Shrimp Boats in the Altamaha River, Darien.
Darien, Georgia is an interesting small city with a long history. Founded by Scottish highlanders under the leadership of James Oglethorpe in 1736, it was laid out according to the plan Oglethorpe had established in Savannah, and is the second oldest planned city in Georgia.
In 1863, Darien was raided by a troop of Union soldiers from a garrison stationed on St. Simon's Island. The town was looted and burned in a senseless action that had little military value, coming as it did a year before Sherman's "March to the Sea." Ironically, Darien had been anti-slavery from its earliest days and had actually passed a resolution condemning slavery in 1775.
Ashantilly Historic Site.
The original house on this site, known as "Old Tabby," was built circa 1820 as the mainland home of prominent planter and legislator Thomas Spalding. It burned in 1937 and was rebuilt and restored as an ongoing project by William G. Haynes, Jr., an artist, letterpress printer, and environmentalist. Mr. Haynes passed away in 2001, but in 1993, he donated the property to the Ashantilly Center, which carries on his legacy through cultural and educational events and workshops "to provide a vehicle for continuing education, scientific advancement and charitable endeavor which focus on the natural and built environments integral to the Georgia Coast."
At the corner of Broad and Screven Streets, on the bluff above the Altamaha River, is the Strain Building, a two-story stuccoed-tabby cotton warehouse built about 1813. It was the only structure other than the Methodist Church to survive the 1863 Yankee raid.
Just down the hill toward the waterfront on Screven Street is Skipper's Fish Camp. Louise and I enjoyed some really good shrimp on their covered deck.
The Darien United Methodist Church
John Wesley visited Darien in January, 1737, but it was not until
1836 that a Methodist church was organized. The cornerstone for a church
building was laid in 1841, and it was the only church to survive the 1863
attack, even though the Federal troops tried twice to set it ablaze. It was
finally destroyed by a hurricane in 1881 and was replaced by the present
sanctuary in 1883.
Rice Mill Smokestack at Butler Island Rice Plantation
The plantation at Butler Island began in the 1790s, when Revolutionary War hero Major Pierce Butler began planting rice in the Altamaha Delta, a location that provided perfect growing conditions for the crop. When he died in 1822, his grandson and namesake Captain Pierce Butler took over the operation, and by the 1850s it was one of the largest plantations in the South.
Today, all that's left of Butler Plantation is the 75-foot Smokestack of the steam-powered Rice Mill, dating from 1820.
Cameras and lenses: The shrimp boats, Ashantilly, the Methodist church, and the rice mill were all photographed with an Olympus E-M5 digital camera. For the boats and Ashantilly, I used a Panasonic Lumix G-Vario 14-140mm lens, for the church and the rice mill smokestack, the lens was a Panasonic Lumix G-Vario 12-32mm. The Strain Building was photographed with a Canon EOS 6D and the Canon EF 24-85mm lens.
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Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
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