Gascoigne Bluff is a bluff next to the Frederica River on the western side of the island of St. Simons which was a Native American campground, the site of a Franciscan monastery named San Buenaventura, and the site of the Province of Georgia's first naval base.
It was named for Captain James Gascoigne of the sloop-of-war, HMS Hawk, which lead the first British settlers to the coast of Georgia.
Timber harvested from 2,000 Southern live oak trees from Gascoigne Bluff was used to build the USS Constitution and the five other original US Navy frigates under the Naval Act of 1794. The Constitution is known as "Old Ironsides" for the way the cannonballs bounced off the hard live oak planking.
This area was one of several St Simons Island plantations owned by John Couper (father of James Hamilton Couper, see below) who lived at Cannon Point, St Simons Island and who donated his library of 20,000 volumes to the Library of Congress.
Read more about Gascoigne Bluff: Hamilton Plantation
Famous quotes containing the words gascoigne and/or bluff:
“Full many wanton babes have I,
Which must be stilled with lullaby.”
—George Gascoigne (1539–1577)
“When people are taken out of their depths they lose their heads, no matter how charming a bluff they may put up.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)