What was savannah the first site of georgia

Oglethorpe's conscience led him to Georgia. Years earlier, a friend of his died in a debtor's prison, which convinced Oglethorpe that a new approach was needed for dealing with debtors. After pushing for reforms, Oglethorpe engineered a plan that would help the poor and the King of England. His idea was to give the poor some basic means of support and transport them to the new colonies, where they could work and ship back valuable crops and natural resources while at the same time help to expand the empire of England.

The King agreed, and Oglethorpe sailed across the ocean to establish the 13th American colony, which he named for his benefactor King George II. Most of the settlers were not debtors, however, but skilled craftsmen and working class Britons who had talents to lend to the new colony.

Over the next 10 years, thousands of colonists from many different countries and faiths came to Georgia to start a new life, including Jewish refugees from Spain and Portugal, Moravians and Salzburgers from Germany, Scottish Highlanders, French Huguenots, Irish Catholics, Italians, Greeks, and Swiss.

They all played a role in helping Oglethorpe establish forts and settlements on the Georgia coast as well as defeat the Spanish at the Battle of Bloody Marsh, thus securing Georgia for England. After 10 years of work in the colony, Oglethorpe sailed home to England.

Savannah, like other Southern coastal towns, struggled for survival as it was ravaged by wars, epidemics, fires, and economic depression. Early in the war, the British had seized Savannah with little trouble. American Patriots, with help from French allies, decided to attack the entrenched redcoats on October 9, After a fierce struggle, the British maintained their hold on Savannah. The battle was the second bloodiest of the war, with British losses, French losses, and American losses.

Savannah remained under British control until The invention revolutionized the cotton industry, and cotton became king in the South. The seaport of Savannah became very important for cities located upriver. Noble Jones was the first surveyor in the new colony and helped Oglethorpe fulfill his dream of a planned city. Oglethorpe also worked with Colonel William Bull to lay out the new city. Oglethorpe and Bull originally laid out four wards in two rows along the Savannah River.

The wards were directly correlated with the garden and farm lots located outside of the city, so communities were kept together both inside and outside of the city.

Each ward centered on a square and had four tythings on the north and south sides of the square. Tythings were rows of house lots, ten lots long. From cobblestone streets and public parks to some of the most unique Antebellum architecture of the South, Savannah is an old beauty that has aged with grace. Savannah became the first city of this new land.

A few decades after the founding of Savannah, it proved a strategic port city in the American Revolution and during the American Civil War.

In , the British took Savannah and held it until After this turbulent time, Savannah saw a long period of agricultural flourish. With rich soil and a favorable climate, Savannah and its surrounding land became home to cotton and rice fields as plantations and slavery became highly profitable systems. And the invention of the cotton gin on a nearby plantation meant that the city rivaled Charleston as a commercial port.

Savannah, not surprisingly, is uniquely in touch with its extensive, varied history and has long been a center of historical research and preservation. Toward this end, in December the Georgia legislature chartered the Georgia Historical Society , which was founded earlier that year by three Savannah residents.

The society has been headquartered in Hodgson Hall, located at the northwest corner of Forsyth Park, since In eight leading women of Savannah society, led by Anna C. Hunter, saved the Davenport House from destruction. The district was designated a National Historic Landmark in , and it remains one of the largest community urban-preservation programs of its kind in America.

The grant was awarded to help prevent the economic displacement of residents from the neighborhood as renovated properties increase in value.

Another interesting site for visitors is the Bamboo Farm and Coastal Gardens , which features more than varieties of bamboo. Sullivan, Buddy. Sullivan, B. In New Georgia Encyclopedia. Founded in by colonists led by James Edward Oglethorpe, Savannah is the oldest city in Georgia and one of the outstanding examples of eighteenth-century…. The New Georgia Encyclopedia does not hold the copyright for this media resource and can neither grant nor deny permission to republish or reproduce the image online or in print.

Requests for permission to publish or reproduce the resource may need to be submitted to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, Historic Preservation Division. The bridge opened to traffic in View on source site. All requests for permission to publish or reproduce the resource must be submitted to the rights holder.

James Edward Oglethorpe is credited with founding Georgia. The first group of British settlers landed at the site of the planned town, then known as Yamacraw Bluff, on the Savannah River, and Oglethorpe led them sixteen miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean on February 12, The original caption of this print by Paul Fourdrinier reads: "A View of Savannah as it stood on the 29th of March Requests for permission to publish or reproduce the resource should be submitted to the Hargrett Manuscript and Rare Book Library at the University of Georgia.

Peter Tondee and his business partner built a silk filature on Reynolds Square in The building served multiple public functions before it was destroyed by fire in The Cotton Exchange, established in Savannah in , did not get a permanent home until The building on Bay Street, known to Savannah residents at the time as "King Cotton's Palace," was designed to stand out from its neighboring buildings as a symbol of cotton's importance to the city's economy.

One of the busiest ports on the East Coast of the United States, Savannah handles approximately 80 percent of the shipborne cargo entering Georgia. The restored Cathedral of St. John the Baptist is in the heart of Savannah's historic district. In the almost fifty years since the Historic Savannah Foundation began reclaiming the city's historic downtown neighborhoods, historic preservation has increasingly been used in Georgia as the basis for community development.

Eichberg Hall, designed by the firm of Fay and Eichberg and built in for the Central of Georgia Railway, today houses the architecture program at the Savannah College of Art and Design.