ELIZAFIELD PLANTATION, just below Hopeton, was on a tract of land whose romantic history reaches far back into the mists of the past. Some students of Indian lore say that it was the site of the ancient Creek village of Talaxe; and some historians believe that it was the location of the mission-presidio of Santo Domingo established in 1604. A large octagon-shaped tabby ruin still standing has been an object of interest for years. Pieces of nineteenth century machinery found among the ruins are proof that the building was used as a mill for threshing rice or grinding cane when the plantation of Elizafield was situated here two centuries after the founding of Santo Domingo. But although examination by several experts produced no evidence that it was of Spanish origin there are those who still believe that the mill was built upon the ruins of the mission of long ago.

Cleared in the early 1800's by Dr. Robert Grant, wealthy planter-physician from South Carolina, the land called Elizafield was destined, during more than half a century, to see his children, his grandchildren, and his great-grandchildren. A native of Leigh, Scotland, young Robert Grant, when scarcely out of his teens, had come to Carolina, where he became a prominent surgeon as well as a prosperous rice planter. He and his wife, the former Sarah Foxworth, lived at Waterfield Plantation near Sand Pitt, South Carolina, before they came to the Georgia coastline to make their home. Their extensive property along the Altamaha was divided into three parts-Grantly, Evelyn (Eve-lyn), and Elizafield. Grantly and Evelyn were merely vast acres of rice fields with their ditches, banks, and canals; and of cotton and cane fields, with their settlements for the hands. Elizafield, named for Dr. Grant's mother in Scotland, was the home plantation of the family. And upon the island of St. Simons the Grants had a summer place called Oatlands, where they spent the hot months when the "fever" lurked in the rice fields.