Bonaventure Plantation
Claudia Catell Mullryne and her husband, Colonel John Mullryne, established their residence at Bonaventure in 1762. The 600-acre rural estate was located on the Saint Augustine Creek about 3 ½ miles from the Savannah Colony. The Mullrynes’ youngest daughter, Mary, and her husband, Josiah Tattnall, had two children born at Bonaventure: John Mullryne Tattnall in 1763 and Josiah Tattnall, Jr. in 1765.
No agricultural crop was cultivated at Bonaventure; however, Colonel John Mullryne established live oak trees every 15 feet on each side of the roadways within the estate.
The first plantation house burned in 1771, but was replaced with a brick mansion considered one of the best buildings in the Province.
Bonaventure Plantation was a significant site during the American Revolution. In 1776 Royal Governor James Wright escaped Revolutionary captors via Bonaventure. The estate on St. Augustine Creek became a landing for French and Haitian troops under Count Charles d’Estaing in October 1779 and the mansion was used as a hospital during the Siege of Savannah.
Bonaventure estate was confiscated by the Revolutionary government in 1782 and sold at public auction to John Habersham, a friend of the Tattnalls, who sold the property in 1785 to Josiah Tattnall, Jr. Harriett Fenwick, the wife of Josiah Tattnall, Jr. gave birth to nine children from 1786 to 1801, and buried four of them while residing at Bonaventure. She died in 1803, and her husband, then Governor Tattnall died in 1804. The orphaned children were raised by their grandparents in London.
The second house was likely destroyed between 1803 and 1817. Neither Edward Fenwick Tattnall nor Josiah Tattnall, III, two sons of Governor Tattnall, resided at Bonaventure upon returning to Savannah and inheriting the estate. The ruins of the house and the tree-lined roadways remained on the property when Josiah Tattnall, III sold the property to Peter Wiltberger in 1846 who intended to develop a public cemetery on 70 acres. Josiah Tattnall, III became a Commodore in the Confederate Navy. |
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