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CHAPTER XI
SAVANNAH HAVING BEEN SETTLED, OGLETHORPE VISITS THE SOUTHERN
CONFINES OF THE PROVINCE ON A TOUR OF INSPECTION—ANTICIPATES
A SPANISH INVASION AND WISHES TO ASCERTAIN THE NATURAL
ADVANTAGES on1 THE COAST—FINDS A SPLENDID SITE FOR A MILITARY
STRONGHOLD ON ST. SIMON'S ISLAND, PACING THE MOUTH OF THE
ALTAMAHA—EXPECTS THE SPANIARDS TO ATTACK AT THIS POINT—
HERE FREDERICA WAS AFTERWARDS BUILT—JEKTLL ISLAND—FORT
ARGYLE Is VISITED—THE SALZBURGERS—OLD EBENEZBR—NEW EBE-
NEZER—TWELVE MONTHS ELAPSE SINCE OGLBTHORPE'S LANDING—
STATISTICS OF GROWTH.
To visit the extreme southern confines of the province was Ogle
thorpe's next care. Having settled Savannah, established a number of
rural communities and built forts at strategic points, it was next in
order to ascertain what natural advantages, if any, were possessed by
the province to the south, where an attack from Spain was likely to
occur at any moment. For months the anxious face of Oglethorpe had
been turned toward the Altamaha River. He had conciliated the In
dians ; but not so the Spaniards. On January 23, 1734, accompanied
by Captain Ferguson, he left Savannah in a large rowboat, on a tour of
inspection. He was followed by a yawl, which carried provisions and
supplies. Besides Captain Ferguson, there were sixteen attendants in'
the party, two of whom were Indian guides. Threading the interior
waters between the coast islands and the mainland, he reached the delta
of the Altamaha, opposite to which, on St. Simon's Island, he found an
ideal site to be fortified.. Here he afterwards built Frederica. Arriving
at this place in a violent downpour of rain, he spent the night on shore.
Next morning he proceeded to the southern point of the island, where
the site for another fort was located, after which he examined an island
which he called Jekyll, in honor of Sir Joseph Jekyll, master of the
rolls. Some little distance up the Altamaha he found an eminence well
adapted for a town site, where a settlement known as New Inverness
was afterwards planted.
Before returning to Savannah, Oglethorpe also visited Fort Argyle,
on the Great Ogeechee. Here we are told that for the first time since
leaving Thunderbolt "he lay in a house and upon a bed." To his grati
fication, he found the fort practically finished and several guns in posi
tion. Captain MacPherson had lost no time in establishing a secure
stronghold at this point, where a trail from the south led to an, old
Indian village on the Savannah River called Palechocolas.
Expenditures for the colony had reduced the resources of the trustees
in England to a state of exhaustion. Indeed, the situation had become
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