Qualla: Wormsloe: Georgia's Oldest Plantation and the Oak-Lined Road That Guards Its Secrets

Wormsloe: Georgia's Oldest Plantation and the Oak-Lined Road That Guards Its Secrets: Introduction

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Slp1, CC BY 3.0. The oaks appear before anything else. Over four hundred southern live oaks, their branches laced with Spanish moss, arch over a mile and a half of unpaved road to create a tunnel so dense that sunlight enters only in scattered coins on the dirt below. Planted in the 1890s by the De Renne family, this avenue has become the most photographed entrance in the American South. But what waits at the end of the road is far older and stranger than the trees themselves -- the tabby ruins of a fortified house built in 1739 by a physician-carpenter from Lambeth, England, who helped James Oglethorpe plant the colony of Georgia and then spent forty years defending it from the Spanish, the wilderness, and the swamp.

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Image: Slp1 | CC BY 3.0

Wormsloe: Georgia's Oldest Plantation and the Oak-Lined Road That Guards Its Secrets: A Carpenter Builds a Fortress

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pkbecker004, CC BY-SA 4.0. Noble Jones arrived in Savannah in 1733 aboard the same ship as James Oglethorpe, the colony's founder. A physician and carpenter from south London, Jones was made one of the settlement's lead officials before they even set sail. In 1736, he applied for a lease on land at the sou...

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Image: Pkbecker004 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Wormsloe: Georgia's Oldest Plantation and the Oak-Lined Road That Guards Its Secrets: War, Revolution, and a Family Divided

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Minipaula, CC BY-SA 3.0. Jones's fort was part of a chain of defensive works stretching from Frederica on Saint Simons Island to Savannah, all built against the threat of Spanish invasion. That threat became real in 1739 with the War of Jenkins' Ear. Jones fought in an English raid along Florida's St. Jo...

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Image: Minipaula | CC BY-SA 3.0

Wormsloe: Georgia's Oldest Plantation and the Oak-Lined Road That Guards Its Secrets: Cotton, Forced Labor, and the Richest Man in Savannah

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jeff Gunn from Atlanta, USA, CC BY 2.0. Georgia's original charter banned slavery, but settlers lobbied relentlessly until the Trustees revoked the ban in 1749. Noble Jones had already been using rented enslaved laborers to build his fort and clear the land. After the ban lifted, he purchased enslaved people outright, ...

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Image: Jeff Gunn from Atlanta, USA | CC BY 2.0

Wormsloe: Georgia's Oldest Plantation and the Oak-Lined Road That Guards Its Secrets: What the Oaks Remember

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dsdugan, CC0. The State of Georgia acquired the bulk of Wormsloe in 1973 after a court battle over taxes that reached the state supreme court. The site opened to the public in 1979. But the Barrow family -- direct descendants of Noble Jones -- retained a portion of the land, including the hist...

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Image: Dsdugan | CC0