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 Fort Benjamin Hawkins

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Master Plan

A NEW VISION FOR OUR OLDEST ADVENTURE

 

 The Fort Hawkins Historic Site Master Plan

           Prepared for the Fort Hawkins Commission

                   By Commission Chairman Marty Willett

 March 27, 2008

 

 

 

         TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

    Introduction

 

   Site Significance

 

   Site Features & Existing Conditions

 

   Site Archaeological Research

 

   Site Development           

 

                                                 I.  Archaeology

 

                                                2.  Living History

 

                 3.  Interpretive Visitor Center

 

                                                 4.  Phased Property Acquisition

 

   Site Recommendations

 

   Conclusion

 

   Appendices (12)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

The Fort Hawkins Commission, since its reestablishment in 1990, has steadfastly refused to develop the Fort Hawkins property until the necessary archaeological research could be conducted to guide any such development.  However, it is time that the historic Fort Hawkins site in Macon, Georgia be given a proper and professional Master Plan to guide its needed preservation and development. The recent archaeology done by the LAMAR Institute has now made this possible.  The Commission’s prudence and restraint should be commended despite the many proposals over the years offered to develop the site.  The recent compelling research has flawed all previous histories and plans.

 

This archaeological research that has been on-going since 2005 will now allow the Fort Hawkins Commission to determine the best course for rebuilding the fort and in developing the property to insure its positive preservation and interpretation.  This research has uncovered a much more significant and substantial historical resource at Fort Hawkins than ever known before. This has redefined the fort’s true importance and magnitude in local, state, and national history.

 

I have been privileged to have been part of this process since 1985 and bearing witness to the Commission’s patience and perseverance over the years as an original Commission Member.  Serving as the Commission Chairman since 2005, I am now honored to be in a position to see the Commission’s mission fulfilled.  Due to my many years of involvement with the Fort Hawkins project and thus being profoundly aware of its proud past and recent history, plus my many years of involvement in historic preservation and interpretation, I feel more than competent and qualified to offer this site development plan.

 

Since 1972, when hired by the pioneering state preservation minded Georgia Historical Commission, I have had the honor of playing a major leadership role in successfully developing new historical resources for the state including the Lapham-Patterson National Historic Landmark in Thomasville, the 18th century Midway Museum in Liberty County, the Jarrell Plantation in Jones County, Sidney Lanier Productions, Sidney’s Old South Historic Tour, Sidney’s Spirit Stroll, the Ocmulgee National Monument Association, the Georgia Allman Brothers Band Association, and the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in Macon. All of these experiences over the past 35 years have combined to create this exciting proposal in developing and honoring Fort Hawkins.

 

This Master Plan will not delve into all the previous histories, plans and proposals for the site, but instead provide a concise working blueprint to insure this much needed site development.  This site development plan will provide a way to preserve, promote, and finance this important historic site and fulfill the Fort Hawkins Commission’s Mission. Fort Hawkins will be one of the finest historic sites in America and a tremendous community resource and source of local pride

 

 

Fort Hawkins Commission By-Laws, Article II:  Purpose – Mission Statement

 

“The Fort Hawkins Commission will develop plans and organize activities to bring about the complete restoration of the frontier fort that is the birthplace of Macon, Georgia.  The first step will be a fund raising project encompassing both foundations and individuals.  As this is underway, the Commission will conduct archaeological studies and historical research allowing the Commission to interpret the Fort Hawkins story accurately and in detail.  Once funds are raised, the actual reconstruction of the fort will begin. The work of the Commission is complete when the fort and/or interpretive center is open to the public and a military and historical education program is developed telling the story of the young nation’s struggle to create a country in the southern wilderness.”

 

 

 

                       2008 FORT HAWKINS COMMISSION MEMBERS

 

                                      Mr. Marty Willett, Chairman

                                      Rev. Victor Hunt, Vice Chairman

                                      Ms. Mary Lee Rogers, Secretary

                                      Mrs. Lynn Halstead Stokes, Treasurer

                                      Mrs. Echo Halstead Burrell

                                      Mr. Mike Cranford

                                      Mr. Ed DeFore

                                      Rev. Richard Gammage

                                      Mr. John Goolsby

                                      Mr. Sam Hart, Sr.

                                      Dr. Eric Klingelhofer

 

                                            EX OFFICIO MEMBERS

 

                   Mrs. Sandra Adams, Nathaniel Macon Chapter N.S.D.A.R.

                   Mr. Grady Burrell, Jr., Fort Benefit Car Show Coordinator

                  Mr. Mac Cone, Fort Hawkins School

                  Dr. Lindsay Holliday, President Ocmulgee Nat. Mon. Assoc.

                   Ms. Marion Joseph, Fort Hawkins School

                   Mr. Michael Lynch, President Mid. GA Vietnam Veterans

                   Mr. David Mincey, President Ocmulgee Archeological Soc.

                  Mrs. Kitty Oliver, Middle Georgia Historical Society

                   Mrs. Judy Smith, N.S.D.A.R., U.S.D.1812, U.D.C.

                  Mrs. Dianne Dent Wilcox, Fort Hawkins Historian

                 

 

 

SITE SIGNIFICANCE

 

The United State Department of the Interior placed the Fort Hawkins Archaeological Site on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 as a significant national archaeological site. The National Register’s official statement of significance and description of the site states:

            “For almost half a century, Macon children have frolicked on a school playground unaware that, only a short distance below their feet, the ground retained evidence of Fort Hawkins, established in 1806, as frontier fort and Indian trading center or “factory” by the federal government. Nearby, stands a replica of the original southeastern blockhouse, erected by the Nathaniel Macon Chapter of the D.A.R. in 1937-38.  Faithful in design form, if not material, the replica is located on the original blockhouse foundation, as verified by archaeologist Gordon R. Willey in 1936. Subsequent archaeological investigation in 1971 revealed evidence, which indicates that the original fort encompassed an area of approximately 1-½ acres.  Historical descriptions of the fort indicate that the fort had two blockhouses, on diagonal corners, and enclosed by a stockade of hewn timber.  There were portholes for a musket in every alternate post . . .”

            “Constructed in 1806, Fort Hawkins, was built under the direction and named for Benjamin Hawkins, United State Senator from North Carolina, who was as an Indian Affairs Agent very instrumental in dealings between the Government and the Creek Indians during the first two decades of the nineteenth century. Fort Hawkins was designed as a trading center and for negotiations with the Creek Indians.  By 1820, the fort’s primary military and trading function had been served and the fort was the center of a settlement, which was to become the city of Macon.  As a frontier fort, Fort Hawkins was an instrument of national policy in the earlier nineteenth century and later became the impetus for development of the city of Macon.”

 

In 1993, Fort Hawkins was once again listed on the National Register of Historic Places by being part of the Fort Hill Historic District.  The East Macon Historic District was also placed on the National Register in 1993, and although the district does not officially include the fort, there is a large sign on Main Street in East Macon welcoming everyone to the “Fort Hawkins Neighborhood, the Birthplace of Macon.” Today the 1930’s replica blockhouse is eligible for its individual inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places and that effort should be pursued to honor the replica’s creation despite the “unfaithful materials.”  Those dubious materials proved perfect due to the severe lack of regular maintenance of the blockhouse structure over the years.  The blockhouse replica has become a major icon in Macon culture appearing in many community logos and even the Macon City Flag, but nevertheless has detracted from the public discovering the real Fort Hawkins.

 

Furthermore, the historical role of Benjamin Hawkins in the American Revolution and the new American Republic, as well as his close association with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, has often been overlooked.  His work with Native Americans was much more far reaching than the Creeks, being the Principal Indian Agent of all land south of the Ohio River and being called the “Beloved Man of Four Nations”  - by the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Creek.  His journals and letters provide a window into the early American frontier in the southern wilderness as he traveled throughout the Southeast and operated his Creek Agency on the Flint River.

 

Due to Benjamin Hawkins’ leadership, no military confrontations occurred at Fort Hawkins, although its military importance is documented in the War of 1812, the ensuing Creek Wars, and then the Seminole Wars.  The growth of the U.S. Army and the spread of the American frontier are clearly evidenced at Fort Hawkins, and this concept of Manifest Destiny made the fort obsolete in rapid fashion.

The fort’s trading functions were moved to Fort Mitchell, Alabama in 1815 and army functions moved to Fort Smith, Arkansas by 1819, well before the opening of the Ocmulgee River western side in 1821. The village of Fort Hawkins that sprung up around the fort in 1806 and called Newtown in 1819, would provide the economic foundation for the successful birthing and flourishing of Macon, Georgia in 1823 on the western side of the Ocmulgee.

 

The actual physical location of the Fort Hawkins site is of supreme importance.

When the Muscogee Creek Nation ceded their land by treaty in 1805 from the Oconee to Ocmulgee River, a sacred 5-mile by 3-mile swath along the river, known as the “Old Fields”, was maintained by the Creeks on the eastern side of the Ocmulgee.  Fort Hawkins was allowed to be constructed on the highest hill of these sacred “Old Fields” no doubt due to Benjamin Hawkins’ “beloved” nature.  This is also provided a very strategic fort vantage point overlooking the Lower Creek Trading Path into the Muscogee Creek Nation westward, which became the first Federal Road in America in 1806 (Appendix I).  Although the Creeks gave up their “right” to the Old Fields in the Treaty of 1821, they still maintain that this is where their ancestors “first sat down” and today part of the Old Fields is preserved at the Ocmulgee National Monument, which is just across the street from the fort.

 

The site’s formal recognition was furthered in 2007 when the Fort Hawkins Commission and Georgia Historical Society sponsored and funded the erection of a Fort Hawkins State Historical Marker on the site.  The marker’s text reads:

 

            “Fort Hawkins was established at this site in 1806 on the eastern bank of the Ocmulgee River at the border of the Muscogee Creek Nation.  The location was chosen by the fort’s namesake, Benjamin Hawkins, who served as the U.S. Agent for Indian Affairs South of the Ohio River from 1796-1816.  Located along the old Federal Road linking the Georgia frontier to ports at Mobile and New Orleans, the fort served as a military supply point and a frontier trading post.  The fort was decommissioned in 1828 as the frontier moved further west.  The replica southeast blockhouse was erected by the Nathaniel Macon Chapter N.S.D.A.R. in 1937-1938.  The community that developed around the fort would eventually become the city of Macon.”

 

The historical significance of Fort Hawkins has been well attested by a myriad of published accounts from its earliest days with U.S. Army records, individual letters and family histories.  One of the earliest accounts of Fort Hawkins was in John C. Butler’s, Historical Record of Macon and Central Georgia, published in 1879. Despite being fraught with errors, as known by historians since then, it became the mainstay of Fort Hawkins information on into the 20th century.

Although various histories have added to the scope of information about Fort Hawkins (Appendix II), the recent archaeological research has finally documented the definitive history of the fort.  These revelations have created this site development plan and rekindled interest and enthusiasm in the real Fort Hawkins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SITE FEATURES & EXISTING CONDITIONS

 

A topographical map (Appendix III) clearly demonstrates the strategic location of a military fort at this location.  Fort Hawkins was not only on the highest hill of the sacred Old Fields, but also on one of the highest hills on the eastern Ocmulgee River in Bibb County, if not all of Middle Georgia.  Some experts estimate that the view encompasses more than 40 miles, which would greatly increase with the fort’s elevated blockhouses.  The Macon Plateau becomes a reality at Fort Hawkins with a nearly 360 degree panorama and breathtaking presentation of the Coastal Plain breaking away from the imaginary, yet real, Fall Line, running right by the fort. The view from atop “fort hill” is certainly majestic.

 

The next most striking feature found on the fort site today is the iconic 1930’s blockhouse replica of the southeast corner of the original Fort Hawkins. The three-story reconstruction, with a two-story crow’s nest, commands this mighty panoramic vista with a proud dignity befitting the original impressive Fort Hawkins that crowned the prestigious hilltop in 1806.  The blockhouse replica is totally surrounded by a 1920’s school era, five -foot wide, decorative brick walk that is intact save the gaps created by the 1936 archaeological dig.  This same decorative brick walk is found throughout Macon from the sidewalk across the street from the fort on Fort Hill Street to the sidewalk in front of the Georgia Trust’s National Historic Landmark, Johnston-Hay House.  P.L. Hay was a City Alderman in the 1920’s and is recognized at the Fort Hill Cemetery for his work there during this time.

 

Due to the site’s development since 1806 atop this high hill, erosion has taken its toll with red clay predominant or just below any barely surviving topsoil. Several feet of fill dirt and clay were added to the site in the 1920’s with the construction of the Fort Hawkins Elementary School, which has confounded past and present archaeology.   Remnants of the school still plague current archaeological efforts and dot the fort site with concrete features including a large portion of foundation. Yet it appears the school may have protected, more than damaged, the significant archaeological resources of the Fort Hawkins site.

 

The Fort Hawkins Elementary School provides more features around the entire fort site. A brick retaining wall from the school runs down the property line from t from corner of Woolfolk and Maynard Streets.  A stone reflecting pool is the only extant feature left from the school era, and is in relatively good condition.  Adjacent to this reflecting pool is an area first developed in the 1930’s as a playground and finally used as asphalt basketball courts for the school, with some asphalt remaining today.  Both of these features are three levels, or terraces, down from the original fort location and fronting Emery Highway (the fourth terrace) and next to the service station built on the southwest corner of the Fort Hawkins block.  The former school also contributed to the site’s flora.

 

The most impressive flora on the sparse Fort Hawkins landscape are the four large trees left from the school’s landscaping – a Southern Grandiflora Magnolia, a Deodara Cedar, and two native Red Cedars.  These impressive specimens are found along the former front of the school on Fort Hill Street and fortunately out of the fort’s original palisade location.  The other trees on the fort site include a colony of black locust and sugarberry trees on the Maynard Street right-of-way; 2 seedling black locusts; 1 loblolly pine tree; 2 yaupon holly trees; 2 flowering

Crabapple trees; and a large Yoshino cherry tree – reputed to be the 100,000th tree planted in Macon, the Cherry Blossom Capital of the World. All of these specimens are found around the blockhouse replica.

 

There are 14 bright pink crepe myrtles planted in the 1960’s by the city along the Maynard Street right-of-way; 24 Yoshino cherry trees planted in 2007 along the Emery Highway and Maynard Street right-of-ways; and 2 Bicentennial dogwood trees planted in 2007 at the corners of Fort Hill and Woolfolk and Maynard and Woolfolk.  Near the blockhouse replica 3 Cherokee Roses have been planted on the security fence along Maynard Street, as have 2 Chinese fringe trees flanking the 1930’s steps off Maynard outside the security fence. There is a circular planting of 10 native yuccas found in the reflecting pool.  The majority of the site is green space with a ground covering of bermuda, centipede, and rye grasses with the natural mix of wildflowers and weeds. 

 

Despite the dense urban environment surrounding the fort site there is more fauna present than neighborhood dogs and cats. The site also borders vast wilderness areas particularly to the south and the Ocmulgee River is less than a mile away as the crow flies.  Crows, hawks, vultures, doves and songbirds are always seen on the site along with the evasive house sparrows and starlings around the blockhouse replica.  An occasional plover may be spotted in the site’s current parking area.   Insects and spiders infest the blockhouse replica and fire ants do the same to the site’s green space, and both need to be better controlled.  A massive colony of ground bees appear every spring in the former front yard of the school grounds. Although possum, raccoon, armadillo, and coyote should be expected, no sightings have been reported.  However, the fort is literally across the street from the Ocmulgee National Monument with its abundant wildlife including deer and turkey, and only three miles south and quite visible from the fort site, is found the Bond Swamp National Wildlife Refuge with documented black bears, alligators, bald eagles, and many other native species.

 

Today the Fort Hawkins site is bounded by Woolfolk Street to the north, Maynard Street to the east, Emery Highway to the south, and Fort Hill Street to the west.
When compared to the adjacent neighborhood, it appears that Macon’s modern grid system (Appendix IV) was dictated by the reality of the fort layout with Church Street, part of the original 200 year old Federal Road, jutting diagonally across the grid to the west and both Smith Street and Stewart Street dead ending, not passing through, the fort property.  This serendipitous development further protected the site’s sensitive and valuable archaeological resources despite the continuous growth of Macon around the fort site.

 

The Treaty of 1821 opened the western side of the Ocmulgee River for settlement.  Bibb County was laid out and organized in 1822 and Macon was founded in 1823 on those western banks directly across from Fort Hawkins and Newtown. Fort Hawkins had been nearly abandoned by this time, yet was not officially decommissioned until 1828.  In 1829 the whole Fort Hawkins reserve was surveyed, laid off into lots, and Newtown was incorporated into the new town of Macon by an act of the Georgia Legislature.  The Legislature had previously in 1823 passed a measure “to grant and secure to commissioners of the incorporation of the town of Macon five acres of ground at or near Fort Hawkins for the purpose of a public burial ground.” The Fort Hill Cemetery is rarely credited for being Macon’s oldest cemetery, even pre-dating the city, due no doubt to the fact that the majority of East Macon was not officially annexed into the city until 1909 and the neighborhood’s decline into the 20th century.

 

Although the Fort Hill Neighborhood around the fort site is one of Macon’s oldest communities, today it is one of its neediest with many of the usual modern American urban problems seemingly exaggerated in this still proud and now minority neighborhood.  Despite recent gains in the neighborhood including a new school, Burdell-Hunt Elementary School; a new community center, Rosa Jackson Center; demolition of some abandoned and neglected structures; and the building of several new homes, there is still much need for improvement especially with the Davis Homes Housing Project, the entrance to the Ocmulgee National Monument, and more economic life on the depressed Emery Highway.

Improvements have been discussed and planned in all these areas for years.

 

The Southeast Blockhouse Replica reconstruction began in 1937 with the Nathaniel Macon Chapter N.S.D.A.R. spearheading the project with a successful fund raising program with local school children selling penny Fort Hawkins stamps.  With the assistance of the Works Progress Administration, the replica was completed and dedicated on March 19, 1939.  The property was transferred in 1947 from the Bibb Board of Education to the Nathaniel Macon Chapter N.S.D.A.R. who deeded it to the city of Macon in 1951.  This dedicated group of patriotic women has always been in the forefront in honoring Fort Hawkins, having erected a memorial marble monument at the site in 1914.

 

The 1951 deed stipulated that the city “maintain and improve the property” and in 1966 the city completed several major upgrades to the replica including a renewed roof structure, improved door and window hardware, installation of electric lights, and the erection of a protective fence creating a small enclosure around the blockhouse replica.  Limited tours were then offered by the D.A.R. and local Boy Scouts with the first Fort Hawkins Commission established by Mayor Ronnie Thompson in 1969, leading to the 1971 archaeological dig.

 

After this first Commission sadly evaporated, the Fort Hawkins Commission was reestablished by Mayor Lee Robinson in 1990, after a task force investigating this possibility was created by the Keep Macon Bibb Beautiful Commission in 1985.  The KMBBC’s logo features the Fort Hawkins blockhouse replica.

Under the guidance of the current Fort Hawkins Commission, the blockhouse replica has enjoyed improved night security lighting, upgraded electrical wiring and water services, an authentic wooden shingle roof, the acquisition of nearly the entire city block around the fort, the addition of a substantial 12 ‘ chain link security fence around the entire new perimeter, the removal of the school’s basketball courts and the removal of the1960’s small enclosure security fencing.  Exposing the entire decorative brick walk, adding a safety rail to the entrance steps, and placing three picnic tables are further amenities around the blockhouse replica today.

 

In 2007 two new features were added to the fort’s landscape.  With the generous “Bicentennial Birthday Present” from the Peyton Anderson Foundation, an original, impressive brass 6 pounder cannon, assigned to Fort Hawkins, was returned to the site and now commands the entrance to the blockhouse replica.  With the Commission’s partnership with the Georgia Historical Society, an official, handsome Fort Hawkins State Historic Marker was erected on the site and now educates visitors at the current entrance onto the site.  The Commission also had a local contact information sign installed by the front gate to further aid visitors since the site is normally closed and secured.

 

The Commission has added greatly to the blockhouse replica’s surprising collection of artifacts and exhibits.  Over the years a variety of sources have created this significant but endangered collection.  Despite the city improvements over the years, the blockhouse replica has no climate control, no insect control, no bird control, no sanitation facilities, and should therefore have no collection.

Many of the 1960’s exhibits have miraculously survived and came from the Ocmulgee National Monument on a long-term loan with the National Park Service (Appendix V).  The Daughters of the American Revolution, local families and school children, and even the Baconsfield McDonald’s have contributed to the historical displays that include a handsome bust of Benjamin Hawkins, an authentically attired Creek Indian mannequin, plus many fort models and framed histories  (Appendix VI).  The blockhouse replica has seen more archaeological exhibits since the dig began in 2005 including the public display of the 1700 plus surface collection of artifacts rescued from the site periodically by the Commission Chairman.  Although the Commission has taken steps to mitigate the lack of needed conservation in the blockhouse replica, a proper Interpretive Center is sorely needed to save this core fort collection.

 

 

 

 

 

SITE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH

 

The Fort Hawkins Commission’s most commendable attribute has been their dedication in postponing any development of the site until professional archaeological research could be done to determine how to accomplish this overdue need.  Despite years of setbacks in the fort property ownership plus hollow or thwarted promises of funding, the Commission’s perseverance paid off with the nearly entire fort block being successfully purchased in 2002 with the  collaboration of Mayor C. Jack Ellis, NewTown Macon, and the Peyton Anderson Foundation.  This provided the opportunity to conduct the much need archaeology, and this research has been critical and crucial in the understanding of the real Fort Hawkins and the preparing of this site development plan.

 

The Edward Douglass Irvine illustration of Fort Hawkins that appeared in the 1879 Butler’s History had for some time been the only “evidence” of the fort’s original construction save for two confusing 19th century photos of the fort. Most future Fort Hawkins renderings would be based on Irvine’s with only minor differences, but some show only one blockhouse standing alone, based no doubt on the 1937 replica.  Sadly the original plans to Fort Hawkins were destroyed when the British burned Washington, D.C. in the War of 1812.  This truly horrific event in American history has been often overlooked at best and forgotten at worse. This time period in general is treated in such a way despite it being a dramatic and crucial turning point in U.S. history.  Fort Hawkins was an important part of this national history, but its chronicles for the most part were lost to time – until now.

 

The Fort Hawkins Commission’s due diligence is further reflected by their refusal to believe completely in Butler’s description or the 1936 and 1971 digs and preventing the premature rebuilding the fort.  All of these works, although commendable, have been held suspect with more questions than answers provided.  Furthermore, both investigations seem to imply that the Fort Hawkins School damaged most of the site’s architectural and artifact resources, which is far from the truth, as the recent research has dramatically uncovered.  The evidence in the ground has conclusively contradicted almost all previous data.

 

As the archaeological research began at the Ocmulgee National Monument in 1933, archaeology as a real science was only beginning to emerge.  Some credit this local dig, done in conjunction with the National Park Service and the Works Progress Administration, as being the beginning of modern archaeology.  In fact, the Society of Georgia Archaeology was created here at this same time. In 1936 one of the Ocmulgee archaeologists, Gordon R. Willey, was sent to oversee a cursory dig at the Fort Hawkins site.  Although no formal report concerning the fort was ever produced, his twelve pages of field notes are available in the Fort Hawkins Commission Archives at the Washington Memorial Library in Macon.  Willey’s greatest accomplishment was to document the southeast blockhouse footprint allowing the blockhouse replica to be erected on its exact location.

 

In 1971 the Fort Hawkins Commission hired Richard Carrillo to conduct a two-week dig to investigate the site further.  With this limiting time and still evolving archaeological practices, little substantial data on the fort was discovered despite finding portions of the palisade wall and brick remnants.  Carrillo’s greatest contribution was in deducing that the fort was not nearly as large as Butler had claimed.  Carrillo’s 45 page formal report is also available in the Fort Hawkins Commission Archives at Washington Memorial.  Opening these Archives in 2006 was the first major Bicentennial project of the current Commission.  This Archives is accessible to the general public and documents and protects the complete history of the Fort Hawkins Commission and Fort Hawkins.

 

The current Fort Hawkins Commission’s patience paid off tremendously when in 2005 the LAMAR Institute was contracted to begin a third phase of archaeological research.  Led by President Daniel T. Elliott, this five-week dig gave us an accurate outline of the fort for the very first time.  The contributions of this dig are too numerous to mention, but in this short amount of time nearly 40,000 artifacts were found, with several brick buildings and only one of wood uncovered, and the clear evidence of two fort configurations realized.  The stunning 260-page report, Fort Hawkins – History & Archaeology authored by Mr. Elliott, is also available in the Fort Hawkins Commission Archives and at the Blockhouse Replica.  A future full printing is planned as a Fort Hawkins Commission fund-raiser, as authorized presently by the LAMAR Institute, once new information can be incorporated into this wonderful work – the real history of Fort Hawkins.

 

This new and revealing research has helped in reinvigorating the public’s interest in Fort Hawkins as much as it has helped in redefining the real Fort Hawkins.  This is due in no small part to the dedication, enthusiasm, and credentials of Dan Elliott himself.  He co-authored a major work of our own prehistoric native culture, A World Engraved – Archaeology of the Swift Creek Culture, University of Alabama Press, 1998.  He was featured in Smithsonian Magazine and Georgia Public Television for his breakthrough African American archaeological research on Georgia’s Ossabaw Island.  He was instrumental in redefining the real revolutionary Fort Morris at Sunbury on the Georgia coast and admits a passion for forts.  In 2006 he was recognized as the “Archaeologist of the Year” by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources for his outstanding work.

 

Furthermore, Dan Elliott believes in researching as much as in digging and that has led to even more amazing and documented Fort Hawkins facts.  His masterpiece of a Fort Hawkins report is full of color photos, maps, documents, tables, charts, dig profiles, and detailed archaeological techniques and historical deductions.  There are over 200 soldiers listed from various official U.S. Army records including some from the 1000 strong Creek Warrior Regiment of U.S. soldiers that served under Col. Hawkins. There are nearly 100 biographies of some of the real people who lived, worked, and died at Fort Hawkins. The abundance of artifacts revealed what the soldiers and their families ate, wore, played, and worked with 200 years ago.  The direct comparisons to other forts further increases the importance and significance of Fort Hawkins and places it into a clearer historical context.

 

Dan Elliott has brought Fort Hawkins to life again thankfully due to his diligent and exhaustive work, and no doubt due to modern archaeology’s great public allure and professional acceptance.  However, one of the most important chapters in the 260-page report is the final one – “Results And Recommendations”             which includes seven corrected fort misconceptions:

 

1) Fort Hawkins was a primitive frontier fort.

2) Fort Hawkins was a single entity.

3) Long buildings were built along the center of the four walls.

4) The reconstructed blockhouse was done by National Parks.

5) The archaeological remains are largely destroyed.

6) Fort Hawkins played a modest role in American history.

7) Fort Hawkins contained only a small garrison of troops.

 

 After exposing these long held fort myths, a professional approach to rebuilding and public programming is offered by Elliott and once again the Fort Hawkins Commission vision was proven worthy and definitely on track according to these recommendations.  His beginning and closing remarks from his Keynote Address at the Fort Hawkins State Historic Marker Dedication can perhaps summarize Dan’s enthusiasm for Fort Hawkins:

 

            “Fort Hawkins is a classic American history book waiting to be read.  It contains many pages, and many more waiting to be written.  Its story is significant to all Americans. . . . It is a 200 year old site sizzling with tantalizing stories of intrigue, exotic cultures, soldiers and officers, loose women, court-

martials, trade among foreign nations, and the gateway to a new frontier.  Fort Hawkins is an American story that belongs to all of us.  We are excited to help bring this story to life through historical archaeology.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SITE DEVELOPMENT

 

            1.  Archaeology

 

As the LAMAR Institute began its research, the Fort Hawkins Commission realized immediately three very important facts:  1)  secure the site to prevent the prevalent looting; 2) don’t rebuild the fort anytime soon; and 3) more archaeological research was going to be necessary.  Fortunately, their initial 5-week dig revealed enough of the original Fort Hawkins to help guide the necessary development of the site and produce this long needed development plan.  The archaeological research documented clearly where we could and should develop the site with the majority of the city block remaining green space as a sensitive archaeological dig site.

 

The basic layout of the property for development is best and simply represented by the four levels or terraces mentioned earlier (Appendix IV).  The first level or top terrace is the elementary school site and therefore the most sensitive area with little or no development allowed with the fort ruins beneath the school’s three to five feet of fill dirt. The second terrace appears as an old service road and is close to the original fort level and therefore will require investigation before permanent visitor service developments would be made.  The third terrace contains the school era reflecting pool, the former asphalt basketball courts, and a former service station that is not currently Fort Hawkins property.  The fourth and final terrace is the six-lane Emery Highway, U.S. Highways 80 and 23, Georgia Routes 19 and 22, and Alternate U.S. 129 – a major and vital transportation artery in Middle Georgia.

 

The third level of the fort site is the most heavily damaged area archaeologically due to the expansion of Emery Highway, the construction of the reflecting pool and playground/basketball court, and the construction first of a home and then a service station at the corner of Emery Highway and Fort Hill Street.  The unfortunate destruction of these archaeological resources is actually fortunate for the sake of successfully developing the Fort Hawkins site and opening it to the public daily.  While this area is best suited for the most site development and not requiring extensive archaeological research, all areas of the site, when disturbed, should be carefully and diligently examined as any development progresses.  The resulting development equation for the entire fort city block is approximately ¾ sensitive with ¼ ready for development now.

 

First and foremost, Fort Hawkins is a valuable national archaeological resource as so clearly documented by the LAMAR Institute research.  Before any full-scale reconstruction of the fort can be considered, over a full acre of fort land must be carefully studied and evaluated.  The evidence thus far has indicated multiple fort configurations over the years, which will further hamper a definitive or authentic fort reconstruction.  Thus it would appear that rebuilding Fort Hawkins will be an impossible task, when in fact, both the fort rebuilding and the continued archaeological research may coexist wonderfully at Fort Hawkins with this development plan.  Nevertheless, the Fort Hawkins Commission has been correct in the extreme importance of archaeology and should pursue an active and on-going archaeological program while “rebuilding the fort.”

 

The Fort Hawkins Commission has already funded the beginning of the Outer Palisade Wall documentation dig, which was conducted in October 2007.  At the same time, the Commission found a local sponsor, Montgomery Tree Service, willing to supply the logs to rebuild a demonstration outer palisade wall.  The entire east wall and ¾ of the south wall have been thoroughly investigated by the LAMAR Institute and are ready for such a palisade reconstruction.  The next planned dig for October 2008 will last four weeks and finalize the complete outer palisade wall of Fort Hawkins if funding becomes available. The reconstruction of a demonstration native pine palisade wall would greatly educate the public about the real Fort Hawkins and provide a vivid and bold new historical view in Macon of the1806 American frontier.

 

The reconstruction of the demonstration palisade wall will eventually lead to its required rebuilding when a more permanent palisade solution is found.  The successful use of concrete in the 1930’s blockhouse replica could foreshadow a future polymer or composite that could permanently recreate the outer palisade wall.  The very use of concrete in the blockhouse replica will forever complicate a completely authentic rebuilding of Fort Hawkins, unless the 1930’s replica was torn down, which is not considered an option and perhaps never should.  Further complicating a faithful reconstruction is the precarious location of the northwest blockhouse and north palisade wall near or even in Woolfolk Street and the northeast fort corner jutting into Maynard Street.  With at least three different fort configurations now known, which Fort Hawkins would be rebuilt?

 

However, by reconstructing the original outer palisade wall, c.1806, the fort’s exterior would reflect a historical accuracy while inside the palisade wall the archaeological research could continue with even greater security and protection.

The interior of the fort would not have been visible in1806, so by having the outer palisade erected, the fort would appear just about as it would have in 1806.

Further research will determine the possibility of recreating an authentic northwest blockhouse and eventually the possible complete rebuilding of the fort.  Once the complete fort archaeological evidence is revealed, the decision may be wise to develop the site along the lines of Fort Frederica National Monument on St. Simons Island, Georgia where they preserve the original fort features without needing to rebuild on top of them to interpret the site successfully.

 

The creation of the State of Georgia’s first public archaeological demonstration area, where archaeology is celebrated and demonstrated daily, could be accomplished at Fort Hawkins with great success.  The Topper Dig Site in South Carolina, where the public may participate in the dig as a paying, educational experience, has already been suggested by the LAMAR Institute as a possibility for the Fort Hawkins site.  Working collectively with the Society of Georgia Archaeology, the State Historic Preservation Office, and all three of our local colleges plus more in Middle Georgia if not throughout the state, will allow a daily dig experience for the visitor to witness or even participate in.  Once the fort dig is completed, Fort Hawkins could sponsor and lead further needed archaeological digs in Middle Georgia.  With the wealth of potential worthy archaeological sites in our area, this celebration of archaeology will be forever.

 

The realistic yet exciting schedule for the continuing Fort Hawkins archaeological research reflects a systematic search for fort related data:

 

            Phase 1:         Fort Footprint Documentation (2005-2006)

            Phase 2:         Outer Palisade Wall Documentation (2007-2008)

            Phase 3:         Inner Palisade Wall Documentation

            Phase 4:         Inner Fort Documentation

            Phase 5:            Nearby Fort Documentation including:

                                    Adjacent land as needed

                                    Fort Hill Cemetery

                                    Camp Hope

                                    Halsted’s Trading Post

                                    Federal Road

            Phase 6:         Other Middle Georgia Sites including:

                                    Hawkins Creek Agency

                                    Fort Wilkinson

                                    Ocmulgee River Ferry

                                    Town Creek Reservoir

Brown’s Mount

                                    Cherokee Brick Mounds

                                    Bullard Mound

                                    Lamar Mound

                                    Historical Creek Villages

                                    Georgia Militia Forts

                                    DeSoto’s Route

                                    Bartram’s Trail

                                    Battle of Griswoldville

                                    Battle of Sunshine Church

                                    Macon’s 1864 Defense

                                    Camp Wheeler(s)

 

 

            2.  Living History

 

The Fort Hawkins Commission has been dedicated in providing a living history learning experience at Fort Hawkins for several years.  Despite the severe lack of public amenities, the Commission has offered a variety of living history lessons and educational demonstrations in and around the blockhouse replica.  No matter how successful these programs continue to be, their success only points out the real need for improved visitor services to improve the visitor’s safety, security, comfort, and ability to enjoy and appreciate the learning experiences available at Fort Hawkins.  The dramatic and documented history of Fort Hawkins will become real with a daily living history program in place with the proper support facilities. 

 

Living history presentations have proven to be highly successful educational and

motivational tools in teaching and attracting the public to America’s rich history.  The millions who visit such reproduced historical attractions as Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia or Greenfield Village in Michigan attest to this successful technique in connecting the American public with its American History.  Despite being reproductions, their documented authenticity further bonds the public to such sites.   Authentic reproductions and living history have made American history more accessible and acceptable to the general public even more than the classroom or glass enclosed museums ever could.  Fort Hawkins’ dedication to historical archaeology and site authenticity will enhance its living history program.

Fort Hawkins potential for living history is only limited by the imagination.

 

This potential is easily reflected by the myriad of skills and crafts that were practiced at Fort Hawkins 200 years ago out of real necessity.  Today these very skills and crafts are fast becoming lost arts as modern America becomes further detached from its historical roots.  Fortunately for Fort Hawkins, the modern audience also craves to reconnect to their heritage especially through living history. Thus the Fort Hawkins living history program serves an important two-fold purpose for the site’s preservation and interpretation.  It will help save history as it shares history.  It also puts the dramatic history of the fort into a human context with the ability to not only interact with the history, but actual connect to it

 

However, the Fort Hawkins Living History Program has the potential to do more than simply demonstrate these skills on a daily basis.  The site’s educational mission will be enhanced by offering periodic classes in these skills, thus perpetuating these forgotten yet necessary American arts and crafts.  This type of living history will aid Fort Hawkins being viewed as more than a mere “tourist attraction” and should increase the site’s participation with the local educational community from the elementary to college level, as well as the participation of the many arts and youth groups in Macon and Middle Georgia.  Fort Hawkins can become with great ease both a fun and serious historic site that the public will adore with its real living history experience and engaging public programs.

 

These living history public programs that both demonstrate and teach will also have a definte economic impact.  The wonderful items that these historical skills produce will be sold on site in the Fort Hawkins Gift Shop/Trading Post/Living History Headquarters.  This concept creates a real economic engine for the living history efforts beyond the improved economics of an open to the public Fort Hawkins historic site.  The resale items and the teaching classes will be dynamic economic assets to the site.  The archaeology itself could become part of a living history/economic generator by expanding the example of the Topper Site in South Carolina.  The Fort Hawkins site will become an even bigger educational and economic asset with such an energetic and imaginative application of living history.

 

The Fort Hawkins Living History Program will realize that genealogy is as important as archaeology in bringing the fort history alive.  Genealogy should be considered one of the greatest examples of living history. The fort’s public programming already reflects this connection with the original Fort Factor Jonathan Halsted’s descendents now serving on the Fort Hawkins Commission and holding an annual family reunion.  Col. Benjamin Hawkins family has also met at the fort, and descendents of Maj. Phillip Cook have volunteered at the fort.  Real soldiers and families lived and worked at Fort Hawkins and the study and celebration of these real people add greatly to the story of the real Fort Hawkins.

 

Fort Hawkins will be a unique blend of true living history with archaeologists and genealogists as well as costumed interpreters including U.S. Army soldiers, settlers, sutlers, traders, trekkers, skilled craftsmen, children, mothers, washer women, Native Americans, and the entire mix of early American personalities found on the frontier 200 years ago.  Although the Fort Hawkins site is primarily a sensitive archaeological site, the lower ¼  of the Fort Hawkins city block can accommodate the needed area for the site’s necessary support buildings and living history program.  This is the area of damaged archaeological resources, which allows the site to be developed and used while maintaining the ongoing site archaeological excavations.  This blend of ongoing archaeology and daily living history will contribute greatly to both the site’s successful marketing and educational efforts leading to its economic success.

 

 

3. Interpretive Visitor Center

 

The only way that the Fort Hawkins site can succeed with any of its noble ambitions is to have a modern Interpretive Visitor Center.  Such a Center must be a creative complex to accomplish the broad goals of the Fort Hawkins Commission while fitting the narrow available space, the ¼ of the city block with the damaged archeological resources.  Despite the successes in archaeolog-

ical research and living history public programs, the site desperately needs a  professional visitor center complex to properly support such activities and to insure the future success in these areas without compromising or endangering site safety and security.

 

The 1930’s replica blockhouse is not such a center in any way, and its use as such severely limits proper visitor services and collection conservation.  The visitor and the collection are both unsafe and at peril under the current conditions found at the Fort Hawkins site today.  Little upgrades have been made by the City of Macon since 1951 to improve these conditions, although some improvements were made as mentioned earlier.  Much more is needed to insure the proper and professional preservation and interpretation of the site.  The successes of the site despite such spartan and stringent conditions simple amplifies the need for proper visitor services and amenities.

 

The Fort Hawkins Interpretive Visitor Center will be able to tie in the elements of the needed ongoing site archaeology and the daily living history program, the necessary conservation and preservation of the site’s collection and correct interpretation of the site’s history, and the critical desire to be a community and educational resource.  The Fort Hawkins Commission has never envisioned that the Fort Hawkins site should become either a carnival like tourist attraction or a serious, stuffy museum.  This proposed Visitor Center complex will allow the site to be serious in its historical responsibilities while still being a fun experience in delivering its services to the public that is eager for such an engaging and inspiring educational program.  A real hands on history will be practiced at Fort Hawkins with such a complex to support the effort.

 

Despite there being only about ¼ of the Fort Hawkins city block available for development due to the remaining ¾ of the block being a sensitive archaeological area, the location for such a complex is evident.  The corner of Fort Hill Street and Emery Highway has been severely damaged archaeologically at least three times with a home being constructed on the site in the 1920’s, followed by a service station, and finally with the major paving of Emery Highway and Fort Hill Street.  Today the former service station is being rented as a van rental business, whose owner wants to relocate to a better commercial area for his business. This property consists of a two thousand square foot concrete block building with a brick veneer plus paved parking that can accommodate presently about fifteen vehicles.

 

Since the Fort Hawkins site is primarily an archaeological site, this concrete block structure could be easily adapted into the site’s archaeological headquarters.  There are currently four exterior doors that reflect the four main components needed to support the archaeological research: 1) conservation laboratory, 2) classroom/workshop, 3) fire proof vault, and 4) auditorium /meeting area.  All components are needed to continue the site’s archaeology without having the artifacts leaving the site for conservation and research or being stored in the University of Georgia Vault for safekeeping.  All these needs are self evident to professional archaeologists, and once again, the Fort Hawkins Commission is fortunate to have the professional services of the LAMAR Institute to guide this important site development.

 

The fourth component of the auditorium/meeting area will connect the Archaeological Headquarters to the main Interpretive Visitor Center that would be attached to the existing concrete block building to the left or westward towards Fort Hill Street.  This available open space would provide easy access to the site from Fort Hill Street or Emery Highway.  Although a modern building could accommodate all the purposes needed, the representative architecture of the Fort Hawkins era would give the site more of a historic appeal and contribute directly to the site’s living history program.  Macon’s renowned architectural heritage goes from Native American earthen creations to aristocratic antebellum homes without displaying a single log structure, which would reflect Macon’s and America’s real beginnings.

 

The Interpretive Visitor Center complex will become the living history Village of Fort Hawkins from its appearance on Emery Highway, with the proud crown of the Fort Hawkins palisade wall looming above the village and with the blockhouse replica standing guard over the whole primitive but majestic historic scene.  The Archaeological Headquarters would be pine camouflaged with the two story log house constructed to its left as the main museum interpretive area and a log trading post constructed to its right as the museum’s Gift Shop/Trading Post/Living History Headquarters.  Hearthstone Log Homes, the company that recreated Fort King George in Darien for the State of Georgia, has expressed a great interest in helping rebuild Fort Hawkins, also.  The Tennessee corporate office was keen on sponsoring the rebuilding of the Fort Hawkins Village and such a sponsorship could lead to national advertising campaign and expanded interest about this early America recreation at historic Fort Hawkins.

 

The main interpretive area will be a two-story log structure that would allow visitors to exit out a rear second story door onto the actual fort level.  An example of an authentic two story Georgia log structure is found at the New Echota State Historic Site in Calhoun, Georgia.  The 1805 Vann Tavern (Appendix VII) was originally found at Chief Vann’s Chattahoochee River ferry crossing and moved to the Cherokee Capital in the 1950’s when Lake Sidney Lanier flooded the original ferry crossing.  Col. Benjamin Hawkins would have surely visited this tavern, and although Fort Hawkins was part of the Creek territory, Hawkins was the “Beloved to the Four Nations.”  The Fort Hawkins Commission has permission to recreate this wonderful wooden structure in an expanded floor plan to accommodate the site’s available space and needed visitor and interpretive services.

 

The first floor of the center (Appendix VIII) would include a lobby and exhibit area.  The main lobby features the visitor services desk, public bathrooms, introductory fort history exhibits, the bust of Col. Hawkins, and artwork featuring the fort.  The Fort Hawkins Commission presently has a small collection of fort artwork and should be complimented for acquiring famed local artist, Sterling Everett, as the real Fort Hawkins artist.   He has committed to a faithful artistic rendering of the real Fort Hawkins based on the current archaeological evidence that would grace this area.  However, there are other known major American works of art that feature Benjamin Hawkins and the Fort Hawkins time period, which could become part of the permanent collection or could be exhibited temporarily.  Another example of art as an additional asset to Fort Hawkins is in need of rescue in Macon. In the 1960’s acclaimed international artist, George Beattie, created a massive and impressive mural of Macon’s history from the prehistoric past through modern jet aircraft.  Unfortunately, this stunning work of art was done in the lobby of the Federal Building on College Street, which has been closed to the public since the 9/11 tragedy and therefore not seen and barely known about.  Preliminary discussions indicate the mural could be moved with federal funds if a better home could be found, and since Fort Hawkins is featured prominently (Appendix IX), a better home would be the lobby of the new Fort Hawkins Visitor Center.  The “Birthplace of Macon” would thereby save and share all of our community’s history in this stunning artwork.  Art will be part of the celebration at the fort.

 

Many of the current exhibits that have miraculously survived in the replica blockhouse are ready now for the new Visitor Center with just better lighting and presentation and some without much upgrading.  The recent archaeology has uncovered “museum quality” artifacts, and this new quality Visitor Center will allow them to be removed from the vault and put on public display.  This site development plan will not delve into any major Comprehensive Interpretive Plan for the historic site at this time.  The future administration of the site will have a myriad of interpretive and operational decisions and policies to craft such as a scope of collections, fire making regulations, and volunteer guidelines.  This plan provides a framework to only accomplish the mission of the Fort Hawkins Commission.

 

The second floor of the “Vann Tavern” replica will be artifact driven (Appendix VIII).  The original floor plan includes a large room with two smaller side rooms.  There are already more than three ardent collectors who have offered their fort and native relics for our display at Fort Hawkins.  The guiding light and inspirational anchor for the current Fort Hawkins Commission, is former Chairman, Dr. Robert J. Cramer.  He has previously stated that his extensive and exquisite collection of Native American artifacts would one day be displayed at Fort Hawkins.  If this happens, the Fort Hawkins site could boast of having more Native American artifacts on display than any other museum in Georgia.  This fact could be easily verified and perhaps even expanded beyond Georgia.  This second floor would be known as “The Dr. Bob Cramer Center For Native American Studies” with other smaller collections being rotated on a regular basis.  This area will open in the rear directly to the fort level.

 

The hillside was so severely cut for its 20th century construction, that a steep red clay cliff surrounds the concrete block service station building.  Therefore, the second floor of the visitor center will be at the fort level at its rear.  Actually, the real fort level is the upper most terrace, and this site entry is on the second terrace, which appears to have been an old service road that could even date to the fort era.  Now that the original outline of the fort is known and therefore the future archeological digs and palisade reconstruction areas are known, a system of trails may be laid out to help define the fort and provide a proper pathway for visitors to visit the fort site.  The current landscape is an accident waiting to happen with its lack of trails and uneven decorative brick walkway around the blockhouse replica.

 

The new trail would take the visitor to the blockhouse replica, which will be completely emptied and cleaned.  Due to this replica, the complete authentic rebuilding of the original Fort Hawkins has always been problematic, if not really impossible.  The Northwest Blockhouse is equally so, as is the recreation of the entire fort pending the future archeological discoveries.  Nevertheless, the original outer palisade wall can be reconstructed and thus create an image of the real Fort Hawkins while maintaining the sensitive archaeological areas for their on-going research.  The replica blockhouse’s use of those questionable building materials, will now prove to be an asset once again as the blockhouse’s complete redevelopment will improve its historical accuracy and visitor accessibility.

 

New evidence indicates that the blockhouse never had a first floor access door.

This stone-enclosed floor is always referred to as a basement, and the blockhouse would have a ramp access to the third floor, where a door does appear in the only surviving photograph of the blockhouse.  There was no spiral staircase up the middle of the blockhouse either, with ladders and pulley hoists in place instead.  Even with the spiral staircase, many visitors to the site are not able to climb up the second or third floors and thus miss the truly spectacular panoramic view of the surrounding area – nearly the same view as two hundred years ago.  Most every visitor expresses a desire to get atop the blockhouse’s nearly five-story crow’s nest for an even more spectacular vista, although impractical, unsafe and never allowed.

 

The replica blockhouse will be improved historically and practically with historic vignettes on the three floors reflecting chores and duties of the soldiers stationed at Fort Hawkins and a glass elevator to the crow’s nest to provide the utmost breathtaking view of the surrounding green countryside, as well as a view of the soldiers’ life as they go up and down the replica blockhouse.  At this time the site’s “old gun” would be moved to its more historically accurate location on the second floor of the blockhouse, which will provide the needed shelter to permanently protect and secure this original fort artillery piece. This amazing ride through history to the top of Macon could even become part of the site’s many assets contributing to its point of destination success.  This innovative feature and the trail system will make the site safe and accessible to everyone.

 

The visitor’s on site experience continues with the trail leading back down to the site’s third terrace at the visitor center level for the site’s living history area that will revolve and evolve around the log trading post/gift shop attached or near the eastern side of the visitor center.  This would become the fourth trading post known to occupy the area.  The first was begun by the British near the Ocmulgee Mounds in 1686, which was followed in 1806 when Jonathan Halsted moved the Factory from Fort Wilkinson to Fort Hawkins, establishing it amongst the mounds.  The Factory, or trading post, was not moved to Fort Hawkins until 1809, and its location has not been conclusively verified or even determined to be within the palisade wall.  Thus a Trading Post/Gift Shop would be quite appropriate in this location, and its architectural details could combine the history of all previous trading posts.

 

The first additions to the Trading Post would no doubt be a lean-to Blacksmith Shop or Carpenter’s Shed since blacksmithing and carpentry were basic and needed skills with both the Ocmulgee Blacksmith Guild and Middle Georgia Woodworkers Association having expressed a desire to participate in the site’s daily living history program.  Other log structures could be built in this same area along the hillside separating the site’s second and third terraces as the site’s living history skills expand into the Village of Fort Hawkins.  The Muscogee Creek Nation has already been invited by the Fort Hawkins Commission to help recreate an authentic Creek log house to dispel the myth of tepees at Fort Hawkins.  As the living history village expands, so will the site’s educational services and gift shop sales.  The site’s gift shop would carry historical items from the living history, the standard souvenir items and unique fort related memorabilia.  Such a living history program, with demonstrations and classes, and such a site resale program, with arts, crafts, and souvenirs, will both contribute greatly to the site’s success as an economic generator.

 

This third terrace level of the site will also provide additional parking and resource enhancement.  This is the level where the former asphalt basketball courts for the Fort Hawkins School are found along with the school’s stone reflecting pool.  The former courts will easily convert into an immediate gravel parking area that would accommodate over eighty vehicles.  The former reflecting pool will be restored with the help of the Fort Hawkins School alumni.  Their school will not be forgotten and will be remembered in both exhibits and the restoration of their “wading pool” around which May Day activities always took place.  This pool restoration, upkeep, and development could become another successful fund raising stream.  The reflecting image of Fort Hawkins will prove a popular meditative and photographic area for the site.  This area is easily accessed from the current service station property with a minimum of landscaping needed to connect this and all of the site together.

 

This reflecting pool and parking area should become the logical location for the placement of site memorials such as benches and plaques with the Fort Hawkins School alumni leading this memorial effort.  These memorials will help commemorate local history and may aid in site fund raising efforts.  Several known but endangered historical monuments should be moved to Fort Hawkins for better protection and public exposure.  At the end of Emery Highway at Gray Highway there is a metal marker imbedded in the sidewalk of an abandoned car dealership that remembers Gen. Emery, our road’s namesake, as being the Commander of Camp Wheeler during World War II.  The camp was located at the very opposite end of Emery Highway and was an important U.S. Army training camp in both World Wars, with many local family ties to this day.  This obvious interpretive link to our 1806 U.S. Army Fort Hawkins, would insure the preservation of the Gen. Emery Historic Marker, the memory of Camp Wheeler, and the support of more military families in middle Georgia.

 

Another historic marker is less endangered, but is still in a potentially precarious location.  In the parking area of the Baconsfield McDonalds (the donors of the replica blockhouse’s current big orange exhibits), there is a large stone on the corner of busy Gray Highway that bears a metal plaque remembering Gen. James Oglethorpe’s (the founder of the colony of Georgia in 1733) camping in the “Old Fields” on his way to meet and treat with the Muscogee Creeks.  This amazing yet locally unknown historical fact would be better promoted and protected at the Fort Hawkins site and once again relates to the site’s military and Native American history.  There are also a couple of Federal Road historic markers and memorials that could likewise be better served at Fort Hawkins.

 

The development of such a vibrant Interpretive Visitor Center complex with its connecting trails and living history village around the historic Fort Hawkins with its ongoing archaeology research reflects the bigger reality of Fort Hawkins that was apparent in 1806.  Although known as the birthplace of Macon, Fort Hawkins was much, much more than a local phenomenon because its significance was felt on a broader regional and national scale.  Likewise, the Fort Hawkins Interpretive Visitor Center complex will reflect not only the brief but glorious period that the fort was in existence, but also shed light on its larger context as part of U.S. History and its impact on Macon and Middle Georgia even to this day. 

 

4. Phased Property Acquisition

 

Although the majority of the original Fort Hawkins property was eventually purchased by the City of Macon to allow the needed archaeological research to commence, this research has revealed that there is little area left for site development except for the ¼ of the fort city block that has been previously identified.  This requires the additional purchase of the remaining corner lot of the city block currently owned by Rev. Lonzy Edwards and rented out to the Hollingshed Van Rental Company.  The acquisition of this critical property will be needed to implement this site development plan.

 

This would be Phase One of the Fort Hawkins Phased Property Acquisition plan (Appendix X) that will open the site to the public.  This plan also provides a blueprint for the adjacent property around the Fort Hawkins city block.  This plan provides for the recommended development of this immediate area around the fort block.  Due to the City of Macon’s commitment since 1951 to improve and protect Fort Hawkins, the Fort Hawkins Commission requests that the City continue to honor this commitment even after the site opens to the public.  The Fort Hawkins property currently is part of the City’s official park green space, and the adjacent properties should also contribute towards this green space, as they contribute towards the betterment of Fort Hawkins and the improvement of the surrounding neighborhood.

 

Phase Two includes the two city blocks of vacant lots across Woolfolk Street from the fort property running from Fort Hill Street to Maynard Street with Smith Street bisecting the two.  At times these lots are more qualified to be considered “abandoned and neglected,” but there are infrequent basic lot cleanups and there is a small home facing Maynard Street on that end of the block.  The need for some archaeological research in this area, as in all of this adjacent land, is mentioned in Phase 5 of the site’s archaeological plan. The Fort Hawkins Commission has long desired to create a neighborhood park in this area that would include picnic tables, barbeque grills, and a children’s playground.  Being outside of the fort block, this park would always be available for the fort’s neighbors, school visitors, and site picnickers.  This phase could be expedited with funding from the Economic & Community Development Department and could be maintained by the Friends of Fort Hawkins and the Fort Hawkins Neighborhood Association.

 

Phase Three includes the property across Fort Hill Street from the fort and is bounded by Church Street and Emery Highway.  Currently there are three houses on this property facing Fort Hill Street.  The owner of two is willing now to move despite his long standing devotion to Fort Hawkins and the larger house, c. 1860 with its twin double flue chimneys, has been partially restored and sold to an Atlanta family.  This property could serve several purposes from additional site parking along Emery Highway to the houses becoming an archaeological “bed & breakfast” development based on the successful Topper Model in South Carolina.  There is an even more important aspect to this property that would link the fort’s history to the Ocmulgee Heritage Trail and to the very downtown of the city it “birthed.”

 

Church Street sits at an odd angle against the general city grid, and for very good reason (Appendix IV).  Church Street was part of the beginning of the first Federal Road in America that eventually connected Washington, D.C. to New Orleans.  Fort Hawkins was the very beginning of this new road allowed by the Creeks for Col. Hawkins to lay out along their Lower Creek Trading Path.  Church Street turns into Main Street in East Macon and continues to follow the original ancient Creek Trading Path and first Federal Road in the new nation.  It became the first postal route in the nation and supplied troops for Jackson’s victories at the Battle of New Orleans and for his victories in the Creek and Seminole Wars.  It was the gateway to the western frontier in 1806, and that frontier would disappear in 1821. The birth of Macon would follow in 1823 on the western side of the Ocmulgee, with Cotton Avenue becoming a reminder of the earlier Federal Road.

 

Even though Fort Hawkins is not presently a part of the Ocmulgee Heritage Trail Master Plan, NewTown Macon officials have expressed great interest in bringing the trail up to Fort Hawkins.  Under the current conditions found at Fort Hawkins site, it is no wonder that the site was not included in this Master Plan, but the recent Fort Hawkins Commission successes and plans have stimulated this new interest. Once the site is open to the public, the fort will be a worthy inclusion on the Ocmulgee Heritage Trail, with a nearly ready made 200 year old plus route.  If the trail’s expansion to the new Waterworks Park was worth a $5 million plus grant, such an expansion to Fort Hawkins could include cable car rides up the steep hill and a miniature replica of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis to commemorate the 1806 Gateway on the Ocmulgee River.

 

Phase 4 and Phase 5, which follow the fort property across Maynard Street (4) and across Emery Highway (5), are designated for additional parking and buffers for the historic site.  The original Fort Hawkins included a nearly one hundred-acre area, but the site could never reestablish such an area in today’s urban environment.  However, Phase 6, covers all of the remaining adjacent fort property as well as the entire East Macon/Fort Hill Historic Districts, thus encompassing more of the original fort area and ancient “Old Fields.”  Any positive neighborhood redevelopment to continue the improvements begun at Fort Hawkins would be welcomed and encouraged, and the Fort Hawkins Commission has invited the Muscogee Creek Nation to consider creating a new official twenty fourth Creek community in East Macon/Fort Hill and developing a living history Creek village and Creek Cultural Center in their ancestral “Old Fields.”  Such a possibility would forever improve the quality of life in Macon and Middle Georgia and no doubt make Col. Hawkins proud and pleased at our efforts in returning the Creek Nation back to their original home and redirecting those federal funds here.

 

These six phases of property acquisition will the Fort Hawkins site to open to the public with the needed site improvements and provide a way for the adjacent property to develop in a beneficial way for the Fort Hawkins historic site and the surrounding neighborhood.  This plan provides for site protection and complimentary development that will lead to more development in the East Macon/Fort Hill area.  This phased approach will not burden the City of Macon with any one time large property acquisition and it is hoped that the city’s financial burden may be lifted by trading out city parcels of land in lieu of purchasing and/or condemning these targeted properties around Fort Hawkins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SITE RECOMMENDATIONS

 

This site development plan thus far has detailed the way the Fort Hawkins historical resources will best be utilized, but the Fort Hawkins Commission has always maintained a desire to see the site become a thriving community resource beyond its important role as a historical and educational resource.

The Fort Hawkins site will achieve this status by being proactive in its public outreach.  This will be accomplished by providing a place for groups like our partners, the Ocmulgee Archaeological Society, to meet and work, encouraging other such groups to cultivate such partnerships.  After school programs with the Burdell-Hunt Elementary, located only two blocks away, could be offered and the school being a Media Magnet School could partner with Fort Hawkins with such media programs as the History Channel’s “Save Our History.”

 

Fort Hawkins could become a center for adult literacy and English/Spanish speaking classes reflecting its original history and current commitment to the community.  Various Senior and youth services could help expand the efforts of the nearby Rosa Jackson Community Center. The site’s living history program and area could create a unique rental opportunity for youth birthdays, company picnics, family reunions, school reunions, and other social and celebratory events.  Most historic sites have learned to increase their revenue stream with an active rental opportunity program and Fort Hawkins will become such a unique rental resource. 

 

Fort Hawkins benefited from the involvement of local boy scouts in the 1960’s and 70’s and that opportunity will be extended again.  Fort Hawkins is the actual brand of the Central Georgia Council of the Boy Scouts of America on their proud shoulder patch and one of their popular camps is named after Benjamin Hawkins.  Their current Scout Executive, Bob Boyd, was one of those scouts touring folks around the replica blockhouse in the 1970’s and he has already committed a professional and official bond with local scouting and the fort.  This will provide an expanded base of site volunteers and improved public programs as well as a place for the scouts to earn merit badges and offer their community service. The Fort Hawkins site could even sponsor its own Scout Troops.

 

The Fort Hawkins site could and should be utilized by all local patriotic and veteran groups in their own public programming and in holding special community events at the site.  This will allow the fort’s past patriotism to be applied in today’s world and provide a place for these patriotic organizations to promote their goals and needs.  Likewise local and national military groups from high school R.O.T.C. units to major U.S. Army museums, along with re-enactor soldiers from the War of 1812 and active duty U.S. Army soldiers, will be invited to participate in Fort Hawkins site activities. Developing positive relations with patriotic and veterans groups along with reconnecting with the U.S. Army will further benefit Fort Hawkins in bigger and better ways with site programming and fund raising.  These military roots could and should become a major site asset.

 

Fort Hawkins will further benefit by this proactive public outreach and partnership cultivation by visiting and bonding with the many historical sites that relate directly to the Fort Hawkins time period and heritage such as the original Federal Road Sites towards Washington, D.C. and towards New Orleans, which will include Fort Mitchell in Alabama.  Other such Fort Hawkins era recreated forts to partner with would be Fort Smith, Arkansas and Fort Osage, Missouri, which became the westernmost U.S. Fort & Factory while Fort Hawkins was the easternmost. The Muscogee Creek Nation has been told that we will be visiting them as well as other “Trail of Tears” memorials.

 

Coastal Georgia offers a variety of historical forts with a variety of funding sources that need to be studied and visited include: Fort Jackson, Savannah (c. 1808), privately operated by the Coastal Heritage Society; Fort King George, Darien (c. 1736), State Historic Site; Fort Frederica, St. Simons Island (c. 1736), National Monument; and Fort Point Peter, St. Marys (c. 1790), Cumberland Island National Seashore.  All of the above named seven forts are examples of the success Fort Hawkins expects and their experiences will be invaluable to our efforts.  All of these other fort successes are part of the present inspiration felt by the Fort Hawkins Commission, as well as part of its quiet desperation in getting Fort Hawkins properly opened, promoted, and preserved.

 

Likewise, once Fort Hawkins has the proper facilities to support the programs that are planned for the site, a multitude of living history groups will want to partner with the historic site in bringing history alive.  Company A, 7th Regiment of U.S. Infantry Living History Association and Forsyth’s Rifle Regiment are just two of many War of 1812 Re-enactors that need to be reminded of the war’s southern theater at Fort Hawkins.  The Coalition of Historical Trekkers should become involved with their dedication in sharing through living history their civilian side of the fort era.  The Association of Living Historical Farms & Agricultural Museums (ALHFAM) has an international reputation in promoting and developing all living history sites and will obviously want to partner with Fort Hawkins.  Fort Hawkins will become partners with the local Macon Arts Roundtable and the statewide Georgia Association of Museums & Galleries (GMAG).  There are many more such groups and organizations that Fort Hawkins will partner with to provide the grant support that the Fort Hawkins project deserves and can finally administer with a proper support facility.

 

 

The Fort Hawkins Commission has already partnered successfully with a number of individuals and groups in a variety of ways that have benefited Fort Hawkins presently, but with the proper support facilities as outlined in this site development plan, these benefits will improve and increase exponentially.  Nevertheless, despite such facilities, the Commission can be proud of these successful partnerships as seen in the growth of the Friends of Fort Hawkins.  The Friends support group as of this date totals over 180 memberships equating to several hundred individuals and reflecting a broad base of community support on a local and regional effort including students and senior citizens, youth groups and patriotic groups, Lifetime members and generous in-kind sponsors.  Among the groups are the statewide Colonial Dames of America and the statewide Daughters of the War 1812 along with several individual chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution and several Middle Georgia historical groups.

 

The Friends of Fort Hawkins have partnered with the Keep Macon Bibb Beautiful Commission in their “Adopt-A-Spot” program and sponsor four cleanups and picnics a year around the Fort Hawkins city block.  Signs on Fort Hill Street and Maynard Street proclaim this partnership and these efforts to improve our historic neighborhood.  Fort Hawkins will help spread this wonderful public program to continue the improvements in our worthy but needy neighborhood.

The Friends of Fort Hawkins have also had two receptions at Macon’s Sidney Lanier Cottage, as a partner with the Historic Macon Foundation, and have recently produced a handsome new Friends brochure that promotes this crucial support group and the fort history.  The brochure is distributed at public programs, the Blockhouse Replica, Macon City Hall, Burdell-Hunt Elementary School, Ocmulgee National Monument, Sidney Lanier Cottage, and the new Downtown Macon Welcome Center operated by the Macon – Bibb County Convention & Visitors Bureau (MBCCVB).

 

Fort Hawkins has partnered with the MBCCVB with the development of this impressive $3 million Welcome Center’s exhibits.  Fort Hawkins is boldly portrayed in both the promotional video and the wall length montage of Macon’s history.  The MBCCVB has also made the development of Fort Hawkins as one of their three main goals for 2008 and recently placed the Fort Hawkins Commission Chairman on the Tourism Attraction Committee.  The “Point of Destination Tourist Attraction For Macon: A Feasibility Assessment” prepared for the Macon Chamber of Commerce in 1988 by Davidson-Peterson Associates, Inc. touted the benefits of living history and authentic historical recreations with a suggested “arts and crafts festival park . . . designed to impress visitors with total ambience and environment.”  The MBCCVB knows that this will be Fort Hawkins.

 

Other distinguished groups have been part of the fort’s developing partnerships throughout the state and locally.  The Society of Georgia Archaeology held its spring state convention in 2007 at Fort Hawkins and featured a national speaker, Dr. Jim Johnson, who spoke on “Traces of Heritage Along the Ocmulgee and the Hudson Rivers.”  His talk highlighted the potential for the Fort Hawkins project to this illustrious group of archaeologists.  The Georgia Historical Society and the Fort Hawkins Commission co-sponsored the funding and erection in fall of 2007 of an official Fort Hawkins State Historic Marker, whose dedication was the largest ever witnessed by the GHS due to the participation of the entire 500+ Burdell-Hunt Elementary School student body.  The U.S. Army also participated in the event marking their first return to their former fort since the 1820’s (although some were now believed to be on the site in 1865).

 

The KMBBC, the entire Burdell-Hunt Elementary School, the Bibb Board of Education, the Georgia Forestry Commission, and the Fort Hawkins Commission joined forces for another impressive public program at Fort Hawkins with the annual Georgia Arbor Day Celebration in 2007.  Partnering later with the BBOE, Fort Hawkins hopes to see every 4th or 5th grader in Bibb County visit the site each year.  Partnering later with the GFC, Fort Hawkins may help relocate their official State Forestry Museum now remotely located at the very end of Emery Highway after it becomes the Riggins Mill Road and even more remotely known to exist.  The Howard Bennett Forestry Museum needs immediate rescue and relocation near Fort Hawkins on Emery Highway, creating three substantial historical and educational attractions along this corridor and contribute more economic stimulus along this depressed roadway. The connection of Fort Hawkins’ time period to forestry and trees is obvious.

 

Fort Hawkins has been truly blessed to have real fiscal partners already established.  When the Fort Hawkins Commission began its fund raising efforts in earnest in 2003 a providential decision was made to allow the Community Foundation of Central Georgia, rather than the City of Macon, to manage and protect the funds generated for the Fort Hawkins Commission.  This provided the Fort Hawkins Commission with an immediate 501(c) 3 status and their professional management and wise counsel have benefited the fort’s fund raising efforts immensely and helped demonstrate the fiscal responsibility of the Fort Hawkins Commission.  The Friends of Fort Hawkins, by their various memberships, have contributed to the financial well being of the Fort Hawkins project, but several major contributors have enhanced this well being many fold.

 

The Nathaniel Macon Chapter NSDAR has not only been the organization that has provided the foundation and backbone to remember Fort Hawkins over the years, but also they continue to contribute significantly to site programs and fund raising efforts.  Likewise, the Macon Town Committee and Georgia Colonial Dames of America have contributed greatly in helping fund the site’s archaeology. Local businessman, David Walsh, made such impressive contributions to sponsor two Fort Hawkins Car Shows in downtown Macon, that despite being a free event to the public, it has become the most successful fundraiser for Fort Hawkins.  Wal-Mart has contributed $4000 in Community Grants to Fort Hawkins to support our free public programming allowing us to improve and expand these programs. This has allowed the Fort Hawkins Commission to not only offer a very ambitious public program schedule (Appendix XI), but also these fund raising efforts have demonstrated the Commission’s ability to raise funds and spend them wisely.

 

However, the Fort Hawkins Commission must recognize its most important partners who have shaped the site’s past and hopefully future developments.   They are the City of Macon, the Peyton Anderson Foundation, and NewTown Macon.  The city has supplied electricity, water, roofing, and minor repairs in maintaining the Blockhouse Replica since 1951.  The city partnered with the Peyton Anderson Foundation and NewTown Macon in acquiring the majority of the Fort Hawkins city block.  Peyton Anderson and NewTown have been instrumental in funding the site’s archaeology, the site’s security fence, and the site’s new “old gun.”  Without these three partnering entities, all the progress that the Fort Hawkins site has made thus far would never have happened.  The site’s progress and successes have now led to this site development plan and this critical juncture in the fort’s history.

 

To accomplish this site development plan a $3.5 million capital outlay fund is needed as detailed in Appendix XII.  This figure includes $500,000 for capital funding that would prepare the Interpretive Visitor Center for the site opening to the public.  One million is allocated for Site Archaeology that would develop the archaeological headquarters and continue the important site archaeological research.  One million is allocated for Site Development that would complete the site’s improvements such as the two Blockhouses, Palisade Wall, Trading Post, and support services like security and lighting.  One million is allocated for Site Endowment that will provide the needed operational and administrative funds to keep the site open to the public and keep the lights turned on.  It should be noted that there are significant funds set aside for grant enhancement and it is the intention of using this $3.5 million to develop and open the site as well as to attract and raise more revenue.  Fort Hawkins will not depend solely on this initial $3.5 million investment, but will immediately develop a multitude of revenue streams as indicated in this site development plan to insure the site’s future.

 

This seems such a relatively small investment for such a tremendous return in so many ways as detailed in this site development plan.  A creative public-private partnership could deliver this site development plan immediately without becoming a burden upon the City of Macon and allowing the site to open and prove its worth in the many ways outlined in this site development plan.  The Fort Hawkins Commission would not want the site to become a burden on the local, state, or national park systems and therefore envisions the fort site becoming an independent historic site.  The Fort Hawkins Commission recognizes that as its mission is accomplished, a new entity will be needed to oversee the continued preservation and interpretation of this valuable historic site.  Whether the site becomes the Fort Hawkins Historic Park, Inc. or the Fort Hawkins Trading Company or the Fort Hawkins Development Authority, the Fort Hawkins Commission has earned a place in this transition.

 

The financial plan that would implement this site development would partner the City of Macon with one or more of the fort’s philanthropic friends to create this new governing entity and thus secure the fort’s promising future.  The City of Macon would first pledge to raise the needed $3.5 million for the fort’s development through grants and other qualified programs but not from the city budget, which needs all the help it can get and will not be impacted by the fort funding.  This will take a concerted effort with the Mayor and City Council, with the leadership of the City Council President and Community Resources & Development Committee Chairman, to create an official City Resolution to that effect.  The City of Macon will also continue to offer limited in-kind services to the fort and continue to implement the site’s Phased Property Acquisition.

 

With the City of Macon pledging to raise the needed $3.5 million, the Fort Hawkins Commission will then contact the fort’s philanthropic friends to match this $3.5 million with an immediate grant, or loan, to get the fort site open and running as outlined in this site development plan.  These requested funds would be administered by the Community Foundation of Central Georgia and the funding entity would define the new operating authority for the Fort Hawkins site.  The Fort Hawkins Commission members who wish to continue their service would be asked to participate, which would include members from the public and private sector.  This new governing authority would answer directly to the funding source or its designee and indirectly answer to the public every day with its educational and enjoyable site programming.  The rich early American heritage found at Fort Hawkins deserves the very best, and this plan will finally professionally preserve, promote, and interpret this exciting history in an engaging, interactive, multidiscipline presentation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

Fort Hawkins is now ready, willing, and able, as demonstrated in this site development plan, to be opened to the public as one of the finest and most innovative historic sites in America.  Macon and Middle Georgia deserve no less as Fort Hawkins joins the illustrious cultural attractions in our area, and begins to contribute to boosting the area’s cultural and heritage tourism.  Fort Hawkins will be much more as detailed in this site development plan, contributing even more to the local economy and quality of life with its educational programming and community involvement.  Fort Hawkins will further contribute to more local pride.

The Fort Hawkins Commission has proven it can be a faithful steward in developing, protecting, and promoting the site and has patiently waited for this very moment to elevate Fort Hawkins preservation and promotion to the professional level the historic site so richly deserves and the neighborhood so desperately needs.

 

The Fort Hawkins Commission has waited for this moment to offer the wisest   uses for the Fort Hawkins property.  The long awaited archaeological research has provided enough information to guide the site’s needed development and future preservation. This research has helped rekindle the interest and support of the proud heritage found at Fort Hawkins, one of America’s forgotten forts from a nearly forgotten time period. This site development plan reflects an equally proud present with a daily celebration of early American and Native American life at a real frontier fort, while also daily celebrating historical archaeology and the living history experience.  It’s about time for Fort Hawkins to regain its rightful prominence in local, regional, and national history.  It’s about time for Fort Hawkins to become the community resource it could and should be and begin to contribute more to the betterment of Macon and Middle Georgia.  It’s all about time – the proud past, present, and future of Fort Hawkins.

 

Marty Willett, Fort Hawkins Commission Chairman, March 27, 2008 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

 

           

APPENDICES

 

 

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

I.            Federal Road Maps

 

II.            Selected Fort Hawkins Histories

 

III.         Fort Hawkins Topography

 

IV.        Fort Hawkins Block

 

V.            National Park Service Loan Agreement

 

VI.            Blockhouse Replica Inventory

 

VII.       Vann Tavern and Fort Site Position

 

VIII.      Tavern Floor Plan and Visitor Center Plan

 

IX.            Beattie Mural with Fort Hawkins

 

X.       Phased Property Acquisition Map

 

XI.        Public Program Schedule

 

XII.            Capital Outlay Budget

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix I.

 

FEDERAL ROAD MAPS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix II.

 

SELECTED FORT HAWKINS HISTORIES

 

1.            Anderson, Nancy B.; 1979; Macon – A Pictorial History

 

2.         Butler, John C.; 1879; Historical Record of Macon and Central Georgia

 

3.            Comer, Harriet; 1923 w/ 1999 edit; Macon – The First One Hundred Years

 

4.            Carrillo, Richard F.; 1971; Exploratory Excavations at Fort Hawkins, Macon Georgia: an Early Nineteenth Century Military Outpost

 

5.            DeVorsey, L., Jr. and J.C. Waters; 1973; UGA “Fort Hawkins Study”

 

6.         Elliott, Daniel T.; 2007; Fort Hawkins History and Archaeology

 

7.            Etheridge, Robbie; 2003; Creek Country – The Creek Indians and Their World

 

8.            Hawkins, Benjamin; 2003 edit by H. Thomas Foster II; The Collected Works of Benjamin Hawkins, 1796-1810

 

9.            Holland, F. Ross; 1970; NPS “Fort Hawkins Frontier Fort, Ocmulgee 

            National Monument”

 

10.            Klingelhofer, Eric and Tom Scott, Douglas Steeples; 1996; MU “Preliminary Findings Toward A Civic Dialogue Concerning the Restoration of Fort Hawkins”

 

11.       Knight, Lucian Lamar; 1914; “Fort Hawkins – The Cradle of Macon”

 

12.       Long, Catherine; 2007; “More Than A Fort –SGA Lesson Plan #10”

 

13.            McKay, John J.; 1966; “Fort Hawkins – Wilderness Stronghold”

 

14.            Mattison, Ray. H.;1946; GHQ “The Creek Trading Post: From Colerain to Fort Hawkins”

 

15.            Wilcox, Dianne Dent; 1999; Fort Hawkins and Frontier Georgia, 2nd Edition – Southeast America’s 19th Century Peoples, Places and Personalities

 

16.       Willey, Gordon R.; 1936; “Report of Fort Hawkins Excavations”



17.       Young, Ida and Julius Gholson, Clara Nell Hargrove; 1950; History of Macon, Georgia

Appendix III.

 

FORT HAWKINS TOPOGRAPHY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix IV.

 

FORT HAWKINS BLOCK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix V.

 

FORT HAWKINS NATIONAL PARK SERVICE LOAN AGREEMENT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

page 2 NPS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix VI.

 

BLOCKHOUSE REPLICA INVENTORY

 

1.    Glass Case Collection

1.  “Items Found By Archeologist Near Fort Hawkins” w/ 27 items

2.  “Trading Post” exhibit w/ 28 items

3.  “Village of Fort Hawkins” exhibit w/ 50+ items

4.  “Native Americans” exhibit w/ 60 items

5.  “Fort Hawkins Community Memorabilia” exhibit w/ 35 items

6.  ”Fort Hawkins Papers” exhibit w/ 32 items

 

7.    Framed Collection

                        1.  Jonathan Halsted Family History

                        2.  Old Fields map

                        3.  Early Georgia Map

                        4.  Ocmulgee National Monument

                        5.  Antique Macon City Flag

                        6.  DAR Georgia Map & WWI Veterans Tribute

                        7.  Daughters of War 1812 Veterans Plaque

                        8.  Blockhouse Replica Photograph

                        9.  Fort artwork by Dianne Wilcox

                    10.  Fort artwork “Macon – Then & Now” by Anni Moller

                     11.  Battle of Autossee/ 2007 Archaeology Month Poster

                     12.  Star spangled banner reproduction

                    13.  Enlarged Irvine Illustration

                     14.  Col. Benjamin Hawkins profile

                     15.  Map of today’s Muscogee Creek Nation

                     16.  Muscogee Creek Nation Facts

                    17.  Indian Springs Hotel

                     18.  Fort Oil Painting by Dr. Bob Cramer

                     19.  “Indian Cession In Georgia” Map by Dr. Bob Cramer

                     20.  Fort artwork by student Sarah Gegogeine

                     21.  Bird Effigy Pipe (orange)

                     22.  The First Indians (orange)

                     23.  Great Temple Mound (orange)

                     24.  Ocmulgee National Monument & Fort Hawkins on wood

                     25.  “Indians” w/ three photographs

                     26.  “Settlers” w/ three photographs

                    27.  “Fort Hawkins – Where It All Began” by Alix Anderson

                     28.  Fort Hawkins rendering by Russell Claxton

                     29.  July 4th 2002 china shard collection of Meghan Reich (9)

                     30.  Lafayette Meets George Washington print

                     

 

 

8.    Fort Model and School Project Collection

                        1.  Ten fort models displayed

                        2.  Ten school projects displayed

 

9.    Fort Furniture

                        1. Four primitive benches

                        2. Four blue metal chairs

                        3. Four folding tables

                        4. Halstead Desk

                        5. Brass Easel

                        6. Small Storage Cabinet

                        7. Portable 10’ X 10’ tent

 

10.   Temporary Exhibits

                        1.  Fort Artifact Surface Collection with 1600+ items on 1st floor

                        2.  Plexiglas fort photos and drawings on 1st floor

                        3.  Fort “Cornerstone: exhibit on 1st floor

                        4.  1971 Dig blueprint on 1st floor

                        5.  Fort Hawkins School exhibit on 1st floor

                        6.  Soldier’s Life on 2nd floor

                        7.  Storytelling Area on 3rd floor

                        8.  Three scrapbooks (2 FHC & 1 DAR)

                        9.  Three Fort Promotions (2 books & 1 calendar)

                     10.  SGA Conference Fort Exhibits

                     11.  “Columbia 6-pounder Cannon” text & 6-pound cannonball

                     12.  KMBBC/CBF Crystal Bowl 2007 Environmental Award to FHC 

                     13.  Resale Items

 

11.  Other Fort Items

                        1.  Bust of Benjamin Hawkins

                        2.  Creek Indian mannequin

                        3.  Large Cast Iron Wash Pot

                        4.  Modern Macon City Flag

                        5.  Large Fort Conjecture on wood

 

12.  Outside Items

                        1.  Original fort six pounder brass cannon “Old Gun”

                        2.  Fort Hawkins State Historic Marker

                        3.  Three wooden picnic tables

                        4.  “Fort Hawkins 1806” routed sign on Emery Highway

                        5.  Fort Hawkins local contact metal sign on Woolfolk Street

                        6.  “Adopt-A-Spot” signs on Fort Hill & Maynard Streets  

                      7.  Three outdoor flags w/ one w/ 15 stars

                        8.  Rented Portable Toilet and Hand Washing Machine

           

 

Appendix VII.

 

1805 VANN TAVERN AND FORT SITE POSITION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix VI.

 

VANN TAVERN FLOOR PLAN & VISITOR CENTER PLAN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix IX.

 

BEATTIE MURAL WITH FORT HAWKINS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix X.

 

PHASED PROPERTY ACQUISITION MAP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix XI.

 

PUBLIC PROGRAM SCHEDULE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix XII.

 

CAPITAL OUTLAY BUDGET

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 
 

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