City of Brunswick Tree Tour

Location: Hanover Square, intersection of Richmond Street and George Street. In 1825, the county held a public improvement lottery to raise money for the construction of the first Glynn County courthouse. A two story structure, the first County Courthouse was located in the center of Hanover Square until 1884.

Location: Hanover Square. In 1882 Brunswick's citizens believed that the old wooden county courthouse and its stockyard in Hanover Square was not a proper courthouse. The Ladies Park Association led the campaign for the removal of the courthouse from Hanover Square and raised funds for materials to beautify the area. The current Glynn County courthouse is at Union and G streets.

Location: Kings Square (center), south of Prince Street between Richmond and Newcastle Streets. In 1732, King George II signed a charter creating the colony of Georgia as a buffer between the British colony of South Carolina and lands in Florida held by the Spanish. The original layout of the City of Brunswick's streets and squares were named after British nobility and royalty, which were kept after independence.

Location: Kings Square, Prince and Newcastle Streets. Frank Vande Linde (1924-2024) served as chairman of the Brunswick Park and Tree Board for 10 years. He was quoted in the Brunswick News as saying, "we've got some of the most beautiful trees anywhere, but they are getting old." Under his leadership, the Tree Board began planting 50 live oak trees each year in the city. The 4 live oaks in Kings Square were the first trees he had planted. He was a forester for 39 years and embodied the proverb, "A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit."

Location: 807 Dartmouth Street, corner of Egmont and Dartmouth Streets. Brunswick became a British settlement in 1738 after Mark Carr, a Marine Captain in General James Oglethorpe's company, established "Plug Point," a 1,000 acre tobacco plantation along the Turtle River. By 1771, the Royal Province of Georgia purchased Plug Point and renamed it in honor of King George II's ancestral birthplace: Braunschweig, Germany, officially becoming the Town of Brunswick.

Location: 825 Egmont Street, Halifax Square. George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax (1716-1771), was President of the UK Board of Trade from 1748 to 1765, where he helped found Halifax, capital of Nova Scotia, named after him. He promoted American commerce and became known as the "Father of the Colonies." The earl inherited his title at 23 and two years later made a lucrative marriage to an heiress, taking her surname Dunk. Halifax opposed slavery and refused to invest in any cause tied to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. When colonists clashed with Parliament, he publicly voiced support for them.

Location: 900 George Street, Wright Square. Robert Christopher (circa 1815-1904), an African American blacksmith, operated his business on the city lot opposite this tree as early as 1875. Christopher, who was born into slavery, was an early black entrepreneur in Brunswick, also holding shipping interests in Savannah.

Location: 900 George Street, Wright Square. The city's first burial grounds were situated within Wright Square until the mid-1800s. As the city developed, the location of the burial ground was lost. Archaeologist William Weeks investigated whether the settlers' burial ground might have been beneath the square. In 2012 when the school building on the site was demolished, weeks of supervised excavations revealed, but did not disturb, 37 burial sites. The grave sites are thought to be over 200 years old and appear to be arranged in family groups.

Location: Albany Street, in the median at Prince Street and Albany Streets. The Lover's Oak has a girth of 35 feet. The name comes from a legend, a Native American Netowah and Minnie-Wassie who met in secret under the tree. Mistakenly thinking she had fallen for another, Newtowah took their lives and they were buried under the tree. In 1987, the National Arborist Association placed a plaque near the tree, stating that the tree had been standing since the signing of the United States Constitution 200 years earlier in 1787. The tree's age has been estimated to be between 500-900 years of age.

Location: Oak Grove Cemetery, east side of cemetery. Charlotte Plant moved to Brunswick from Massachusetts and died of consumption at the age of 24, only seven months after arriving. Reportedly, she was the first person buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in 1839. Many notable Brunswick citizens from its early history are interred at Oak Grove Cemetery.

Location: Oak Grove Cemetery. This large oak shades the final resting place of many prominent citizens, including the Dart family. Generations of Darts served the City as mayor, legislators, surveyors, builders and soldiers. Private Cyrus Dart was the first ancestor in the area. He became a surgeon, settled on St. Simons Island in 1792, and married island resident Ann Harris. He then worked as a surgeon in the U.S. Army at Coleraine, near Spanish Florida. Cyrus returned to the area in 1802 as a quarantine officer for the Port of Brunswick.