Married:     5 Sep 1732, London England

Children:    Anne, Edward, Grace, Nathaniel

    Nathaniel was born at the family seat in Burwash, the youngest of 8 children. He moved to London, where, in October 1717 he was registered as an apprentice to Giles Hayward, armourer and brazier. When he and Sarah married in 1722, he was listed as an upholsterer.  Their marriage was “clandestine”, meaning that it was not according to church regulations. When Nathaniel, Sarah, with family and servant, sailed for Savannah in 1734, their trip was paid for by Sir John Lade. The Lade and Polhill families were neighbors in Sussex, and had intermarried multiple times. John Lade had moved to London, where he became a very wealthy brewer, and could well afford to help the poor younger son of family friends.

    Nathaniel and Sarah were given a grant of 150 acres, out of the town of Savannah. Once settled in Georgia he wrote to the Trustees, requesting an in-town lot for his son Nathaniel:

Sir

From a true Sense of the great Benefit I have received from the Honorable. Trustees by the Influence of Sir John Lade, I humbly beg the Acceptance of my Thanks to the Board in General, and to your Honour in particular, and hope my former Timorousness may be overlooked. The Land that was Surveying about the 5'th instant (in which time Mr. Oglethorpe landed) I like very well, and as soon as so had a Road which leads to it can he mended (pursuant to Your Honour's Orders) I shall settle entirely upon it. So good a Country as I am now in, obliges me to a Desire of Settling my Posterity in it, and for which Reason I humbly beg of my Honorable. Patrons a Town Lot for my younger Son Nathaniel; But in no ways, without the Approbation and Intercession of my great & worthy Friend Sir John Lade, whom I have wrote to; And I would duly See to the Performance of all Conditions required from holding such a Lot. I have procured a New Servant since my Arrival, and hope to procure as many as my Circumstances will admit. I have at present, as I hope I shall retain, the entire good Will of every worthy Person among us, and in particular of those honest Gentlemen Mr. Vanderplank and Mr. Fallowfield, who Show in every of their Actions a due regard to our happy Establishment and thriving Colony. The Honorable. Mr. Oglethorpe has given due Satisfaction to every honest Freeholder among Us, by declaring in open Court Your Honour's Constitutions for our Common Preservation. And in particular the Prohibition of Strong Liquors engages my good Liking, in as much as it hinders a Plurality of Vices we had like to have fallen into.

And am I remain, respecting Your Honours, one of Youir most Obliged Sons;

                                                        Your Honour's Most Obedient Servant

                                                        Nathaniel Polhill

    Nathaniel was a Baptist (hence his dislike of Strong Liquors), probably the first Baptist in the state of Georgia. When the citizens of Savannah were trying to rid themselves of their unpopular minister, John Wesley¹, one of the charges made against him was that he had refused to preside at the funeral of Nathaniel because he was a dissenter. However, Nathaniel had made it clear during his lifetime that he did not want to be buried by an Episcopal priest.

    After his death, Sir John Lade apparently continued to send support to his widow Sarah, but she soon  remarried first a Mr. Retford, then John Goldwire, with who she left (after depositing her son Nathaniel at Bethesda Orphanage) for South Carolina. They later settled in Augusta GA, then moved back to Effingham County GA. Sarah is not mentioned in John’s will of 1774, so must have predeceased him.

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¹- Welsey, later the founder of Methodism, apparently made a nuisance of himself in many ways.