A VIEW OF SAVANNAH AS IT STOOD THE 29TH OF MARCH 1734

A View of Savannah as it stood the 29th of March. 1734 presents the design of the town as it was envisioned by James Edward Oglethorpe (1696-1785), founder of the Georgia colony. As the bird’s-eye view illustrates, the original plan of Savannah was comprised of four public wards and four residential wards, each of the latter containing forty house lots measuring precisely sixty by ninety feet. The precision of the design and Oglethorpe’s egalitarian approach to the division of land reflect his regimented military background as well as his utopian vision of the Georgia colony as a place to provide relief for people languishing in debtors prisons and persecuted foreign Protestants. In November 1733, a draft of the town plan was sent back to the Georgia Trustees in London to be engraved and incorporated with other materials designed to promote the new colony. The setting for Savannah, perfectly carved out of the dense wilderness and laid out in a uniform manner, supported the notion that the English were adept at mastering the American environment and establishing order out of chaos.