Born in England, William Horton came to Georgia in 1736 and died at Savannah in 1748. A major in Oglethorpe's Regiment and the first English resident of Jekyll Island, he built a two-story dwelling and large barn on the north end of Jekyll, cleared fields for crops that supplied the settlers at Frederica on neighboring St. Simons Island, and cut an east-west road from his tabby house to the beach that is still known as Horton Road. A trusted officer chosen by James Oglethorpe for important missions, Horton succeeded Oglethorpe as commander of the military forces of the Colony of Georgia when Oglethorpe finally returned to England in 1743. These are the remains of Horton's tabby house, which Poulain du Bignon, owner of Jekyll Island after the Revolutionary War, repaired and made his home, adding wooden wings as the du Bignon family grew.
