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GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 71
still bears his name. It was much used by Indians, Spaniards and outlaws when
visiting the South Carolina coast for purposes of plunder and to carry off the negro
slaves to Florida. Later he rebuilt it of "tabby" or "mancheeolas" as the
Spaniards called it, with outbuilt port-holes to defend it from escalade. In 1741, he
was given a four-pound cannon with which to defend the fort. Here he established
headquarters for his famous marines, who lived in huts near by and who rendered
double duty by scouting the country on horse-back and the river in boats. One of
these guarded Skiddaway Narrows and carried dispatches between Savannah and
Frederica for General Oglethorpe.
On December 22, 1739, Noble Jones with his boat well armed captured a schooner
in "Ussybaw" Sound and carried her around to Tybee. He also cruised with
Captain Demetree to intercept unlawful trading vessels. Fort Wymberley was at
one time successfully defended against a party of Indians and Spaniards by Mary
Jones who, in the absence of her father, took command; and tradition records it that
in recognition of her courage Wormsloe has always been left to the widows and un
married daughters of the house for life, the fee to be vested at death in the male
heir. There were many mulberry trees at Wormsloe and the colony in a measure
depended upon this source of supply for a sufficient quantity of silk worm seed, and
one year it was deplored that the crop would be short, as "Mr. Noble Jones's
daughter had suffered her worms to issue from the cocoons without sorting them."
Mary Jones married James Bulloch,- Sr., father of Governor Archibald Bulloch and
was his third wife. She died at Wormsloe without issue in 1795.
Noble Wymberley Jones, a zealous whig, who was kept from attending the
Continental Congress by the serious illness of his father, who remained to the last a
devoted royalist, became in 1775 by inheritance the owner of Wormsloe. But the
necessity for mending his fortune, shattered in the Revolution, left him little time to
spend on his place. He practiced medicine in Charleston, Philadelphia, and Savannah.
The estate passed at his death to his son, Judge George Jones, who used it as' a
place in which to raise fine horses, of which he was excessively fond. It was his custom
on the circuit to drive a four-in-hand. George Wymberley Jones, his son, afterwards
George Wymberley Jones DeEenne, then became the owner of Wormsloe, where he
lived until the time of the Civil war and where he collected and published early
Georgia manuscripts in the Wormsloe quartos. Here, on the southern extremity of
the island, a battery was built at this time, called "Lawton Battery," after Gen.
A. B. Lawton. This battery exchanged one shot with a Federal gunboat ascending
Vernon Biver. The gunboat withdrew finding the river fortified.
It was after the war that Wormsloe came to the rescue of the family by tempting
a Northerner to lease the estate for the purpose of raising sea island cotton thereon.
But the lessee soon tired of the existing labor conditions, whereupon Wormsloe
reverted to the owners. Wymberley Jones DeEenne, son of George Wymberley Jones
DeEenne, the present incumbent, has laid out live-oak tree avenues and, arranged
native trees and plants in groups and lines, thus developing the natural beauties of
the place. He has also built a library dedicated "to Noble Jones, owner of
Wormsloe, from 1733 -to 1775," a handsome structure devoted entirely to Georgia
books, maps, manuscripts, etc., relating to the history of Georgia. Near the ruins
of the Old Fort, the name by which Fort Wymberley is called, there stands a tomb
stone erected by the father of the present owner, on which appears this inscription:*
George Wymberley Jones DeEenne hath laid this stone
MDCCCLXXV to mark the old burial place of Wormsloe,
1737-1789, and to save from oblivion the graves of his kindred.
DERIVATION OF THE NAME "SAVANNAH."—To quote Col. Absalom H. Chappell:
"No one can ascend the river from the sea or stand on the edge of the bluff
which the city occupies and overlook the vast expanse of flat lands on either
side, without knowing at once that from these plains or savannas came the river's
name, derived from the Spanish word ' Sabanna;' and the fact that it was baptized
with the Christian, though not saintly, name which it bears is just as certain as it is
that the great grassy plains in South America owe the name by which they are called
to the same parental source.''
* These facts in regard to Wormsloe were given to the author by Mr. Wymberley
Jones DeEenne.