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The golf courseHofwyl-Broadfield Plantation State Historic Site
An alternate to visiting Tybee Island Lighthouse in the rain and fog was the Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation State Historic Site outside of Brunswick which I thought was about exit 42, and I figured we'd get there just before lunch so we would stop there and get fuel too. But when I looked at the computer map, I couldn't see any services at all at exit 42, so we stopped at the Welcome Center between exits 42 and 38 to use the bathroom and get information about how to get there.
According to the Visitor's Center information desk, my computer was right - there weren't any services at exit 42, but there were lots at exit 38, so we got off there. According to the map they gave me at the Visitor's Center there should have been a whole lot of places that we just didn't see (we saw Wendy's, Burger King, McDonalds, and IHOP but did not see Arby's, City Buffet, Pranzo, Millhouse Steakhouse, Ryans, Barberitos, or even KFC) and I wanted to stop at somewhere new, so we were soon out in the country on unmarked roads. Navigating by guess, we did eventually end up back at exit 42 at 12:15 without ever having stopped for lunch.
So we parked in the Plantation parking lot and I had a bread and butter sandwich, and Bob had a peanut butter sandwich from the cooler, and then we went in to the Visitor's Center. Admission was $4.50 each for seniors.
The lady at the Visitor's Center said there was a film about the place, but that the next tour was at 1:00 (it was then 12:40), and we needed to start out walking NOW in order to make the tour (since she had watched me walk in). We could come back and see the film afterwards.
So we walked through a plantation of live oaks draped with Spanish moss, and eventually came out at a house which wasn't much different from our own house in Leonardtown. There was a silo foundation, and some cattle barns behind the house. There was also a brick wall around some of the property which we were told later was to keep grazing cattle from getting into the area where the laundry was hung to dry. We walked around to the front porch and waited for the tour.
During the Civil War most of the plantation was been destroyed and the Dents moved into the house which had been built in the 1850s for the farm manager. James Dent, George's son married a wealthy lady from NYC and continued to grow rice until 1913, but when he died Hofwyl-Broadfield was still in debt. In 1903, James decided that mosquitoes were responsible for malaria and so he screened all the windows and doors and even the chimneys and was able to remain at Hofwyl-Broadfield throughout the summer without anyone getting malaria.
His son Gratz established a dairy which was successful enough that the plantation was out of debt when they shut down operations due to pasteurizing requirements for the milk. The last of the family, Ophelia Dent (sister of Gratz) died in 1973, and left the house to the Nature Conservancy which gave it to the State of Georgia.
There was a particularly interesting four poster bed with rice carved on the bedpost, and in the parlor was a "Charleston secretary" which looked a bit like mom's.
We looked at the museum with a repousse pitcher made by Samuel Kirk and Sons, and then watched the movie, and I bought post cards of the Rice bed and Charleston secretary, and we left about 2:15.
Next - Down the Ways to Waycross.
