.

Beatre Hawkins and her friend, Anne Welch, wife of John Welch, who with their three children lived a few doors down the street on lot number 7, South Ward thoroughly disliked the Wesleys. The Hawkins and Welch families had crossed the Atlantic in the same boat with Oglethorpe and the Wesleys. During this voyage religious services had been held for the passengers and Mrs. Hawkins had seemed greatly moved by John Wesley's preaching and professed to be awakened to a new and better life. Charles Wesley, observing her actions, saw through her hypocrisy and warned his brother that her repentance was not genuine. She learned of this and, so, hated the Wesleys.

After their arrival at Frederica these women attributed Oglethorpe's puritanical sternness to the moral and religious influence of the Wesleys and conspired to bring about a break between Oglethorpe and the clergymen. They fabricated a fantastic story of their indiscretions and "confessed" these "misdeeds" to Charles Wesley, then told Oglethorpe that Charles Wesley was spreading this tale. It was not until John Wesley arrived from Savannah that the matter was cleared up, the truth known, and mutual respect restored between Oglethorpe and the Wesley brothers, a regard which was maintained throughout the remainder of their long lives.

After a few months in Georgia, Charles Wesley returned to England. However, Mrs. Hawkins persisted in her efforts to persecute John Wesley. On one of his later visits to Frederica she sent for him. When he entered the Hawkins house, she, brandishing a pistol in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other, threatened to shoot him. Wesley held her hands so that she could not use either weapon; whereupon, she seized his cassock with her teeth and tore both sleeves to pieces.

Her altercations with her Frederica neighbors caused one of them to write, "If that Wn is to be punished in this World, for her Wickedness, how dreadful will the example be? I grow sick with the thoughts of her," and it was said, too, that Dr. Hawkins was "not atall beloved by the Inhabitants."

The Davison family, on the other hand, were good neighbors and were well liked by the other settlers. Charles Wesley called Davison "my good Samaritan" and wrote of him and his wife, "to their care, under God, I owe my life...." Davison was said to be "one of the first of the industrious villagers."

In addition to keeping a tavern, Davison was Second Constable. In 1739 he was named Overseer of the Trustees' Servants at a salary of twenty-five pounds a year, but Hawkins took this position away from him and named to this office one of the Trustees' servants who had just arrived from Germany and spoke hardly a word of English. In 1740 Davison was named Searcher of Ships at a salary of forty pounds a year.

For a time Davison seemed to enjoy life at Frederica. Writing to friends in London in 1738, he said that "we all of us here have been wonderfully protected by Almighty providence, very few of us have died, & none sickly; we have great encrease of Children, & women bear, that in Europe were thought past their time; The Cattle and Hogs yt. were given us on Credit, thrive very well, & Fowls in great abundance, & one may venture to say yt. ye place is blest on our Accounts...."

To another friend, he wrote "my crop wch. was but very small on Acct. of our being kept back in planting Season by ye alarms of the Spaniards, ye land I got cleared being very good, gave me great hopes; now this Year I have got at both plantations 6 acres & 38 perches of Land well fenced about 6 & 7 foot high; & planted, wch. I hope in God will afford me & my family Bread;... My wife was brought to bed of a John in July last, a fine thriving child, & little Susan grows apace."

However, in 1741, Davison with his family left Frederica and moved to Charleston, S. C., complaining of the treatment he had received from Dr. Hawkins and giving this as his reason for leaving. It is not known when Samuel Davison died, but his wife, Susanna, died in St. Bartholomew Parish, Colleton County, S. C. in 1761. Her will names Susanna , John, and Samuel, the children who had lived at Frederica; and William, who was born after they moved to South Carolina.

It was known that Hawkins and Davison had adjoining lots, that the houses had a "party wall," that they were built of brick and three stories high. When funds were made available for excavating a small area in the Town of Frederica, it was decided to begin with these two lots. The location of the "party wall" would fix the lot line between these two lots, thus, making it possible to set up the exact boundaries of all the Frederica lots.

The Excavation of The Hawkins-Davison Houses, Frederica National Monument, St. Simons Island, Georgia

The object of archaeological excavations is usually to discover general information on the way of life of some people dead for long periods of time. In the case of these excavations we were faced with a more detailed problem, that of locating the remains of the Hawkins-Davison houses, whose existence and construction type was quite well known.

Fort Frederica National Monument is located on the western edge of St. Simons Island. It was established as a national monument to preserve the remains of the important 18th century fort and town founded by James Edward Oglethorpe as a defense against the Spanish in Florida. Only part of one building in the fort and part of the regimental barracks are still standing. The purposes of the excavation were to attempt to locate enough colonial features so that the original layout of the town could be tied to the existing topography, and to provide a field exhibit of colonial architecture. The documentary information on the town was compiled by National Park Service Collaborator Margaret Davis Cate. Mrs. Cate, in addition to her general research on the Town of Frederica, prepared a detailed evaluation of the documents pertaining to each lot. This was extremely helpful in appraising the historic material and formed the basis of the plan for excavating, as well as for this paper. In addition to the letters, the documents contained the Miller Map of 1796 which showed the arrangement of the lots, streets, fort, and barracks as well as showing the size of the lots and the width of the streets. The map contained certain inaccuracies and did not show any point that could be accurately located at the present time. In addition, it did not show the location of any house in the town. For these reasons it was felt desirable to excavate a house site in the town that might be identified through descriptions in the colonial documents. The Hawkins-Davison houses filled these conditions, being built of brick and having a common "party wall." Thus it was felt that these houses would probably yield identifiable remains and it might be possible to locate the land lot lines and the alignment of Broad Street, the main street of the town.

We also know that Dr. Hawkins had planted two hedges on his lot but there is no mention of fences.

From these references it will be seen that the two houses were substantial enough to leave some remains, had a party wall which would follow the lot line, and the presumed location of the houses was in an area not heavily farmed in the last century.

It was hoped that the location of the party wall mentioned in the documents would lead to a determination of the present location of the original town lot lines. In this way we could locate streets, lots, houses and other features of the colonial town of Frederica. Rarely, I believe, has careful documentary research been so well vindicated as in this case. We uncovered the wall foundations of the Hawkins-Davison houses and clearly demonstrated the present location of the line separating South Ward Lots 1 and 2. The discovery of colonial wells yielded an additional dividend of many objects which illustrate the early 18th Century culture of the town of Frederica. In addition the exposed foundations serve as a vivid illustration of the existence of an English style of life established on the soil of Georgia.

The digging was started just to the west of the location for the two houses indicated by Mrs. Cate. As the excavation proceeded we uncovered the entire area of the two houses and tested the sides of the lots for evidences of fences. The area of Broad Street was trenched to prove the existence of the principal street. The wells encountered were cleaned as far as time permitted. In the following account the features found will be described in the order in which they were constructed by the colonists rather than in the order of our discovery. This will give a much clearer picture of what existed there in the colonial period.

All of the colonial remains were found to be covered by a deposit of sandy humus from 0.7 to 1.0 foot deep. This had accumulated over the foundations after the buildings collapsed in the later part of the 18th Century. This was somewhat deeper than had been expected and indicated the rapidity with which remains are obliterated in the lush climate of the Golden Isles.

The house of Dr. Thomas Hawkins consisted of three rooms in ground plan and will be discussed in the order in which the rooms were constructed. At the west was a small room 10 feet east and west by 15.3 feet north and south. The room had undergone three periods of building but only the first period will concern us here. This consisted of a footing ditch 1.3 feet wide on the south and west sides. Six inch posts were placed in this ditch at intervals of about one foot. These posts formed the framework of a rather rude shed. The level of the floor is uncertain, as it had been destroyed by later construction. This pole building is believed to be the shed built at the time of the first arrival of settlers in 1736. It evidently served as a shelter during the construction of the main house which was built immediately to the east. The description by Francis Moore of the palmetto bowers built in February of 1736 said that they were built on the backs of the lots. This hut was just the sort of construction one might expect from the description given by Moore. Yet it is on the front of the lot along Broad Street, and not on the back. The only explanation is that Dr. Hawkins did not build his palmetto bower on the back of his lot, or he may have built two, one at the back and one at the front. The front one was later incorporated into the main house.

Directly east and continuous with this original structure the main house was erected. It measured twenty feet east-west and fifteen feet north-south, outside dimensions. The ditches for the wall foundations were dug to a point two and a half feet below colonial ground level. The walls were constructed of brick 3 1/2 ? x 2 1/2 ? x 8? so the finished wall was one foot wide. The west wall was without a break throughout its entire length, as was the east wall which formed the party wall with Davison's house. Both the north and south walls were broken by doorways three and a half feet wide in the centers. Evidences of wooden door casings were found in the doorways. The floor of the room had been excavated two and a half feet below colonial ground level. It had later been raised four times by sand fills averaging three inches in thickness. Mixed with the sands was an occasional brick as well as a few scattered English Delft sherds and bones of pig and beef.

It seems that the floors were made of dry-laid bricks set in sand without mortar. As the floor was raised each time, the bricks were taken up and replaced at the higher level. When the house was finally abandoned, the floor bricks were salvaged and thus were absent at the present time.

The east wall was the party wall with the Davison house. In the center there was a brick fireplace five feet wide and two feet deep formed by extending pilasters one foot wide out from the wall. The sides were plastered outside and inside with a lime plaster, as were most of the walls of the room. The fireplace had been re-built three times. The lowest level was the same as the lowest and earliest floor level. Subsequently the brick hearth had been removed, a sand fill five inches deep added and the brick replaced. Similar replacements took place whenever the floor was raised. The chimney evidently lay in the party wall and was used by both houses, probably with separate flues. In ashes resting on the hearth were found the broken remains of a stemmed glass goblet. It is tempting to speculate that this is evidence of the custom of hurling goblets, used in toasting royalty, into the fireplace; possibly a toast to the king after the Battle of Bloody Marsh.

Between the north wall and the fireplace was a bricked area four and a half feet wide and two feet deep. The bricks showed no evidence of wear and this evidently represents the floor of a corner closet. The closet had evidently been removed before the floor was raised for the last time. On the floor lay a complete musket bayonet which had been placed there in its sheath as the copper sheath tip covers the point of the bayonet. There were also two parts of a door lock and a few scraps of English Delft and lead glass.

Three and a half feet north of the north wall of the room was a brick wall running east and west. It was connected to the main structure at the east by a short north-south wall and seems to have been an outside stairwell to the second floor. This wall was eleven and a half feet long, ending at the west just opposite the western edge of the doorway. In order to give access to the ground floor the steps must have run from the northeast corner up to the center of the second floor. Thus the entrance to the ground floor would be under the top of the steps. The area between this wall and the main wall of the house was floored with tabby which extended on the west to a point seven feet beyond the northwest corner of the building. This tabby floor was littered with broken crockery, glass, oyster shells, fish scales and animal bones. Evidently household refuse was allowed to accumulate here under the front steps, during the occupation of the house.

The next stage in the development of the house was a strengthening of the western, original hut. This was accomplished by putting wooden forms along the inside and outside edges of the posts of the west wall and pouring tabby around the posts to a height of one foot. This was applied only to the north ten posts on the west side. On the south side a series of bricks was found that evidently served as wedges against wall posts. The floor of the room was at this time slightly more than one and a half feet below ground level. A remnant of brick floor remained and it seems likely that the entire floor was bricked. The floor was littered with fragments of small glass bottles, small white Delft ointment jars, several glass bottle stoppers, and an ivory enema tube. This implies that the apothecary shop of Dr. Hawkins was located in this western room. It is suggested that the strengthening of this hut into an addition to the house comprises the addition of half the length mentioned by Hawkins in 1737. The 1740 addition was of brick and this west room is ten feet wide, half the length, twenty feet, of the main house. There is evidence of later repairs to the walls of this room but we do not know of what these alterations consisted.

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