1765

Ivanhoe Plantation was established in 1765 by a Crown Grant to Thomas Whitehead from King George III of England. The plantation is located 3 or 4 miles east of Waynesboro, Georgia and 15 miles along Brier Creek going down stream. The grant included the lands of Forest Hill, Spread Oak, Ivanhoe and Kenelworth, located along or near Brier Creek. Only Ivanhoe remains in the ownership of direct descendants of Thomas Whitehead. Since the death of Alden Rowland Dye in 2005, her grandchildren own the plantation keeping it in the family.

In November 1864, as the Civil War continued its unrelenting fury, the Union troops of General Judson Kilpatrick took over the Ivanhoe Plantation House family of Amos Grattan Whitehead, the great-grandfather of Alden Rowland Dye in the home. General Kilpatrick spared the home, located about one-mile west of this marker, as well as its Whitehead family occupants.

The Union Army ten thousand strong, burned out buildings, sheds, barn cotton bales as well as the cotton gin. General Joseph Wheelers leading the Confederate Calvary of four thousand six hundred horsemen, came upon the Union Calvary camped at Ivanhoe and routed them from their position.

Now occupying the position at Ivanhoe, General Wheeler's Calvary camped in the "Ole Field" and set up defenses on Brier Creek
to protect the road to Augusta, Georgia. The Confederates believed Sherman's Union Army would go to Augusta. Instead, as we know, Sherman marched to Savannah, Georgia. General Wheeler also set up defenses at Rock Creek, to stop the Union advance to Waynesboro Georgia his stay in the area, his troops defended Waynesboro and surrounding Burke County homes, farms and families General Wheeler also fought General Kilpatrick at Thomas Station on Highway 24 to prevent Union from arriving at Old Buckhead Church, the meeting place to join General Sherman on his march to Savannah.

During these 10 days in November 1864, when General Wheeler visited Ivanhoe, he related these events to the daughter of Amos Grattan Whitehead and the grandmother of Alden Rowland Dye, Catharine Barnes Whitehead. Catharine recorded these events in the diary she very carefully kept throughout the war and during the later years of her life. Her diaries have survived to present day.

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