: Hawkins-Davison Houses Frederica St. Simons Island Georgia by Cate Margaret Davis Fairbanks Charles H Charles Herron - Dwellings Georgia Saint Simons Island; Fort Frederica National Monument (Ga.); Saint Simons Island (Ga. : Island) History

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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.

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