The Tomochichi Monument is really two inspiring stories. The first is the story of Tomochichi himself, who warmly welcomed English settlers to what is now Savannah in 1733.

Tomochichi left the Creek Indian nation he was born into over a disagreement about how to greet the European settlers. (He was in favor of working with them.) So he created The Yamacraws and they (about 200 in all) took up residence on the bluffs overlooking Savannah.

His relationship with the English settlers, especially General James Oglethorpe, was so meaningful that, upon his death in 1739, he was buried among his English friends in what is now Wright Square in Savannah. In keeping with the Native American tradition, a pyramid of stones was built on his gravesite.

Decades later, Tomochichi’s mound of stones was flattened to make way for a monument to William Washington Gordon, who pioneered Georgia’s first railroad. That’s where the second story begins.

Nellie Gordon, daughter-in-law of W.W. Gordon and first president of the NSCDA in Georgia, decided that a memorial to Tomochichci needed to be placed in Wright Square to replace what had been destroyed. It was the first monument to be erected by the Georgia Colonial Dames.

The Stone Mountain Co. which supplied the granite, wanted to donate the stone to the Dames, but they insisted on paying. So Stone Mountain charged a dollar, “payable on the Day of Judgment.” The Dames, who said “they would be entirely too busy on that day,” promptly paid.