Goulds in the Georgia Colony
Welcome visitors to your site with a short, engaging introduction. Double click to edit and add your own text.
Of all the Gould descendants, I can recall only one who was interested in tracing the family before they bought the Farm. Walter Gould was able to find a family history which mentioned two brothers, James and John who moved from Connecticut to South Carolina in the 1720s. One of these, James Gould, moved to Georgia in the early days of the Colony. He came to the attention of Savannah authorities in the late 1730s, when he was accused of selling liquor in the Colony’s official store. The Georgia Colony, when it was ruled by the Trustees, banned hard liquor, although beer and wine were allowed. James soon left Georgia for South Carolina, and ultimately returned to Connecticut.
The earliest record of a Gould family member that settled in Georgia permanently is Jacob Gould (1722-1797). In 1764 he requested a grant of 100 acres bordering his 150 acre property from the Governor of Georgia. He stated that he had been in the Colony for twelve years and had a wife, five children and an enslaved servant. His arrival in the Colony in 1752 coincided with a surge of arrivals from South Carolina when Georgia was transferred from the rule of the Trustees to that of the Crown. The most important change was that slavery was now allowed and accumulation of large tracts of land (over 50 acres). For South Carolinians skilled in rice cultivation, fertile tidal wetlands land along the Savannah River and the Great Ogeechee River ( in present-day Bryan County) were now available.
According to 2002 Andrew C. Lannen in Liberty and authority in Colonial Georgia, 1717-1776, Between 1751 and the arrival of the royal government in 1754, the population of both black and white inhabitants in the Georgia colony doubled to 9,000. He writes, "Georgia’s population explosion came about as a direct result of reduced property regulations. Gone were tail male, slavery restrictions, and the Trustees’ arbitrary limits on the size of landholdings. Georgia’s greatest resource was its nearly untouched expanse of prime rice lands... there was a popular expectation that the forthcoming royal administration would implement less restrictive land policies. This assumption proved correct, and settlers in the royal period were at liberty to amass large property (land and slave) holdings through grant, purchase, or inheritance. When allowed to choose their own future, Georgians built a plantation economy reminiscent of their colonial neighbors."
In the Letter Book of Thomas Raspberry 1755-1761, there is an entry dated Savannah, July 14, 1759 to Mr. William Butler mentioning the transfer of supplies to his overseer, "Mr. Gould." Jacob Gould was likely an upwardly mobile, non-elite colonist who was employed on his neighbor's plantation (see map in next section below). In the article by L. Sandy, Slave owning overseers in eighteenth-century Virginia and South Carolina. Slavery & Abolition (2017) suggests, "Slave-owning overseers and those who acquired slaves while working as overseers demonstrated their long-term aspirations and the opportunities for social and economic mobility that this employment presented." The reported 150-acre grant in 1752 is compatible with a modest independent settler or an upwardly mobile agricultural worker. Gould’s employment as an overseer suggests practical plantation experience and L. Sandy asserts, "Because rice cultivation was an exacting, highly engineered science (requiring complex navigation of river tides, floodgates, and dikes), the (South Carolina) Lowcountry also saw a subset of specialized, upper-tier professional managers and engineers. These were often educated, literate men—sometimes immigrants from Scotland or England—who possessed technical expertise in irrigation or book-keeping."
Goulds in St. Phillips Parish (Bryan County)
Now the challenge was to find the location of Jacob Gould’s farm. His request for the additional 100 acres was granted in 1774, so his holdings would have been at least 250 acres. There was not much description, except its general location in St. Phillips Parish, now Bryan County, and to the south of the Great Ogeechee River, now simply the Ogeechee River. Otherwise the description relies only on the adjoining landowners. The 100 acre parcel was described as adjoining land previously granted to Gould on the west, and by the land of John Harn on the east. (4) Four years later in April 1768, two more grants of land adjoining Gould’s acreage were made to Matthias Ash (5) and James Cherry (6). One day as I was volunteering at the Richmond Hill Historical Museum, I saw copies of a historic map of lower Bryan County for sale. It had been made for Henry Ford in 1936, when he came to Richmond Hill and began to purchase land for his farming operation and other projects. All of the property tracts were labeled as to original name and owner, and subsequent owners. (7) It was easy to locate “Jacob Gould” and “Brisbane Tract formerly Dunbarton”. Two of the other property owners’ names on the surrounding properties were there also, James Harn and Cherry Hill Plantation (for James Cherry). A detail of Ford’s 1936 map is on the left.
Finding the actual tract that was owned by Jacob Gould was the final step in the endeavor. With the help of some of the staff and volunteers at the Richmond Hill Historical Society I was able to narrow the search to the Reconstruction Era Brisbon community. It was founded by Amos Morel, a freed slave who purchased the land in 1871. Originally, the name was “Brisbane”, as on the map, but over the years came to be spelled “Brisbon”. (8) Not long after that I made my most unexpected discovery in a pile of old USGS topographic maps that I was sorting at the Savannah-Ogeechee Canal Museum. It was a 1958 map of the Richmond Hill area. Detail on the right. There, in what appeared to be a forested area was a dirt road labeled “Gould’s Tomb Road”. (9) The Brisbon Community and Bryan Neck Church also established in the Reconstruction Period. There is a later version of the topographic map from 1997, which shows I-95 bisecting Gould’s Tomb Road, although without the name. (10) A couple of months later I tried to find the other end of the road, where it intersected with Harris Trail. The area is now a modern subdivision, so it is likely that any trace of the tomb or plantation buildings has vanished. The street that appeared to follow the course of the old “Gould’s Tomb Road” seemed to be Osprey Court. It intersected with Harris Trail (formerly Road), not a quarter of mile from the Brisbon Community and its church. I drove a short distance down Osprey Court and saw that it ended at the I-95 embankment. Unfortunately, the street was completely built out with suburban homes, without even one vacant lot where I could prospect for the remains of the tomb.
Grow Your Vision
Welcome visitors to your site with a short, engaging introduction.
Double click to edit and add your own text.