....In 1852 the mayor of Savannah and the city council petitioned the United States government to allot funds for the removal of the hulks. It was estimated that the entire job cost would be in excess of $201,000 By an act of congress $40,000 was allocated “for the removal of obstructions in the Savannah River placed there for during the Revolutionary War "for the common defense.” The money was quickly used in preliminary work on the shipping channel next to and directly across the river for shoring. In all over 102,000 cubic yard of earth was removed, and the Wrecks were still untouched.
Again congress was petitioned for help to finish the job of removing the wrecks. In March of 1854 congress again allocated funds, $161,000, “for the removal of obstructions in the Savannah River.” As the government can do better than any organization, a flurry of red tape began. The allocated money was provided by Congress, but with the stipulation that the money could only be used for “removal” of the hulks and not for dredging the silt and sand around them. It amounted to heart surgery where the doctor couldn't cut the patient. The federal government’s response to the “Catch 22” situation was to install the Harbor Light to warn ships of the obstruction.
According to Judy Wood, an archaeologist for the United States Army Corps of Engineers, by the 1880s and 1890s the Wrecks “had almost shut down the port”. The Corps of Engineers finally removed them around that time with a high financial cost connected with the project
The View of cobblestones from the east Emmet Park wall, Site G (32.079350° -81.084165°), is a view of one of the last “original” cobblestone streets. Early ramps came directly down the bluff at a steep angle, ending at a small set of steps between wharves. In the mid-nineteenth century the current configuration of “L” shaped ramps were implemented to reduce the angle of the roadbed and problems with rain washing the sand into warehouses and the river.
When the first street was paved is debatable. However, in 1815 a Mr. John Bolton “suggested the slope down to the river on Whitaker Street be paved from the level of the town down to the dock….” He was given permission by the City Council to do the paving. If he actually implemented the project is unclear.
Here, on East Broad Street Ramp, is illustrated the difference between an archaeological feature and an artifact. Features are something you can see but can’t be held. They are visual – you can’t pick it up and feel it. Artifacts are things you can actually pick up and handle. In the pattern of the cobblestones faint swirls of laid rock can be detected. These are the archaeological features. The stones themselves with various bits of glass, iron or other objects that lie between the stones are examples of artifacts. Take the artifacts out -- the cobblestones, bits of material, etc. -- and the features they make are destroyed.
Straight lines of stones, perhaps used for dividing work sections, can be seen in the patterning of the street. The rock swirls were possibly created when paving crews, most likely slaves or Irish workers, laid the stones around the year 1858. The workers would be assigned a section of the street, crawled slowly backward up the incline filling the area with cobbles as the inched along.
The swing of their arms reach would create a slight swirling effect. Over time the stone tend to migrate due to traffic vibration, gravity, weather and automobile tires applying forces on them. The swirl patterns have been either amplified or erased. Near the steps on the far side (east) on the roadbed, you can see cobblestones that have had little traffic. Here their near-straight patterned lines are still intact.
Go down the steps on the side of the park by the river toward, Site K. We will pass by and come back later. As you descend watch for graffiti along the rock face. The writing is shallow, hard to find and likely spans several years due to the varying “font” styles. Also look closely at the stones. Traces of white paint can be faintly seen in the recesses. Photos made prior to 1891 by photographer William E. Wilson show that the walls were painted white shortly after their construction.. Another photo from the archives of the Library of Congress shows the Gas Works Wall around the corner had faded considerably by the 1920s.
Walk east along River Street in back of the orange brick building to Site H (32.079491° -81.083536°). At the time of the America Revolution a dock was located here just below the old fort. Its location would be below your feet behind the Savannah Electric Company building. At that time the river course was much closer to the bluff, but over the years the bank was filled with dirt to enlarge the useful land area. You are standing over the old wharf site.
Docked at this wharf in 1765 was the British vessel “Speedwell” carrying paper stamps as required by the Stamp Act. The act, enacted by the British Parliament, instituted a tax was on molasses, sugar, textiles, dye, coffee and wines. The stamps were to be stored on the bluff above the wharf at Fort Halifax (later called Fort Wayne). Protest against the stamps and the tax they represented was heated. Americans who were British citizens had no vote in Parliament. From this gave rise to the slogan “no taxation without representation.”
A few months before the ship’s arrival members of the Sons of Liberty paraded around town protesting the tax by carrying effigies of “obnoxious persons.” The effigies were burned in Johnson Square. It was well know that the Liberty Boys were planning to storm the fort and destroy the stamps. Governor James Wright had the hated cache spirited back aboard the Speedwell and taken to Cockspur Island at the mouth of the Savannah River for safekeeping. Later, after the protests of an uncooperative public in all of the colonies, the act was repealed.
It is also at this wharf that the story of the Savannah Sugar Party is said to have taken place. Local legend claims that in around 1775 Liberty Boys boarded a vessel here, overpowered two British soldiers and dumped a cargo of sugar and or molasses into the river. If the story is true the event took place in 1775, two years after the famous Boston Tea Party.
Walk along River Street to view Site I (32.079208° -81.082869°). Between this location below the bluff and the current hotel is the site of Willink’s Wharf and Shipyard where the ironclad CSS Georgia was built. Also back filled over the years, it now serves as a parking lot for the Savannah Electric workers. In 1862 the Ladies Gunboat Association raised $115,000 to build the 500 ton, 250 foot long boat that was covered with four inches of armor plating.
When the Georgia was launched into the river, a log lodged between the propeller shaft and the keel of the vessel and could not be removed. Subsequently the boat’s speed was so slow it could not overcome the tide. The Georgia was moored in the river off of Fort Jackson a short distance down river from the wharf and used as a floating battery. When Union General William T. Sherman’s army captured the city in December 1864 the boat’s crew scuttled the vessel. Today the Georgia lies precariously on the edge of the shipping channel awaiting funds to raise and restore it.
Planking from Willink’s wharf was excavated during the archaeological dig in 2001. Recent additional studies indicate that much of the wharf is still intact under the dirt.fortification site. The Savannah Electric front entrance is the site of the original bluff edge, Site J (32.078879° -81.083167°) . Along the street and in the parking lot are scars of the archaeological studies made in October of 2001. Below the upper patch of asphalt, about 5 feet down, is evidence of the natural edge of the bluff. Early fortifications in this location came to the bluff’s edge near this spot.
Shortly after the settlement of Savannah a battery of cannon were located here. Later Fort Halifax, named for the godfather of Governor Henry Ellis was built. After being rebuilt in varying shapes it eventually became the earthen, star-shaped Fort Prevost named after the commander of British forces in Savannah during the Revolution.
After hostilities ended the fort was renamed Fort Wayne in honor of the general of Continental troops “Mad” Anthony Wayne. Some time around 1800 the fort was rebuilt into an earthen crescent following the edge of the bluff. The fort bastion ran from beyond the 1850’s brick wall of the Gas Works seen to the southeast, to a spot near the front door of the Savannah Electric building. Some fill was used in making the new fort. Historian Thomas Gamble wrote in the 1920s that obsolete cannons, used as fill for the wall, were found during excavations for construction of the current gas works brick wall. For years the cannons were displayed on the wall making many people believe this was actually the old fort.
The Gas Works, or as some call it, the Manufactured Gas Plant, was built in the mid 1800s. Originally the brick wall had no buttresses along the outside. All original reinforcing buttresses were buried inside the wall. As time passed the pressure on the wall caused cracking. To shore up the structure one small buttress, about three feet by three feet average, was built in the center of the rounded corner. Later, other pressure cracks must have become visible and another buttress was built around the first exterior buttress. Others, possibly at later dates were added until many buttresses held the wall like giant fingers. Sometime later, before the 1920s, on the far side of the wall two sections gained wide flat concrete buttresses. From the beginning, nature was trying to bring down the wall. Finally, while cleaning up hazardous coal tar waste from the old facility, workers illegally tore down the central section. Historic interest in town stopped the razing in its current configuration.
At about that time of the brick wall construction a roadbed was cut through the bluff and paved with planking. It ran at a slightly steeper angle than the current slope of General MacIntosh Boulevard. During the 2001 excavation wooden poles were found near the bottom of the slope about five feet below the surface of the current road. It, however, cannot conclusively be said to be part of the plank road.
Walk west and back down the steps to East Broad Street Ramp. Note the indentations in the steps from years of wear. When you reach bottom look for, but don’t touch, artifacts between the cobblestones as you pass. In the roadbed between the cobble stones lies a time capsule of minutia and discards from generations past; iron fragments dropped from wagons going to and from the Rourke Iron Foundry, glass and ceramics from years of accidents and discards from pedestrians, wagons and automobiles.
The wall just descended was built in 1857 according to the plaque located on the south wall that reads, “E C Anderson, Mayor, M. Cash, Builder.” Edward Clifford Anderson was mayor just before and just after the Civil War. During the war he was commander of the defensive fortifications from Savannah to Brunswick. He succeeded his uncle in the job, General Hugh Mercer, great-grandfather of songwriter Johnny Mercer. Other members of his family were General Robert Houston Anderson of Wheeler’s Calvary, Major George Wayne Anderson, the commander of Fort McAllister, and many more in the chain of command for the defenses of Savannah. M. (Michael) Cash lived just a stones throw past Bay Street to the south.
West wall and stonework, Site K (32.079361° -81.084091°). Local geologists claim the wall is a geologic record. If one knows the geology of Europe, locations of points of departure can be seen in the stonework. The marble plaque near the top indicates that the buttress was “completed in 1858”. Built with softer limestone at the bottom and harder granite at the top, it is probable that builders used ballast stone as it arrived in port. Most historic homes in Savannah that have brick foundations have stronger stones or bricks for their base and softer, usually Savannah Grey’s, for the upper portion of the structure.
Supplies of ship’s ballast were constantly coming in that were low in cost and only required a fee for their storage on the wharf. In 1854 over $1,700 was paid for 1,808 tons of ballast off loaded from 18 ships. Also, note the four “gun port” openings near the top of the structure. Some think that the builder expected that the wall could be used for defense of the city. However, due to the thickness of the wall, it would have deemed the fortification obsolete due to the firepower of ships of the time. The gun port section was a feature call a “folly,” similar to the faux castles designed merely as decoration typical of the Victorian Era.
Along this buttress small ports are visible along the top third of the buttress. They resemble loop holes used for firing rifles as are common in many fortifications of the time including forts Pulaski and Jackson nearby. These are called putlogs. They were holes made during construction to facilitate the cross beams of scaffolding.
They were for building the wall and for wall maintenance, in that a plank could be inserted vertically to support scaffolding. Such openings are seen on some brick buildings including the main house at Thomas Jefferson’s summer home, Poplar Forest in central Virginia.
The structure of the wall is the same style as was used in Scotland and Ireland to build castles. The outer walls were built and filled with rubble and mortar. In one of the “ports” above you can see the rubble core of the structure.
As you continue just past the steps to Emmett Park notice Eyed spikes below the stairs at Site L (32.079574° -81.084273°). These spikes could have been used for many things, but were probably used a horse tether. The spike driven into the mortar would allow tying the reigns to hold animals and teams.
Follow the buttress wall to Site M (32.079817° -81.084905°) where you will notice a difference in the masonry style and rock below and near the overhanging limbs of the large oak. This shows that the walls were build in sections at different times. The styles of the masons are evident as you compare the rock, mortar and crafting along the lower levels of Factor’s walk. Michael Cash’s upper, newer section is more defined with tighter joints and squared stones. The lower section has rounder stones, more mortar and distinct courses separated by courses of small flat stones. This indicates differing masons or a time span between techniques and styles of workmanship.
To the left of the joint you can see a small wall about two feet high in places that preceded Cash’s 1858 wall. It now serves as the latter wall’s base. To the right of the Site M joint you can see that a wall of about seven feet in height was also used as a base for the newer wall. As you walk along Factor’s Walk notice that several differing mason’s styles can be seen. Each warehouse owner built the section of the wall behind his business at differing times. It is likely the masons were from different crews and even from different generations since the time spanned between sections was over forty years in some instances. If you look on the other side of the street you will notice that most of the buildings along Factor’s Walk stand two stories above the street. Theses are actually the second and third stories of the buildings which were generally added at a later date. A letter from Jenkins Jones, written in 1809, describes the building for insurance purposes, “…all the wharf are under the Bluff. – The Bluff is a steep Sand Hill on the superficies of which the body of the Town is built. – And the roofs of the Buildings under the Bluffs are just about equal to its perpendicular height….”
Volume1 Number1
Tourism Magazine
Tourism information from a different perspective
AATR Publishing's
Savannah
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Walking tour of the Savannah River Front
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This is an example of a Stamp Act era newspaper stamp.
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As late as the early 20th Century the walls along the waterfront were painted white as seen here in this Library of Congress photo.
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The western buttress of the East Broad Street Ramp. The old Harbor Light is seen above left in the photo.
Photo: Library of Congress
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The western buttress of the East Broad Street Ramp in 2001. Some geologists claim they can tell the region of origin for the ballast stones used in its construction.
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Spanish moss hangs from a "putlog" slot in the buttress on West Broad Street Ramp. Putlogs were used to secure scaffolding during construction.
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Looking east along River Street at the East Broad Street Ramp. By this time the dock area where the Speedwell was birthed has been filled in. The John Rourke Iron works stands on the site as well as the W.H. Ray Grocery store.
Photo: Library of Congress
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Indentations in the steps on the East Broad Street testify to years of use and wear.
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Stone markers along the bluff. Note the initials of the mayor of Savannah, ECA, (Edward Clifford Anderson) and the masonry contractor, M (Michael) Cash along with the date of construction. The date on this marker is 1860.
For a close-up map of the fort area,
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Copyright AATR Publishing / James Byous 2009, All rights reserved. Reproduction and subsequent publication forbidden without express written permission. Reproduction for personal use is granted with restrictions. Call 912-656-6539 for details.
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