Thomas Landing Fountain
N 31° 38.510 W 081° 15.496
17R E 475510 N 3500765
This fountain and two decorative pools are all that remain of the 19th century plantation that existed here in the Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge.
Waymark Code: WM3HCC
Location: Georgia, United States
Date Posted: 04/06/2008
Views: 29
The sign at the site reads:
Various plantations occupied this site from the 1740s through the 1870s. One of the earliest Harris Neck landholders was a man named Dickinson, and his property was known as Dickinson's Neck. John Rutledge owned fifty acres on neighboring Bethany Plantation. He sold the tract to Ann Harris, who married Daniel Demetre in 1752. Her son, William Thomas Harris (Demetre's stepson), acquired 350 acres on Dickinson's Neck in 1758, and, in 1759 he inherited an additional 750 acres on the "Neck" from his stepfather. Demetere's will identified William's residence as Bethany. This reference is the first documentation of a white landowner's dwelling on the "Neck."
Early in the 1830s, another family gained prominence on Harris Neck. Jonathan Thomas acquired most of the Demetre-Harris family holdings. Thomas' 3,000-acre Peru Plantation covered the eastern half of the present-day Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge. The plantation produced sizeable cotton crops.
The Civil War ended the plantation era on Harris Neck. The Thomas family subdivided Peru Plantation. Many small tracts were sold to former slaves or their descendants. From the 1870s through the 1930s, a community of primarily African American landowners developed on and near the current refuge land. By the 1940s, 171 tracts existed in the area now managed by the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service.
During the 1880s, several large tracts bordering the South Newport River (the site of one Peru Plantation home) were acquired by Pierre Lorillard, the tobacco magnate, Eleanor Van Brunt Clapp, and Lily Livingston. Lorillard's estate featured a lavish lodge, an indoor swimming pool filled from an artesian well, and formal gardens with reflecting pools and fountains. The lodge was used during World War II as the officers' club for Harris Neck Army Airfield. The deteriorated building was sold at auction, when Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1962.
Today, the only signs of the Lorillard estate are two decorative pools and a fountain. Look for other exotic plantings from the estate: Trifoliate Orange shrubs, Osage Orange trees, and Lantana bushes.