The dead towns of GeorgiaJones, Charles C., Jr. (Charles Colcock)
History
The dead towns of Georgia
Jones, Charles C., Jr. (Charles Colcock)
Extinct cities -- Georgia; Georgia -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
The grantee of these lands, which embraced the site of the future town
of Sunbury, had been for some twenty years a man of means and of mark in
the Colony of Georgia. In 1741 he had been sent by General Oglethorpe
to Virginia to raise recruits for the Colony.[168] In his last will
and testament, dated June 8th, 1767, and proven before his Excellency
Sir James Wright on the 4th of December of the same year, Captain Carr
describes himself as being “of the Parish of St. Patrick in the Province
of Georgia, Esquire.” He owned lots in the town of Frederica, an island on
the north side of Midway river, a tract of land on the main fronting that
island, which he had purchased from John Cubbage, and “a plantation on the
main over against Jekyll island.” This was his favorite residence. Here,
on the 18th of March, 1741,—despite the presence of a guard of soldiers
there stationed by General Oglethorpe,—the Indians made an attack very
early in the morning, killing several of the soldiers and servants,
wounding others, “locking down the women and children in the cellar,”
pillaging the house, and carrying away the booty in a large boat belonging
to the plantation.[169]
The grant of this five hundred acre tract on Midway river to Mark Carr
in fee simple, was made under the operation of the rules adopted by the
Common Council in May, 1750, which essentially enlarged the tenures of
grants already existing, and provided that future alienations should
convey “an absolute inheritance to the grantees, their heirs and assigns.”
It will be remembered that under the regulations at first prescribed by
the Trustees, five hundred acre tracts were conveyed only to persons
well approved by the Trust;—parties who should at their own expense, and
within twelve months from the date of the grant, bring ten able-bodied men
servants not younger than twenty years of age, and settle upon the lands.
Former alienations of this magnitude had been coupled with other
conditions, among which the following may be enumerated as the most
important:
I. The grantee obligated himself to abide in Georgia with his servants for
a term of not less than three years, building houses and cultivating the
lands.
II. Within ten years from the registry of the grant, at least two hundred
of the five hundred acres were to be cleared and cultivated.
III. No alienation of the lands thus granted, either in whole or in part,
for a term of years or otherwise, was permitted except by special leave.
IV. After the lapse of eighteen years from the date of the grant, should
any part of the five hundred acres remain uncultivated, unplanted,
uncleared, and without a worm-fence, or pales six feet high, such portion
should revert to the Trust, and the grant, _pro tanto_, was to become void.
V. These grants were in Tail Male.[170]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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