Perseverance of a Plantation

PERSEVERANCE OF a plant ation

BY MASON STEWART / PRESENT DAY PHOTOS BY SOUTHEAST PHOTOGRAPHY / HISTORIC PHOTOS PROVIDED BY HOFWYL BROADFIELD PLANTATION

Shortly after 8:00 a.m. on September 5th, 1973, the last surviving heir to Hofwyl-BroadField Plantation Finished her morning coffee and quietly passed away.

Her passing closed the book on one family’s 167-year saga of life on a river plantation in Coastal Georgia. Like another more famous Southern plantation story written by Margaret Mitchell (who happened to be a frequent visitor at Hofwyl), it is a story about land, wealth, power, struggle, and survival. The only difference is, this story is true. (continues)

continued from page 29 It all began in February of 1806 when an advertisement appeared in the Georgia Republican newspaper for 1,775 acres of “Prime Rice Lands for Sale” on the south side of the Altamaha River opposite Major Butler’s plantation. The advertised land was quickly purchased by William Brailsford, whose nearby Broughton Island Plantation had been devastated (along with the loss of more than 70 slaves who drowned) by a Category 4 hurricane that struck the Georgia coast in 1804.

Considering the low-lying Broughton Island Plantation to be unsafe, Brailsford moved to the newly acquired property situated on higher ground. There, he built a substantial two-story house, changed the name from “Broadface” to “Broadfield,” and set about rebuilding his seriously depleted fortune. Fate, however, intervened when, on November 25, 1810, he died suddenly, while visiting the Couper family on St. Simons Island, leaving the growing (but indebted) plantation, now heavily planted in both cotton and rice to be managed by his wife and daughter. Thus began the oft’ repeated cycle of fate, chance, and tenacity that ultimately molded five generations of strong men and stronger women into a lasting dynasty.

Around 1813, William’s daughter, Camila married Dr. James Troup of Darien, brother of influential Congressman (and later Governor) George Troup. However, just as economic security for Broadfield seemed assured by this timely union, war came to the Georgia coast.

Though largely ignored today, the War of 1812 caused almost as much upheaval along the Georgia coast as the Civil War. For, along with the general pillaging and looting of plantation homes, the British policy of liberating slaves and resettling them elsewhere had a particularly severe impact on the labor intensive coastal rice plantations in the Altamaha river delta. However, though Broadfield Plantation was plundered and the two-story home ransacked, Dr. Troup had relied on good intelligence from

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: William and Maria Brailsford, the sliver displayed, Gratz Dent, and James Dent on his horse.

With the war’s end, which, ironically (due to slow communications of the time) had actually officially occurred several months before Broadfield was plundered, Dr. Troup set about restoring the damaged plantation; only to be challenged again when on September 14th 1824, the eye-wall of a devastating Category 3 or 4 hurricane slammed directly into Broadfield. Luckily, only one life was lost, but, because the storm hit at high tide, the entire year’s rice and cotton crops were completely destroyed.

With characteristic tenacity, the family started over again and by the time of his death in 1849, Dr. Troup had not only restored Broadfield, but had substantially enlarged it from the original 1,700 acres to more than 7,000 acres by purchasing the adjoining New Hope plantation. Historical documents at the site indicate that he paid $26,000 for New Hope and though he, “neither wanted nor needed the New Hope slaves [he] purchased them anyway for around $50,000 so they would not be sold at auction and families separated.”

Though Broadfield was one of the larger rice plantations in the area, it had acquired considerable debt through its rapid expansion. Accordingly, Dr. Troup specified in his will that the debt of about $80,000 be fully paid before the estate was parceled out to his heirs. As a testimony to the considerable wealth of the coastal rice plantation culture, the debt (about $2.4 million today) was easily paid off within the 10 year estimate for debt retirement, while each of the 6 surviving Troup heirs simultaneously received a $1,200 per month stipend. Then, in 1858 in accordance with the will, the Broadfield and New Hope lands were divided into three portions with the center parcel being deeded to daughter Ophelia Troup and her husband, George C. Dent.

Thus, with the settling of the will, George and Ophelia moved to the newly inherited plantation, re-named it “Hofwyl” (after the boarding school George had attended in Europe) and took their rightful place as socially prominent members of the small but immensely powerful group of Southern rice planters on the Georgia coast. As his station dictated, George Dent became Captain of the local Glynn County militia. There were parties and picnics with the nearby Butler, Couper, Hamilton and King families, and festive boat races between competitive teams of slaves up and down the Altamaha River. Not only were the crop yields high, the quality of rice produced was of such “exquisite quality” that the finest grade of rice sold at the Charleston South Carolina market was called “Broadfield” rice. Life at Hofwyl was good. In fact, to paraphrase one source, cotton may have been king, but rice was gold. Indeed, in 1860, cultivated rice fields were valued at $100 dollars per acre, nearly thirty times that of cotton fields. Life was indeed, good at Hofwyl in 1860. Then, in January 1861, Georgia seceded from the Union and the “good life” changed forever.

Though Captain George Dent dutifully marched off at the head of the Glynn Rifles to defend “The Cause,” any thoughts of glory soon evaporated when, just as in the 1812 war, it became clear to all that the coastal Georgia plantations could neither be protected or defended. One by one the ports fell, the plantations were abandoned, and they were burned. Ophelia left Hofwyl “to the fate of the Yankees” when she, along with most of the other coastal planters took their slaves and moved to a hastily-assembled ramshackle community near the present day Waycross, where they stayed until the end of the war as refugees in their own country. They were once again prisoners to an unknown destiny.

Returning home at war’s end, the Dents, expecting to see total devastation, must have been stunned to find that Hofwyl had been spared the destruction that befell all the other coastal plantations. For whatever reason, the marauding troops that summarily torched the nearby town of Darien and the other river plantations had somehow missed Hofwyl!

A common theme throughout the post-war years now began to play itself out. The plantation system, heavily dependent on slave labor no longer worked. Cash poor planters, not able to hire enough workers to plant economically-sustainable crops were forced to trade land to pay taxes and buy food. The old economy as it formally existed collapsed. Politically connected families such as the Dents and Troups were able to pool resources and hang on longer than others, but high interest loans, smaller crop yields,

and hurricanes slowly strangled the once grand estate. Without a miracle, it too would join the other great river plantations in the cemetery of Southern dreams.

That miracle occurred in September 1880 when James Dent, the son of George and Ophelia, married Miriam Gratz Cohen, daughter of Solomon Cohen of Savannah. Solomon was a prominent Savannah lawyer, whose wife Miriam was a member of the equally prominent Gratz family of Philadelphia. The joining of the Dent, Troup, Brailsford families with the Cohen, Gratz families was not only significant financially for Hofwyl, but was also historically significant in that it represented the joining of two powerful, but culturally different Jewish and Christian families at a time when intermarriage between two different protestant denominations sometimes raised eyebrows. It is worth noting that no record of anti-Semitism or even interfamily discord has been located to suggest any discomfort with this important timely arrangement.

The combined resources of the new family unit, coupled with shrewd financial management not only saved Hofwyl from bankruptcy, but eventually allowed James and his wife to reclaim much of his grandfather’s previously lost (Brailsford and Troup) properties. Only the New Hope track remained in other hands.

James Dent continued to grow rice on the HofwylBroadfield lands until around 1913, however, though resourceful and tenacious, he was never able to return Hofwyl-Broadfield to its previously profitable status. The combination of high labor costs, ravenous migrating “rice birds” and at least two hurricanes (1898 and 1910) proved too much. So, upon his death in 1913, his son, Gratz converted Hofwyl-Broadfield from a failing rice plantation to a moderately successful dairy farm. Gratz Dent ran the dairy until his death in 1936, whereupon operation fell to his two aging but enterprising sisters, Miriam and Ophelia. The sisters, with the indomitable spirit so characteristic of the family, personally prepared and delivered between 100 to 150 bottles of milk daily to Glynn and Macintosh County customers until it closed in 1942.

Neither sister married; however, they hardly led spinster lives. Though of “reduced means” compared to earlier times, the family name still carried considerable social standing and prominence. Margaret Mitchell (whom Miriam called “Mrs. Gone With the Wind”) was a frequent visitor to Hofwyl and Ophelia often travelled with her close friends, Alice and Pierre DuPont.

Miriam died in 1953, leaving her sister Ophelia as the last heir to the family estate that spanned five generations. An estate that mirrored the birth and growth of this country; growing and expanding from the hard labor of indentured servants and slave labor; beaten down and torn apart by weather and war, pooling unlikely resources to overcome one disaster after another. Always struggling, but always surviving. The story of Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation is indeed, the story of America.

So, on that morning in September 1973, in the ladies parlor of her cherished Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation, “Miss Ophelia” Dent quietly finished her morning coffee and then, left everything else to us. It has been reported, that, before they took her away, Rudolf Capers, her friend and beloved butler for so many years, carefully set out a full place setting of her finest china and silver one last time, “for Miss Ophelia,” the grand lady of Hofwyl.

Today, the 1200-acre Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation, with its 1000 majestic live oaks and antebellum Low Country house filled with original antique furniture and one of the largest collections of blue white Cantonese china in the country is a Georgia State Historic Site that is open to the public Wednesday through Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. For more information about special events held there and visiting the plantation, call 912.264.7333.

The detail of a bedpost showcases the plantation’s history with rice.