The William Horton House, Jekyll Island

The ruins of the 1740 William Horton House, Jekyll Island, Georgia.

 

 James Oglethorpe, who founded Savannah in 1733, also built Fort Frederica on St. Simon's Island in 1736. Major William Horton, who was second in command of Oglethorpe's regiment, settled on Jekyll Island in 1738 and began to build roads and clear land for planting, as well as building for himself a two-story plantation house of tabby, a durable mixture of oyster shells, lime, sand, and water, which was a basic building material of early Georgia coastal settlers. 

Completed in 1740, it is one of the oldest buildings in Georgia. The house was gutted by fire in the Spanish invasion of 1742, but was rebuilt. After 1886, when the island was sold to the Jekyll Island Club, the house unfortunately was allowed to deteriorate, until now only the sturdy tabby walls remain. The site is open daily, and there is no admission charge other than the entrance toll to the island.

In addition to other crops, Horton grew hops and barley on his plantation and operated Georgia's first brewery.

 

If you visit Jekyll Island, you might also like to check out the rest of the Historic District, where the clubhouse built by the millionaires of the Jekyll Island Club is now a surprisingly affordable historic hotel, and where many of their "cottages" have been restored and are open to the public. No longer just for rich people these days, Jekyll Island also has ten miles of beaches, four golf courses, a water park, and the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, plus hotels, cottages, and campgrounds.

 

(I photographed the Horton House on November 20th, 2016 with an Olympus OMD E-M5 digital camera and a Panasonic 12-32mm f3.5-5.6 lens.)

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Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

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Tags: Travel    photography    Olympus camera    OMD E-M5    Panasonic Lumix lens    Georgia    Jekyll Island    Horton House