Ashantilly
McIntosh County, McIntosh County, Georgia
Marker Inscription
Ashantilly. Built ca. 1820, Ashantilly was the mainland residence of prominent antebellum planter Thomas Spalding (1774-1851), owner of the nearby Sapelo Island plantation. The house, likely built by Spalding's slaves, was constructed of tabby, an equal mix of oyster shell, sand, water and lime. Ashantilly was named for Spalding's ancestral home in County Perth, Scotland. He died at Ashantilly and is interred in the family burial ground adjacent to the property. William G. Haynes, Jr. (1908-2001), proprietor of the Ashantilly Press, was the last private owner of Ashantilly. In 1993 the Haynes family donated the property to the Ashantilly Center, Inc. 2009.03 Erected by the Georgia Historical Society and The Lower Altamaha Historical Society 95-05
Erected by Georgia Historical Society
The Story
Built around 1820, Ashantilly was the mainland home of Thomas Spalding (1774–1851), a prominent antebellum planter whose principal estate lay on nearby Sapelo Island. Likely constructed by Spalding's enslaved workers, the house was made of tabby—a coastal building material of oyster shell, sand, lime, and water—and named for his family's ancestral home in Scotland. In the 20th century it became the home of the Ashantilly Press before being donated as a cultural center in 1993.
Why it matters
Ashantilly embodies the tabby-built world of the Georgia coast's plantation elite, a prosperity inseparable from the enslaved people who quite literally built it.
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Related people
- · Thomas Spalding
- · William G. Haynes, Jr.
Themes & tags
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