Places of Interest
Hickory Hill
This 1865 estate, home of U.S. Senator Thomas E. Watson, father of Rural Free Delivery (a rural mail service for the nation), has been richly restored to its 1920s appearance and includes Watson heirlooms. The 270-acre gardens and arboretum, originally designed by Watson, may be explored. Tours by appointment; self-guided garden tour available.
502 Hickory Hill Dr., Thomson, GA
706-595–7777, 877-595–9777
www.hickory-hill.org
Rock House
The Rock House, built around 1785 and is the oldest stone residence in Georgia. The design and construction are typical of the New Jersey area from which the Quakers who settled in Wrightsborough came. The house was occupied continuously until the 1930's. It is now owned by the Wrightsboro Quaker Foundation and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Self-guided tour available. 706-597-1000.
Wrightsborogh Historic District
McDuffie County’s roots go back to the 1768 settlement of Wrightsborough, one of Georgia’s only Quaker settlements
and the southernmost point of Quaker migration in North America. In 1768 Joseph Maddock, an English Quaker from
North Carolina, founded in Georgia the Quaker community of Wrightsborough (named for James Wright, the royal
governor of Georgia). Maddock and other families had been thriving in Hillsboro, North Carolina, until the
British representative there established a heavy tax system. Subsequently, he and another prominent Quaker,
Jonathan Sell, organized the group of forty families who moved to Georgia. Governor Wright gave them 12,000 acres, on
which the Quakers built homes, gristmills, and a meetinghouse. Wrightsborough survived as a village until the 1920s,
but little remains physically of the settlement in modern McDuffie County. Self-guided tour of church and cemetery available. 706-597-
1000
Pine Top Farm
Pine Top Farm is a premier eventing site listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Visit the farm during it’s ongoing horse trials to see the excitement of Olde English-style equestrian events, scheduled on selected dates in February through April and in September, November and December; and an autumn roundup with wagon train, cattle drive and cookout. Facilities include sand dressage arenas, cross country courses that utilize 200 acres of open pasture land and permanent event stabling. The eighth generation family managed farm is historic,too: It sits on a British land grant dating to the 1770s.
1393 Augusta Rd.,
Thomson, GA 30824
706-595-3792
www.pinetopfarm.com