Til the Last Hemlock Dies: Fort Frederica

The USA has never done anything of more value than the establishment of National Parks and Forests and their accompanying wilderness areas, monuments, refuges, and associated sites. I have spent my life wandering around and exploring these places. There is actually nothing I like more than visiting what we have preserved and restored for everyone to enjoy.

Among these places are National Historical Monuments. My family and I rarely miss an opportunity to visit one when we find them. One that I have been visiting since I was a child is the Fort Frederica National Monument on St. Simons Island along the coast of Georgia.

In fact, some of my earliest memories are of walking around this well-preserved and protected historical site that was once a thriving military town of over 1500 people. It was established by the British to protect this part of the southeast from incursions from the Spanish who were, at that time, still competing for territory in what is now the USA.

The British, though, finally defeated the Spanish in the well-named Battle of Bloody Marsh and their foes retreated, never again to threaten the British colonies with invasion. After that, the military town began to lose its funding from the Crown and since it basically had only one reason for existing, the village population dwindled until no one was left and the maritime forests of pines and oak and palmetto covered it all and hid it from us.

Today the former town and fort have been carefully excavated and partially restored. The grounds are now immaculately kept and adorned with information signs with an excellent modern visitors center and museum attached.

My parents thought the monument was so beautiful that they requested that their combined ashes be scattered there, at the verge of the marsh. And so they were. This is one more reason I try to stop to visit the place whenever we travel near it.