La méridionale est moins peuplée, on n’y trouve que deux villes & un village. Frederica } Villes Barikmake } Village.” New-Inverness } Savannah and Augusta still exist and are justly reckoned among the most opulent, beautiful, and attractive cities of the Empire State of the South. In their locations the judgment of the early Colonists has been sanctioned by the favorable experience of nearly a century and a half. New Inverness has given place to Darien which, amid shifting fortunes, is still supported by the lumber trade and the rice crop of the Alatamaha. Of the memories of Frederica, Sunbury, New and Old Ebenezer, Bethany, Hardwick, and Abercorn, we have already spoken; and it remains for us in a few words to mention some smaller and insignificant towns, projected in the early days of the Colony, which have long since lost their identity amid the changes of population and the vicissitudes of ownership. * * * * * Brandon may be recognized as still maintaining a feeble existence in the later village of Wrightsboro, although its original features and peculiarities have encountered essential modifications. The founder of Brandon was Edmund Grey, a pretending Quaker, who came from Virginia with a number of followers. A man of strong will and marked influence, he was nevertheless a pestilent fellow, and, during Governor Reynolds’ administration, was compelled to abandon his little town. He subsequently formed a settlement on the neutral lands lying between the Alatamaha and the St. Johns rivers. Thither flocked criminals, and debtors anxious to escape the just demands of their creditors.[270] Brandon on Little river was revived by Joseph Mattock, a Quaker, who having obtained for himself and friends a grant of forty thousand acres of land, called the town Wrightsboro in honor of Governor Sir James Wright, who favored the establishment of the new colony. Mr. Mattock hospitably entertained Mr. William Bartram in 1773, by whom he is described as a public spirited man about seventy years of age, hearty, active, and presiding as the chief magistrate of the settlement.[271] We recall no special incidents in the history of this town. Its life was uneventful, and at present it can scarcely claim even a nominal existence. Between four and five miles southwest of Savannah, as its limits were at first ascertained, and on rising ground, the village of HIGH-GATE was laid out in 1733. Twelve families,—mostly French,—were here located. A mile to the eastward the village of HAMPSTEAD was formed the same year, and peopled by twelve families,—chiefly German. These settlers were engaged in gardening, and their principal business was to supply the inhabitants of Savannah with vegetables. Francis Moore, who visited these little towns in the spring of 1736, describes them as being “pretty,” and says that the “Planters are very forward, having built neat Huts and clear’d and planted a great deal of Land.”