Day Three With “Crystal” Tybee Island and More

After a good night’s rest we got up late and had a nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant of eggs Benedict with the fixings. Before checking out we did a little bit more browsing on River Street and some of the shops while enjoying the nice weather along the river. By this time it was close to 11, we picked up the car and took the short ride out to Tybee Island. This is more or less the beach area for the city of Savanna. You drive parallel to the Savannah River about 20 miles to the east to arrive at the Atlantic Ocean and this beach community. It’s like most of the beach towns up and down the coast with lots of shops, vacation rentals and some nice beach areas. It was pretty quiet this time a year. But my main reason for coming here was to visit the Tybee Island Lighthouse and Museum.This is George’s oldest and tallest lighthouse. It stands 145 feet tall with black-and-white Day Marks. This is the third lighthouse on this location with the oldest dating back to 1773. The present lighthouse was built in 1867 after it was partially destroyed by the Union soldiers when they seized it in the Civil War. It is still today a fully functional lighthouse and is a beautiful landmark along the Georgia coast. There’s beautifully restored keepers’ residents with the head keepers house as a museum. The assistance lighthouse is used as office space for the foundation and the second assistance is used as a theater where they show it continuously running video of the property and the history of the lighthouse. Here are photos of the inside of the head keepers’ house decorated for Christmas. You’re allowed to climb the stairs, and I guess I’m out of shape because I was about half way up and I was already huffing and puffing. But I made it to the top in one piece. It was really worth the climb because look at the spectacular views. After spending a few hours on the beach, just enjoying the nice weather and taking in the views. We headed back toward Savanna and a little south of town to visit “Wormsloe Plantation”.

I had been here before and you can read about it my previous post. But this time we spent a little more time and gain some information. The plantation originally started by Noble Jones one of the original settlers of Savanna. It has an interesting history and mainly was located here to protect Savanna from the Spanish that occupied Florida. The original house that they lived in was built like a fort and they were right on the river to protect Savanna from Spanish attacks. Here is what remains of the original house foundation. It was a small house with surrounding walls made of brick from oyster shells gathered in the area. Here’s a view of the marsh which at the time was the main river, back in the 1700s this was a main water thorough fair. But now do to river currents being changed it’s just a big swamp.There’s a large stone monument near the river’s edge that represent the original family gravesite. There is no longer anyone buried here because all of the remains were moved to Savanna over time to protect them from damage due to hurricanes. So as of today no one’s buried here it’s just a memorial. Main road were planet by Wymberley Jones De Renne, in the early 1890s to commemorate the birth of their son Wymberley Wornsloe De Renne and they planet over 400 at the time. And as of today about 360 remain of the original trees. Find more information here.

In 1972 the descendants of the original settling family donated 823 acres to the historical site. But kept about 80 acres of land and the house that was built in 1828, it is still occupied by the eighth generation of the original Jones family making it the longest owned property in Georgia. By this time it was getting close to dark and so we headed back home arriving there around 8 o’clock. And you would think by the way Maxine acted we had been gone for a month. Well that’s it for day three more the come in the next post thanks for coming along, Rick

 

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