History
New Hope Plantation lies between the west bank of the South Altamaha River and the Coastal Highway (U.S. Route 17) midway between Brunswick and Darien, Georgia.
This 1,100 acre tract is all that remains of a Crown grant made in 1763 to Henry Laurens, a prominent Charlestonian who was later to succeed John Hancock as president of the Continental Congress in 1777 and who was one of the negotiators of the peace treaty that granted independence to the thirteen states in 1783.
General Laurens obtained control of vast acreages of South Altamaha river lands and named it New Hope Plantation. At one time New Hope included what is now Hofwyl Plantation. Hofwyl was separated from New Hope shortly after 1804 and subsequently acquired by the Brailsford-Dent family who retained it for over 160 years. Hofwyl adjoins the north boundary of New Hope and is now a Georgia State Historic Site.
The Plantation
New Hope Plantation consists of approximately 250 acres of high land, the bulk of which is in the form of a pine tree farm, pecan groves and pastures.
The lower land which lies between New Hope Creek and Wally's Leg comprises some 850 acres and fronts over one mile on the Altamaha River. The plantation formerly consisted of rice fields with an extensive gridwork of some ten miles of drainage canals lined with old dikes. The last rice crop was planted just before the First World War and, after the war, gladiolas and narcissus were commercially grown in the fields until late 1920s.
A restored former overseer's home. Guales Legacy overlooks the dikes.
Guale
The Georgia coast surrounding New Hope was named "Guale", (pronounced wally) after the Spanish name for the Indians who inhabited the area. Guale combines the beauty of the Golden Isles and the large expanses of the estuarial marshes with the ambience of a subtropical climate.
The beauty of the area has been celebrated by many writers throughout history and is perhaps best summarized in the words of one of its early English explorers.
Click here to find out more at wikipedia."The air is found so temperate, and the seasons of theyear so very regular that there is no excess of heat or cold, nor any sudden alterations in the weather. The river banks are covered with a strange variety of lovey trees, which being always green, present a thousand landskips to the eye so fine, and so divers)fied that the sight is entirey charmed with them...
It is the most amiable country of the universe. "Sir Robert Montgomery