Along Highway 17....

Ok, so this was originally going to be part of the Darien post, but that one turned out to be so freeking huge anyway, I decided to break off yet another chunk. Now this and the last three posts (not including the disclaimer) make up one day. Yikes. So, these are all sites along Highway 17 south of Darien. First four pictures are of the Butler Island plantation and its markers. Pierce Butler was in the British army when he came to America, but got out to start this plantation after marrying Mary Middleton, from the important South Carolina Middleton familly. He fought in the Revolution and was a Constitution convention delegate. He had one daughter, Sarah, and the plantation was passed on to his grandson, Butler Mease, who legally changed his name to Pierce Butler II. He married the British actor Frances Anne Kemble, who came down to see his plantations later and kept a journal. She hated slavery and had many debates with Pierce until they finally divorced, and she published her journal as part of the anti-slavery movement, titled Journal Of a Residence on a Georgia Plantation. After the Civil War, Pierce and his daughter, Sarah, returned to the plantation, where she wrote the book Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation, to document the Reconstruction era. The house in the picture is not the original plantation house, but one built by Colonel T.L. Huston, who bought the island in 1926.
The tall chimney in the foreground is all that is left of a steam powered rice mill that was once there, and the structure in the second photo was part of a tide powered rice mill. After these first four photos, the next ones are markers for General's Island, Boy's Estate (Elizafield Plantation), and Hopeton on the Altamaha. The last two photos show the Needwood Baptist church and school and its marker. These were built for former rice plantation slaves. Reference: Touring the Coastal Georgia Backroads by Nancy Rhyne.