BRYAN COUNTY, GA - HISTORY  Richmond Hill

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This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by:
LaMonnie Harn Moore  http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00028.html#0006830

RICHMOND HILL AREA

John Harn left S.C. in late 1747.  The first grant to
him was Oct. 19, 1748.  He came to the land along the
back of the Ogeechee River, 500 acres was granted to
him after he had lived there about a year and made
substantial improvements. He named this place Dublin
Plantation.  By July of 1755, John Harn and sons
possessed a total of 2300 acres under the orginal
charter before Ga. became a colony.  Parts of Cherry
Hill plantation,  adjoining Dublin Plantation,  was
included in the early grants to John Harn. 

In 1758, John asked for more land along the Canoochee
River which later became his home.   In May, 1764, he
sold 1350 acres to John Maxwell which later was passed
to his son, John Butler Maxwell, then to his daughter,
Mary Maxwell McIntosh.  She then leased it in 1803 to
James Habersham, son of Georgia's acting  Governor.

In 1820, Dublin was sold by Mary M. McIntosh to Mary
Ann Savage (Savage cemetery) who married Joseph Clay,
Jr."

The plantation remained in the Clay family
for a century. During the Clay possession, the
plantation was renamed Richmond Plantation.   In 1920,
Richmond Pl. was sold to Henry D. Weed, who in turn
sold it to Henry Ford (of the Ford Motor co.)  who
also acquired Cherry Hill at this time. At this time
the estate became known as Richmond Hill.  

The community around R.H. was known as Ways Station
but it adoped the name Richmond Hill.  In all Henry
Ford obtained title to 17 plantations, totaling 69,000
acres. To protect his view of the Great Ogeechee and
the marsh across from it, Henry Ford purchased over
4,000 acres in Chatham county which was then the old
Vallambrosia plantation.   He was known and loved in
lower Bryan county for his humanitarianism.  In 1947,
Ford died, and after Mrs. Ford's death in 1950, the
land was sold to the International Paper.

The area today (2004) is called the Ford Plantation
and is an area for homes.     

Source: Most of this information has come from
courthouses (now burned) and the Colonial Records of
the State of Ga. (Allan D. Chandler)