Silk production failed here before the colony abandoned its original laws

Georgia began in 1733 with a plan to supply Britain with raw silk. The Trustees intended to break the reliance on imports from Italy and China by planting mulberry trees and raising silkworms across the new colony. Because silk must be unwound from cocoons and reeled by hand, a specialized building was constructed on this site in 1753 to process the harvest. Every pound of silk produced in the colony passed through this structure until the work ceased in 1771.

The building remained standing long after the silk trade ended. It served other purposes for nearly a century, including hosting a ball attended by President George Washington in 1791. The structure eventually burned down in 1859, leaving only the ground where it once stood.

The failure of the silk industry was one of three core rules that defined the founding of Georgia. The colony also attempted to ban slavery and prohibited the import of rum and brandy. King George II ordered the alcohol ban in 1735, claiming that strong spirits caused fatal illnesses and dangerous maladies among the settlers. This prohibition was the first of its kind in America, yet it proved impossible to enforce.

The ban on slavery fared no better. Although the practice was illegal at the colony's founding, at least 350 enslaved people were working in Georgia by 1748. Officials ignored the law until 1750, when the Trustees finally legalized the practice. Within a single generation, the colony abandoned its original prohibitions on alcohol and slavery, just as it had abandoned the attempt to build an economy on silk.

The prohibition of spirits was repealed because the law specifically forbade any strong waters by whatsoever name they were distinguished.