The bench

Another beautiful city and another great tour. Savannah bills itself as the oldest city in Georgia.  It is also the third largest port in the U.S., which is something I didn't know.  These Trolley Tours, run by the same company as the Trolley Tours of St. Augustine and Key West, do a really nice job of presenting an historic city. They also run a Trolley Tour of Boston and Washington D.C.

In addition to describing the layout of the city, there was a fair amount about the founding and the role of Savannah in the Revolutionary War. Here the Patriots and the French were repulsed by the British who held the city. This defeat prolonged the war by over two years.  Nathanael Greene (of Rhode Island fame) was a hero in Savannah and, as a thank-you, was presented with a plantation.   Unfortunately Nathanael Greene died soon after but his wife and children continued to live on the plantation.  To provide an education for her children, Mrs. Greene hired Eli Whitney as a tutor, and in addition to teaching, he proceeded to refine the cotton gin on her plantation.

Once again I didn't take very many pictures on the tour but we will go back on our bikes and really poke around.

After the tour we went to the Savannah History Museum & Visitors Center. James Oglethorpe was a British general, Member of Parliament, where he served on a committee to reform prisons, was the founder of the colony of Georgia in 1733. As a social reformer, he hoped to resettle Britain's poor, especially those in debtors' prisons, in the New World. On the journey from England he drew up the design of the city which originally had six wards, each with a square, or open space, in the middle of the ward. As the city grew, the system of wards and squares also expanded, eventually reaching 22.  Each one is different and we want to go back a get a closer look.

Indian  pottery, displayed in the History Museum, in the area was not painted but designs were incised. Tools and examples of the resultant designs.

Timeline of Indian culture in North America. Paleo Indian, Archaic, Woodland, Missi sippian, and Historic. 

Oglethorpe's plan for the city. One ward.

A number of successful movies were filmed in Savannah including Forrest Gump and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

The bench, displayed in the History Museum (?), from the beginning of the movie "Forrest Gump". (Tiny picture of Tom Hanks, as Forrest, sitting on the bench.)

Quilt display in the History Museum.