Unexpectedly, one of my favorite stops on our recent Savannah, Georgia adventure was our final one. Wormsloe planation is a historic site that boasts the longest oak-lined road in the world! It goes down a mile and a half! It's relaxing to walk through the trails and explore the old tabby ruins (basically only some fence and foundation is left) of the original plantation, a recreation of colony life, and just witness some of the wildlife. (For the first time in years, we were very slow, in person, to a deer!)
Normally, I'd write this but my eyes are burning/tired right now (The shame! But I've been working/doing lots of homework + can't sleep) so I'm copy-pasting some information about Wormsloe from this awesome travel website:
The name Wormsloe is taken from the Welsh border country that Jones was originally from. Jones was given a plot of land in town, and 500 acres on a peninsula south of town, and was allowed to build the fortified house, which had some boats and some soldiers. The soldiers were there to keep an eye out for any Spaniards who had a mind to move their holdings north from Florida to the English holdings in the Carolina’s which would put them into the no-man's land that Georgia was at the time. Jones held all sorts of jobs, surveyor, doctor, carpenter, cultivator of interesting fruits, commander of a company of marines, and probably most importantly, a friend to the founder of the colony, James Oglethorpe. Eventually his plantation got to be quite large, and in the true spirit of any new colony they cultivated all sorts of things, cotton, grapes, corn, rice, indigo and mulberry trees so they could feed their silkworms, which mostly proved unsuccessful. In 1749 the ban on slavery in the colony was lifted, (no word on if the ban on alcohol was also lifted,) but the plantation still was fairly unprofitable, though he eventually ended up with about 5500 acres and 5 lots in town. Jones died in 1775, which was probably good timing, as his son was for the Revolution, while he was very much against it. His heirs kept the land, but didn’t do much with it besides let it fall into a bit of disrepair. Eventually they built the first plantation house in 1828, and the owner at the time began an imprint that publishes books on Georgia history. The generation after that kept up the site, and made numerous improvements, including the oak alley, until it passed into a trust in the early 1970’s.
If you're in Savannah it's worth a stop. The history and surroundings are fascinating! The tabby foundation of the Wormsloe planation is the oldest standing structure in Savannah!
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