page_title: Wormsloe Historic Site
section_title: Establishment of Wormsloe
hierarchical_section_title: Wormsloe Historic Site / History / Establishment of Wormsloe
caption_attribution_description: The orginial house site at Wormsloe Historic Site.
context_page_description: The Wormsloe Historic Site, informally known as Wormsloe Plantation, is a state historic site near Savannah, Georgia, in the southeastern United States. The site consists of 822 acres protecting part of what was once the Wormsloe Plantation, a large estate established by one of Georgia's colonial founders, Noble Jones. The site includes a picturesque 1.5 miles oak avenue, the ruins of Jones' fortified house built of tabby, a museum, and a demonstration area interpreting colonial daily life.
  In 1736, Noble Jones obtained a grant for 500 acres of land on the Isle of Hope that would form the core of Wormsloe. He constructed a fortified house on the southeastern tip of the island overlooking the Skidaway Narrows, a strategic section of the Skidaway River located along the Intracoastal Waterway roughly halfway between downtown Savannah and the Atlantic Ocean. The fortified house was part of a network of defensive structures established by James Oglethorpe, founder of Georgia, and early Georgia colonists to protect Savannah from a potential Spanish invasion.
context_section_description: Noble Jones applied for a lease for 500 acres (2.0 km²) on the south side of the Isle of Hope in 1736 (the Trustees didn't approve the lease until 1745) and began building a fortified house overlooking the Skidaway Narrows. The house was constructed between 1739 and 1745 using wood and tabby, a crude type of concrete made from oyster shells and lime. The fortress consisted of 8-foot (2.4 m) high walls with bastions at each of its four corners. The fort house was 1.5 stories and had five rooms. Oglethorpe allotted Jones' fort a 12-man marine garrison and a scout boat with which to patrol the river. "Wormslow"— the name Jones gave to his Isle of Hope estate— probably refers to Wormslow Hundred, Herefordshire, in the Welsh border country from which the Jones family hailed. Some historians suggest the name refers to Jones' attempts to cultivate silkworms at the plantation, but as his son Noble Wimberly Jones named his plantation "Lambeth" after his birthplace on the south bank of the Thames, the former theory is more likely.
  Noble Jones' fortified house was one of several defensive works built between Frederica on Saint Simons Island and the Savannah townsite. The English were concerned that the Spanish still claimed the area and would eventually attempt to expel them. Conflict erupted in 1739 with the outbreak of the War of Jenkins' Ear, the name for the regional theater of the greater War of the Austrian Succession. Jones took part in an English raid along the St. Johns River in northern Florida in 1740, as well as the successful defense of Frederica at the Battle of Bloody Marsh in 1742. The end of the war in 1748 largely neutralized Spanish threats to the new colony.
  The War of Jenkins' Ear is commemorated annually on the last Saturday in May at Wormsloe Plantation.
caption: The original house site at Wormslow Historic Site.
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